Jess Gillam: Rise
Decca Classics

With Rise, British saxophonist Jess Gillam amply meets if not exceeds the high expectations that have steadily grown in anticipation of her debut album. Throughout the recording, she shows herself to be a preternaturally poised player possessing remarkable technical facility on both soprano and alto. In the words of her mentor, saxophonist John Harle (with whom she's worked since turning sixteen), she brings integrity, authenticity, and authority to whatever she plays, regardless of genre. His involvement extends far beyond laudatory praise, by the way: he arranged many of the pieces on Rise and composed for her the folk-influenced “RANT!” performed on the release.

Hailing from Ulverston in the Lake District, Gillam's come a long way in a short time. Awareness of this charismatic star-in-the-making spread when she made it to the 2016 final in the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition and after she appeared at the 2018 ‘Last Night of the Proms.' She's performed with many an orchestra, including the BBC Philharmonic, Gothenburg Symphony, Royal Northern Sinfonia, and Tampere Philharmonic. For her debut, she selected pieces by composers who've most inspired her and for whom she feels an especial connection, from Kate Bush and David Bowie to John Williams and Dmitri Shostakovich. There are uptempo performances that feature her virtuosic side but also ballad settings that reveal emotional depth. Rise captures a player capable of dazzling you with technical brilliance one moment and stunning you with tenderness the next.

On the fourteen tracks (one a bonus), Gillam is joined by the BBC Concert Orchestra on six and accompanied by piano, guitar, double bass, and strings in various configurations elsewhere. That aforementioned virtuosity is on full display in the album's opener, Pedro Iturralde's “Pequeña Czarda,” which pairs Gillam's scene-stealing soprano with piano, double bass, and string quartet. The saxophonist dances nimbly through the piece, her somersaulting lines executed with apparent ease and leaving the listener suitably dazzled.

With the strings of the BBC Concert Orchestra amplifying her heartfelt utterances, Gillam invests Bush's “This Woman's Work” with a degree of warmth capable of melting the coldest heart, and with Harle on piano and double bass and the BBC Concert Orchestra as accompanists, she captures Nyman's signature melodicism in her rendering of the lilting “If” from The Diary of Anne Frank. Another highlight is a heartfelt version of Kurt Weill's “Je ne t'aime pas,” which Gillam was drawn to after hearing Ute Lemper deliver an enthralling reading.

In the cover of Bowie's haunting ballad “Where Are We Now?,” the saxophonist's artistry is fully evident in how expertly she navigates the song's dramatic transitions. Wisely resisting the urge to embellish, Gillam largely hews to the vocal melody, the exception being a climactic segment that sees her attack accelerate incrementally in accordance with the increase in intensity. Don't be surprised if a tear or two wells up when she hits that chorus, as powerful today as it was when Bowie first released it.

Her diversity is well-accounted for by the selections, with Gillam proving herself as adept at formal classical material (the stately “Adagio” from Alessandro Marcello's Oboe Concerto in D minor) as something more swing-inflected (the irrepressibly lively “Brazileira” from Darius Milhaud's Scaramouche). Her alto skills also are nicely documented in the playful “Valse Vanité” by American saxist Rudy Wiedoeft, who in the early twentieth century was regarded as a legendary figure by fellow saxophonists, and the endearing “Waltz 2” from Shostakovich's Suite for Variety Orchestra.

September 2019