Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Nicholas Urie: My Garden

Nicholas Urie: My Garden

By Matt Marshall
March 27, 2011
View read count

With My Garden, an album of songs for large ensemble with poetry by Charles Bukowski, composer/conductor

Nicholas Urie

composer / conductor
b.1985

" data-original-title="" title="">Nicholas Urie continues his exploration into modern-day isolation and disconnect begun on 2009's Excerpts From an Online Dating Service (Red Piano Records). On Excerpts, Urie invited the listener to hear ("imagine" might be more fitting) a certain poetry in the missives he lifted from actual online dating sites. Fit into Urie's jumping or eerily longing scores and sung with complete conviction by

Christine Correa

vocals

" data-original-title="" title="">Christine Correa, the dating posts do offer unexpected jolts of crude lyricism—the supplicant's plea rushing out into a cyberspace of desperately comic emptiness.

It's hardly surprising, then, that Urie would turn to Bukowski—the skid-row poet of fated desperation, failure and trying—for his follow-up record. Culled mostly from collections published after Bukowski's death, the songs here trace a similar, yet more expertly crafted path than that heard on Excerpts. Inherent in that project was the technology that enabled it—a thrillingly advanced social network that too often pushes a user toward isolation. And that sense of imprisoning technology carries over into My Garden, which opens with "Winter: 44th Year," a suicide note in the making, intoned in overlapping cycles by Urie's father, Walter, pianist

Frank Carlberg

composer / conductor

" data-original-title="" title="">Frank Carlberg and bassist John Hébert. The readings are part of the music, not out front, and are almost swallowed by the bass-heavy strains. The man is trying to reach the one woman who can help him—who can pull him back from the edge—but his message is directed into the dead end of a phone service.

Correa handles the singing from here on out. As on Excerpts, her frank, straightforward manner lends a detachment to the poems, but induces fewer laughs here; instead, opening disturbing, stretching gaps of dread. While the voice and visage of Bukowski will, no doubt, float before many a listener, Correa sings few lines that seem necessarily a man's (a common occurrence on Excerpts that supplied a good portion of that album's quirky humor). Yet Carlberg, tenor saxophonist Kenny Pexton, trumpeter

John Carlson

trumpet

" data-original-title="" title="">John Carlson and others are again afforded ample solo space, and commune wonderfully, forlornly, desperately with Correa's singing and Bukowski's poetry. "Round and Round" offers especially poignant contrapuntal statements from Carlberg, on an inspired, but eerily aseptic Rhodes, followed later by Pexton on the earthier, more human tenor sax; "You have my soul and I have your money," Correa repeatedly implores, meanwhile.

The swirling, mad, repetitious incantations of anxiety and longing that cut across the record may seem a bit much to endure. But Urie and his band also supply a good deal of punch and funk, most notably on "Round and Round," "Lioness" and "Lean," that keep matters moving. And while the narrative ends by dragging a mad Ezra Pound through the streets of Italy in a crate, the poet (Bukowski too?) realizing that all he has written is ultimately "worth nothing," Urie attacks this modern, losing arc with increased surety and insight. It's an attack helped by Bukowski's poetry, to be sure. But Urie succeeds wonderfully in transferring the grime of skid row to the sheen of the concert hall without sacrificing any of the poet's bite and desperate humanity.

Learn more about our star rating system

Track Listing

Winter: My 44th Year; Round and Round; My Garden; For Crying Out Loud; Lioness; Slaughterhouse; Lean; Finality.

Personnel

Nicholas Urie

composer / conductor

Nicholas Urie: conductor; Christine Correa: voice; Frank Carlberg: piano, Rhodes piano; John H��bert: bass; Michael Sarin: drums; Jeremy Udden: soprano saxophone; Douglas Yates: alto saxophone, clarinet; Kenny Pexton: tenor saxopghone; Brian Landrus: bass clarinet; Alan Ferber: trombone; Max Seigel: bass trombone.

Album information

Title: My Garden | Year Released: 2011 | Record Label: Red Piano Records

PREVIOUS / NEXT

Dashiki
< Previous

Denise Donatelli: Songbird With A G...
Next >

Support All About Jazz

All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who make it. Our enduring commitment has made "AAJ" one of the most culturally important websites of its kind, read by hundreds of thousands of fans, musicians and industry figures every month.

Go Ad Free!

To maintain our platform while developing new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity, we need your help. You can become a sustaining member for as little as $20 and in return, we'll immediately hide those pesky ads plus provide access to future articles for a full year. This winning combination vastly improves your AAJ experience and allow us to vigorously build on the pioneering work we first started in 1995. So enjoy an ad-free AAJ experience and help us remain a positive beacon for jazz by making a donation today.