Brooklyn Rider & Magos Herrera: Dreamers
Sony Music Masterworks

Collaborating is nothing new for Brooklyn Rider's Johnny Gandelsman, Colin Jacobsen (violins), Nicholas Cords (viola), and Michael Nicolas (cello). Since its 2008 debut Passport, the group has regularly embraced the creative opportunity to work with others, among them banjoist Béla Fleck, saxophonist Joshua Redman, fiddler Martin Hayes, and kamancheh player Kayhan Kalhor. Yet if there's one collaboration that would be appear to be the most natural precursor to Dreamers, which pairs the quartet with New York-based Mexican singer Magos Herrera, it's 2016's So Many Things, the wonderful set featuring Swedish mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter.

Though the material featured on So Many Things extended well outside the classical domain, von Otter is unquestionably a classical singer. Labeling Herrera, on the other hand, a jazz singer isn't entirely satisfactory, at least insofar as her singing on Dreamers is concerned. Like Brooklyn Rider, she's ranged widely in her projects, having followed a jazz album of original songs (Distancia, 2009) with a release devoted to Mexican composers (Mexico Azul, 2011) and a collaboration with flamenco producer and guitarist Javier Limón (Dawn, 2014). She also shares with the group an intrepid streak: Dreamers represents her first experience recording with strings, but, supported by producer Gandelsman and the other three, she fearlessly took the plunge.

There's much that recommends the recording. There's her magnificent delivery for starters, which is complemented by the quartet's emotional playing. Even better, the results never feel as if the singing's merely been grafted onto the strings; instead, the two are fully integrated into authentic performances with each equally integral to the presentation; she's no singer for hire either, as Dreamers includes three texts set to music composed by her. Adding to the recording, impassioned vocals by Miguel Poveda join Herrera's in one song (“La Aurora de Nueva York”) as does bass playing by Edward Perez (“Tu y Yo”), while percussionists Gonzalo Grau and Mathias Kunzli appear on many. Their contributions aren't incidental to Dreamers, by the way; the rhythmic charge they bring to the material makes a huge difference. The thirteen songs extend from romantic balladry to jubilant celebrations, with the smoky languour of her voice ably matched by the vocal-like sensuality of the quartet. Brooklyn Rider digs into the material as if born to do so, and the vocal-strings combination is in this case magical.

With Grau's percussion adding momentum and the strings sawing insistently, the opening “Niña” swings infectiously, its allure heightened by Herrera's haunting voice, which exudes sensuality and passion in equal measure. Confidently navigating the emotional arc of the song, her vocal lines unfurl with consummate grace, their rise and fall matched by the group's playing. The Argentine folk song “Balderrama” encompasses a world of emotion in five minutes, from defiance to longing, which Jacobsen's arrangement enhances in how empathetically the strings intensify the emotional expression. While lyrically the song concerns a peña, a restaurant and bar-styled meeting-place for musicians and poets in the Argentinean province Salta, the emotional terrain transcends any singular geographic locale. Written by her with lyrics by Octavio Paz, the joyous title track (sung in English) sees Herrera at her most emphatic, her jazzy delivery buoyed by the hypnotic sway of the strings and the charge of Grau and Kunzli's percussion; in similar manner, Kunzli intensifies the breezy, lighthearted swing of “Eu Vim Da Bahía.” When not lifting the recording with such carefree fare, Herrera amplifies her sensitive side in heartfelt renderings of “Coração Vagabundo” and “La Llorona.”

One can enjoy the recording as a collection of songs beautifully performed, but a key concept lends it extra resonance, specifically the fact that many of the poets and songwriters on the release are from places that have witnessed state violence. In featuring music and lyrics by Caetano Veloso, João Gilberto, Gilberto Gil, Carlos Aguirre, and Federico García Lorca, among others, the songs don't exude resignation but instead hope and the belief that horrible circumstances don't destroy the dream of a better future. It's a message that's especially close to Herrera's heart, not only because she's a Mexican female artist but because she's a spokesperson for the United Nations campaign 'Unite to End Violence Against Women'. Still, even if one were unaware of such thematic aspects, Dreamers would still resonate powerfully when its performances are so affecting. A single listen, for example, to the stunning marriage of vocals and strings in Álvaro Carrillo's “Luz de Luna” is all the proof one needs.

November 2018