With Love and Sadness, available on Sunnyside Records on March 18, 2022, was designed, recorded, mixed, and mastered as an all-analog experience (although it is also available on CD and as a high-resolution digital download for listeners who prefer those formats). The music was composed as a single work rather than as individual “tunes,” and the narrative arc is structured as a continuous whole with subplots shaped around and within the two sides of the LP. The result is as remarkable and rare as a fogbow, or a lenticular cloud; it is in accordance with Slocum’s overall aesthetic and his penchant for conveying beauty to the world, and a culmination of an immense talent (as a drummer and composer) and massive erudition. As Thomas Conrad wrote in JazzTimes Magazine (on Slocum’s Black Elk’s Dream), “A meticulous, deeply realized work, remarkable not only for its coherence as a single arc but also for its evolving, authentic poignancy...This dreamlike, lyrical, fervent, floating music is capable of erupting in joy or pain.”
Matt Slocum is a conjurer of emotions; lament, longing, contemplation, sadness, but also joy, hope and inspiration. After five acclaimed recordings of predominantly original music, “Slocum has emerged as one of the great young jazz drummers in New York City, and therefore all of jazz,” says The Minneapolis Star Tribune. “Slocum clearly places empathy and ensemble eloquence over solo fireworks, with sublime results.” While Slocum’s music carries much emotion and meaning, it also pulls from the listener’s own thoughts and feelings. As Ken Micallef reported in DownBeat Magazine, “like Wayne Shorter’s classic Blue Note albums, Black Elk’s Dream seems to ask questions, leaving the answers open to individual interpretation.” That is one of the gifts great artists bestow on us – to stimulate the willing into a greater awareness and inspired musing.
Photo: Chris Drukker
The structure of With Love and Sadness emerged during a trip to the Maine wilderness where Slocum reflected on the seemingly increasing depths of systemic racism in America and the possibilities for change. In his liner notes for the recording, Slocum writes, “As a result of pandemic-related closures, it was the first time my wife and I had traveled in many months. It felt like a new perspective, at least early in the journey. The shape of this composition outlines the evolution of my reflections throughout the course of that trip. The primary theme is introduced in the prelude and developed throughout the suite. Although the work journeys from B minor in the opening two movements to eventually reach D major in the final movement, most of the piece follows a sonic trajectory moving away from optimism, but clinging to a kind of blind hope and beauty (real or imagined) in our collective potential for change. The final movement, a rearrangement and development of the main theme, is inspired by Pat Metheny’s “Is This America?” It’s my understanding that Mr. Metheny composed that song as a musical response to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Fifteen years later, I’m not sure that we’ve made a great deal of progress as a society.”
With Love and Sadness features Grammy-nominated pianist Taylor Eigsti, an important voice in the world of creative music and a musician whose “range of expression is not limited by illusory stylistic boundaries,” says Slocum; first-call bassist Larry Grenadier, who also appears on Slocum’s previous album, Sanctuary (Grenadier is a modern-day giant known for his 25-year association with the Brad Mehldau Trio, as well as consequential engagements with Pat Metheny, Paul Motian, Charles Lloyd, Joshua Redman, and Mark Turner); and saxophonist Walter Smith III, a modern master who is equally at home in a variety of musical settings – from performing with the Roy Haynes Quartet to co-leading an ensemble with Matthew Stevens and Joel Ross. Slocum writes, “There are shapes in Walter’s playing that I don’t hear anywhere else, and his dynamic range and depth of interaction with the rhythm section fill his music with mood, personality, and possibility.” Credit must also be given to the legendary recording and mixing engineer, James Farber, who, on an all-analog project such as this, is as much a part of the ensemble as the musicians. “Like great jazz musicians, James always brings his own identifiable sound to each project. He creates an inviting and inspiring sonic environment that allows the musical connection, as well as the balance within and between the instruments, to happen naturally in the recording studio,” states Slocum.
1. Prelude
2. First Light
3. An Evolving Alliance
4. End of The Season
5. Precipice
6. An Abandoned Illusion
7. America Revisited
Matt Slocum - drums
Taylor Eigsti - piano & Fender Rhodes
Walter Smith III - tenor sax
Larry Grenadier - bass
