The music created on Old Adam on Turtle Island by four skillful
musicians – John Dikeman on tenor sax, Marta Warelis on piano, Aaron
Lumley on bass, and Sun-Mi Hong on drums – offers plenty of heat
interspersed with abstractions and quiet solemn passages. According
to Dikeman, the music is, at its heart, a reflection of the horrible
legacy of colonization, and how religion can lead to transcendence
or tyranny (or perhaps both at the same time?).
Recorded in November 2022 at Amsterdam’s Splendor (an art space
which hosts meetings, musical events, and offers artists a workspace
and musical laboratory – it recently announced a “Jazzclub” as part
of its offerings), Old Adam on Turtle Island covers seven Dikeman
compositions over two tracks – four in the first set (“The Rev –
Descent – Choral – Let’s Try”) and three in the second (“Groove –
Choral – