Album Review: David Bixler The Langston Hughes Project, Vol. 1

 

David Bixler The Langston Hughes Project, Vol. 1 (Tiger Turn, 2023)

-Originally published in The NYC Jazz Record-

Of Langston Hughes, David Bixler stated that his poetry addresses the struggle and protest of all: “We live in a corrupt and unjust world on which he shines a light with sardonic insight.”

The great writer, activist, socialist, a Harlem Renaissance founder and statesman in his own right remains endlessly influential to the good fight which is never offered repose. As an African American intellectual in a period of brutal repression, Hughes, a young gay man in New York by way of Joplin Missouri, had an inborn awareness of the politics about him. Of this, his art spoke volumes.

Bixler, the alto saxophonist/composer, began this project in 2016 as the highest office of our nation braced itself for new realms of injustice and corruption. The unique vision grown from four Hughes poems threaded together by electronics artist Elianie Lillios’ atmospheric captures, produces a mosaic of the music as both an improvised and composed artform. The ghost of progressive jazz is evident through masterful voicings, arrangements, and solo statements of the central nonet: Bixler, Mike Rodriguez (trumpet), John Cowherd (piano), Greg August (bass), Fabio Rojas (percussion), Judith Ingolfsson (violin), Heather Martin Bixler (violin), Arthur Dibble (viola), Rubin Kodheli (cello). Strains of Gil Evans are found within, but not more so than those of Sun Ra or Max Roach’s Double Quartet. But the naked cry of Ornette’s alto, too, is undeniable, and that was never far from Hughes’ words of anguish or celebration.

At nearly 41minutes, epic evokes Hughes’ lifetime, the pride and glory he reveled in, as well as the racist, red-baiting persecution by a right-wing hit squad of politicians attempting to silence him. Opening with “Justice”, Fabio Rojas’ flowing, aerial dance over drumkit sets the tone for the urgency as well as the pensive moments to come. The 1932 poem was nothing if not explicit.

That Justice is a blind goddess
Is a thing to which we black are wise:
Her bandage hides two festering sores
That once perhaps were eyes.

“Liars” opens with an intriguing string quartet tango theme; the juxtaposition of the jazz quintet, in and out, flows seamlessly. Listen for the fluid bass solo in front of the strings. One assumes that Bixler heard the baritone of Hughes while composing.

It is we who are liars:
The Pretenders-to-be who are not
And the Pretenders-not-to-be who are.
It is we who use words
As screens for thoughts
And weave dark garments
To cover the naked body
Of the too white Truth.
It is we with the civilized souls
Who are liars.

“End”, as heard here and within the original poem, signifies a brokenness, finality, but in the Hughes tradition, nothing is final:

There are

No clocks on the wall,

No shadows that move

From dawn to dusk

Across the floor

 

There is neither light

Nor dark

Outside the door

 

There is no door!

 

However, Bixler chose to add one last movement, “Moan”, which brings the listener to Blue Note-like hard bop, deftly, perseveringly swinging in dual horn lines built on vernacular spiritual poetry of 1927:

Sho, there must be peace,
Ma Jesus,
Somewhere in yo' sky.

If there’s a negative aspect in this spectacular offering, it’s the lack of inclusion of the poems within the packaging. Shamefully, not every reader owns a copy of Hughes Selected Poems!

CREDITS:

1. Justice
2. Liars
3. End
4. Moan

David Bixler alto saxophone and composer

Mike Rodriguez trumpet

Jon Cowherd piano

Gregg August bass

Fabio Rojas percussion

Judith Ingolfsson violin

Heather Martin Bixler violin

Arthur Dibble viola

Rubin Kodheli cello

Elainie Lillios electroacoustics