Once again David Cieri translates life into music. His recent release - Notes From The Underscore show his work on a variety of documentaries with Florentine Films. His previous work with Yusef Komunyakaa and Mike Brown captures the intersection of poetry and music just as if you were wandering by a downtown club and heard it live. And now, David returns with the soundtrack to the new documentary - The Mayo Clinic: Unity Of Forces. Here David composes for the unique film, with the great Bill Frisell on guitar. He describes the documentary in this way:
‘Talk surrounding our current health care crisis needs to step away from the divisive, un-nuanced, and essentially useless binary modes of I’m right and you’re wrong. The Mayo Clinic model is actively shifting this conversation away from political gridlock and into the realms of discovery and earned possibility.
The music is striving to represent this ideal - historically and into the future. This is perhaps an uncommon story because it offers real hope and prescription rather than description of our ills, which too often get inordinate attention. My intent was to bake the church pew and Wagner and Americana into the compositions; it’s the most moral music I’ve made to date. The sessions were challenging; it’s one thing to give the darkness due weight in music but it was another challenge altogether to make very positive gestures have real and earned gravity too. And the musicians!
Listening back to Bill and Putnam dialoguing on a few of these cuts is to feel immense love and joy in being here to witness, to watch, to pry, to learn, to become something better than we have imagined.
Bill Frisell – guitars
Putnam Murdock – guitars
Dan Brantigan – flugel horn and trumpet
Jay Frederick – drums and percussion
David Cieri – piano
Rubin Kodheli – cello
Yoko Waynen – violin
Mike Brown – bass
Engineer – Bryan Pugh
All music composed by David Cieri except -
I’ll Twine Mid the Ringlets - Maud Irving and Joseph Philbrick Webster
Wagoner’s Lad – Traditional British Broadside Ballad
Shenandoah – Traditional American Folk Song
Give to the Wind Thy Fears – Paul Gerhardt
Concerto for Two Mandolins – Antonio Vivaldi
Hard Times – Stephen Foster
Slane – Irish Traditional Folk Song
Be Thou My Vision – 8 th century Irish Traditional Folk Song
All music produced by Erik Ewers and David Cieri
1. Unity of Forces 02:21
2. I’ll Twine Mid the Ringlets 02:33
3. Yoko's World/Wagoner's Lad 02:37
4. Shenandoah 01:35
5. Will 02:08
6. Sisters 02:25
7. Give to the Wind Thy Fears 01:53
8. Concerto for Two Mandolins 01:32
9. Charlie 02:36
10. Sister Alfred and the Handshake 02:42
11. April is the Cruelest Month - little variations on Rite of Spring 01:10
12. Hard Times 01:47
13. Give to the Wind Thy Fears (Alt Take) 03:26
14. Slane 03:11
15. Sister Generose In the House 01:20
16. Be Thou My Vision 02:12
17. Henry Plummer's Dream 02:13
18. Unity of Forces in Motion 02:33
