VOLANT
Matthew Ottignon
Earshift Music
New Zealand-born, Sydney-based saxophonist Matthew Ottignon has been fronting his long-running project Mister Ott since 2012, mashing jazz with Afro-funk, electro and hypnotic dance-floor grooves. But there was nothing about Mister Ott’s music that quite prepared me for Volant. To
my ears, it feels like a giant step up. Working with a new acoustic quartet – pianist Lauren Tsamouras, bassist Hannah James and drummer Holly Connor – Ottignon has dug deep, burrowing into a brand of spiritual jazz whose roots lie in the music of John and Alice Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders.
There is something of their questing spirit that shepherds Volant, unmistakably present in its raw, visceral sound, right from the get-go. Opener “Moon Rock” foregrounds Ottignon’s intense, harrowing sax, flaring over rumbling keys. “Naturis” is built on a series of subtle, groove-inflected phrases, Ottignon’s sax whispery, probing, questioning. “The Third Bardo” finds Ottignon mining a deep well of lyricism, recalling Pharoah Sanders’s post-Coltrane modal excursions. “Singing Bowls” features gentle bells and chimes, with Ottignon’s sax conjuring eastern tonalities. “Bilpin” hinges on a repetitive bass vamp, over which Ottignon expels a series of exploratory utterances, plumbing the deep register of his baritone saxophone. Throughout, Tsamouras’s piano, full of chromatic hues, is sparse but effective; as are James’s supple basslines and Connor’s finely-etched, minimalist percussion.
The recent re-envisioning of Coltrane’s spiritual jazz begs the question: is there something about this music, flush with heightened beauty and transcendence, that speaks tellingly to our times? On the strength of Volant, one senses a resounding yes.
4 1/2 stars
Des Cowley