Already this year Mary Halvorson has starred alongside Sylvie Courvoisier for the spellbinding and spine tingling Bone Bells where she trifled whimsically with flamenco strums and dove headlong into grungy riffs round and about her familiar circuitous matter while Courvoisier on her piano rose steeply or dashed off runaway keys. Widely experimental, meditative and even moving amid all of the wiry dramatics, Bone Bells contains one of the tracks of the year in ‘Esmeralda’ and variously figures everything from Porgy and Bess to widescreen Americana to vivid musical realisations of Monty Python sketches while sounding distinctly and inimitably like Courvoisier and Halvorson.
She then supported the trumpeter Adam O’Farrill who explored the artistic currents of the thirties at the head of his own octet on For These Streets and took the right channel opposite Liberty Ellman on another rollicking session in the form of Clone Row by the percussionist Ches Smith. Now the guitarist returns to the home comforts of her Amaryllis sextet more than a year on from Cloudward which was one of 2024’s most acclaimed records. And while that album carried a sense of billowing uplift – even as the band offered their own take on blues jukes, post-bop and Latinate rhythms while being joined for one piece by the bristling violin effects and glissando arcs of Laurie Anderson – for this record Halvorson and her inspired crew opt for something still levitating but more propulsive and apparitional.
The Amaryllis sextet is made up of Halvorson on guitar plus the trumpeter O’Farrill and trombonist Jacob Garchik, with Patricia Brennan on vibes, Nick Dunston on bass and Tomas Fujiwara on drums together comprising an endlessly mutable rhythm section all of whom are equally capable of melodicising or taking the lead. To some extent this sextet is coming of age together as while Halvorson honed her talents under Anthony Braxton and alongside early collaborative partners like Jessica Pavone and Weasel Walter before commencing an animated eight-album arc with Thumbscrew, several of the group members are now flourishing as bandleaders with Colla Voce by Dunston and Breaking Stretch by Brennan some of the past year’s most exciting new jazz albums as they sit happily alongside trenchant, gently explorative and at times spare works by Fujiwara, O’Farrill and Garchik.
The likes of Courvoisier, Anna Webber, Stephan Crump and Tomeka Reid remain firmly in Halvorson’s orbit but for About Ghosts the Amaryllis sextet is joined for roughly half the tracks by the alto saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins fresh off a series of albums for Blue Note Records and the tenorman Brian Settles who is a member of the Chad Taylor Trio and Luke Stewart Silt Trio, most recently appearing as part of an expanded Silt Remembrance Ensemble on Stewart’s springtime album The Order.
The full octet with Wilkins and Settles starts to life on the album opener ‘Full of Neon’ with smears and bleating accents from the woodwinds and brass while Brennan’s vibes bob at their low end and Fujiwara’s drums beat out a rhythm. The four-strong horn section plays a repeating motif, surging forward in spurts as though a bugle call had been subject to a cut-up technique, while the drums get more of a groove going with support from the vibes.
In the meantime Nick Dunston’s bass shunts into the rest of the ensemble like a bumper car on a piece which offers scant differentiation between foreground and background as Halvorson lays out another one of her signature helter-skelter compositions. On half of the tracks from About Ghosts the bandleader supplements her guitar with the more wafting tones of a Critter & Guitari Pocket Piano which was gifted to her by a childhood friend, who continued sending over synth patches which reminded him of her singular instrument though where About Ghosts does veer towards the spectral it is largely as a result of these woozy and whispering keys.
The pocket piano parts were overdubbed by Halvorson after the recording dates last June while ‘Full of Neon’ deftly spotlights leading saxophone lines from Wilkins and Settles, with the bandleader Halvorson duetting with Wilkins back in January of 2024 as part of a monthlong residency at the Greenwich Village experimental venue The Stone. When she began to conceive About Ghosts and its dense harmonies – describing too her penchant for throwing a wrench into the working processes of her ensemble, borne of a desire to take risks without ever standing still – it was the alto of Wilkins which resounded in her ears.
Those twin horns stick around for ‘Carved From’ contributing to an almost dirge-like opening until Brennan’s vibes hop in. Halvorson’s guitar saunters in short circuits, almost performing an about-face before it pings off in another direction and the rhythm section begins to move broadly in unison with accents from the vibes until Settles bounds into a tenor saxophone solo from about the halfway mark.
