'Choices' by William Carn
The COVID-19 lockdowns weren’t exactly hospitable to the collaborative spirit and communality inherent to jazz, but musicians found ways to work around the crisis.
Canadian trombonist William Carn and seven other players created pieces of their album, Choices, in each musician’s home and assembled it via online communication. As a genuine product of the 30 months it took to piece together, it’s more cohesive than one might expect it to be. Credit for the set’s wholeness can be given in good part to keyboardist-producer Todd “HiFlo” Pentney, who remotely put together its seven tracks.
The result is electronically augmented, sometimes ethereal fusion that aficionados of Weather Report and Return to Forever should be able to easily embrace. The album shifts direction from Carn’s more organic previous solo work and the albums he made with the Carn Davidson 9, the act he leads with his saxophonist wife, Tara Davison. It’s nonetheless a good fit for Carn as a bandleader, albeit a remote one. Here’s hoping it doesn’t take another global disease to coax at least such impressive results next timer he embarks on recording.
