Webber/Morris Big Band: Unseparate
Out Of Your Head Records
While other big band leaders carry on the grand traditions established by revered pioneers, Anna Webber and Angela Morris are giving their charges a four-part suite set in … just intonation? Yes, they do, and the gesture is merely one example of the totally original and audacious mindset the two bring to their shared venture. Operating out of NYC (the leaders are Canadian expats comfortably ensconced in the New York area), the Webber/Morris Big Band first made waves five-and-a-half years ago with the release of its debut Both Are True, and Unseparate builds on it with an even more daring mosaic. Credited as composers and conductors and with tenor saxophone and flute, Webber and Morris have been co-leading this first-rank collective of New York jazz artistry since 2015 and have clearly developed the ideal outlet for their creative energies. Their sophisticated, contrapuntally rich charts challenge the ensemble's members by augmenting the music's jazz core with rock, classical, and whatever else they're interested in. This is music of inordinate intelligence and imagination, and the players respond to it with enthusiasm.
The material, laid down across two August 2024 days at Brooklyn's Bunker Studio, is harmonically and stylistically adventurous. Joining the two are four extra woodwinds players, four trumpeters, four trombonists, a vibraphonist, guitarist, pianist, bassist, and drummer. Scan the personnel list and familiar names jump out, among them Marta Sánchez (piano), Yuhan Su (vibraphone), Lisa Parrott (baritone sax, bass clarinet)and Dustin Carlson (guitar), and ably grounding the band are bassist Adam Hopkins and drummer Jeff Davis. Such resources enable the leaders a vast array of tonal colours and timbres with which to work. The potential for chaos is ever-present when so many voices are involved, but Webber, Morris, and producer Nathaniel Morgan do a good job of holding things together. One concession to convention is the listing of soloists on each track, though doing so is helpful when so many players are involved.
Webber's Just Intonation Etudes for Big Band introduces the release with a four-part statement lasting twenty-five minutes. “Unseparate 1” initiates the work with a ceremonial overture (three more “Unseparate” treatments are scattered across the album) built from multi-layered, long-held chords, after which the high-energy “Pulse” sets a more generally representative tone for the album. Animated by a jittery, quasi-funk pulse and piano chords, the music blazes, especially when trumpeters Ryan Easter and Nolan Tsang engage in furious to-and-fro, before settling into a honking groove peppered by horns, woodwinds, and a vibes solo. The initially minimalistic third part, “Timbre,” slows the pace for contemplative exchanges between the saxophone and brass sections. An explorative tenor solo from Morris reminds us she and Webber are featured players too, not just composers and conductors. The momentum gradually picks up until the music's racing at full throttle before reverting to the lurching pace with which the part began. “Metaphor” concludes the work with trombonist Tim Vaughn memorably soloing against a stately, dirge-styled backdrop that incrementally expands into a cacophonous collective free-for-all and then triumphant resolution.
If the pieces that follow aren't quite as compelling as the opening suite, they're certainly credible complements. Morris's writing for “Mist/Missed” shows how seamlessly her sensibility aligns with Webber's when the tapestry is intricately woven and evokes modern classical as much as jazz. Again the material is conceived as both formal composition and expressive outlet for soloists, in this case trumpeter Kenny Warren and trombonist Zekkereya El-magharbel. Morris's “Microchimera” is also a standout, its ten-minute-plus running time allowing for all manner of twists and turns. Raucous collective flurries transition into both eruptive rhythm section flourishes and restrained explorative passages as the work makes its methodical way, trumpeter Jake Henry and a flute-wielding Webber the soloists. Charlotte Greve's alto sax turn on Webber's “Unseparate 3” proves particularly memorable when the arrangement features only her, Hopkins, and Davis. Morris's “Unseparate 4,” by comparison, opts for a wholly different treatment in featuring squalling repartee between Webber on tenor sax and Baker on trombone. Unseparate moves into its final laps with two long-form pieces, Morris's “Habitual” and Webber's lurching “Spur 7: Metamorphosis.”
Unseparate is available in CD, digital, and vinyl formats, and it's the latter that might be the one best suited to the project. At seventy minutes, there's a lot to digest, especially when the music's as dense and challenging as it is; having the eleven tracks spread across two LPs thus allows the listener to pause between sides and absorb and reflect on what's been heard. When listened to in a CD format without interruption, on the other hand, the recording starts to feel long, and the idea of a fifty or sixty-minute version begins to seem like a preferred alternative (in such a scenario, one of the two ten-minutes pieces that closes the album might be removed). Said difference in impact between formats doesn't, however, undercut the boldness of the project nor the admirable achievement the album signifies.October 2025