It’s a breathless composition and the tenor soon starts winding and tangling itself into knots, with a few high-pitched squawks before it falls back in with the ensemble’s ample flow. While she pulls readily from the avant-garde and improvisational jazz and evinces a contemporary approach to the form with its focus on the interplay of the ensemble, Halvorson also offers little nugget-like tributes to the history of the music from the marching bands of New Orleans and even earlier fife and drum corps through Dixieland and here on ‘Carved From’ the big band era. She also staggers in the direction of alternative and experimental rock, with John Dieterich the guitarist of the rambunctious long-running band Deerhoof proving a fitting producer for her escapades on About Ghosts. Yet the closing moments of ‘Carved From’ cede solely to her pocket piano, as if pulling on a thread as a whirling organ melody opens the door onto a deeper mystery.
‘Eventidal’ pares everything down as Fujiwara’s drum rolls tail off and Halvorson pulls some soft, warbling harmonics from her instrument. Vibes and Fujiwara’s brushes and cymbals add a frisson of magic and we begin to dive down into the composition as Dunston bows steeply across his bass without quite settling into a drone.
After a couple of minutes O’Farrill and Garchik come in on the trumpet and trombone, adding a burnished quality as well as certain dolorousness to the melody which evokes the modes and manners of the early sixties. A play on the end of the day, ‘Eventidal’ with its slower tempo sounds like a steady exhale. Brennan glisses to the top of her metal bars and then takes the lead as the ensemble tumbles back down, with just O’Farrill and Garchik staying the course who add a kind of grandeur to the song’s closing moments.
‘Absinthian’ bounds out of the blocks as Fujiwara fills up the metre with irregular rhythms while Halvorson splays and the bass traces her step. Wilkins taking a higher and brighter tone on his alto develops the theme and peals from his saxophone are supported by the vibes as the band surges, halts and goes again, each piece on About Ghosts containing its own imperturbable momentum. Then on the title cut – joined once more by Wilkins and Settles to make for a full octet – the ensemble slip into a slinkier frame of mind on a more gilded and urbane piece which is offset by Halvorson’s flamenco-like wriggles. Wiry and playing in a picado style as the composition reaches its middle, her guitar shoots out little imps and sprites of a piece with the album’s colourful cover art before the horns help pull down a velvety curtain.
About Ghosts is full of earworms and even after repeat listens it feels like there’s lots to unpack. Halvorson has described ‘Amaranthine’ as the first piece she wrote for the record and the one which she personally considers to be most representative of the band’s sound.
Perhaps it’s no coincidence then that the brass plays such a prominent roll on ‘Amaranthine’ as we approach the climax of what is a brass-forward album. First though Fujiwara bangs out a martial beat with Dunston on the bass throbbing in accompaniment. O’Farrill and Garchik arrive to add notes of emphasis while Brennan and Halvorson ping and chime at the crest of the ensemble with a brief groove, carried by the drums and horns, soon shifting off again as we cede to guitar pulls and vibes while the trumpet and trombone momentarily content themselves with supporting fanfares.
Then Adam O’Farrill takes a fine solo, sage and august, eventually giving way to Jacob Garchik as the ensemble lays down a comfortable, rolling and undulating bed. Finally as the piece begins to break down and the rhythms become more choppy, as though the ensemble was preparing to peter out, all together they pull for one last flurry which is probably the sweetest moment on the record, fragrant and unfurling while still proving redolent of the fairground.
‘Polyhedral’ is a bracer from the trilling of the brass to Fujiwara’s rapid stick work and Brennan’s lively vibes which stay right in the middle of the mix. Through tremolos and slides Halvorson makes her guitar play spooky. Then in the opening moments to ‘Endmost’, the album’s concluding piece, Brennan’s lulling vibraphone and Dunston’s rubbery bass are separated widely while for good measure Fujiwara throws in a few loose sticks. Back with a full octet, the full sweep of the horns introduces an air of celebration or even triumphalism, mock grandiose yet the ensemble maintains an ebullient air as they build steadily towards a swirling and still pregnant climax.
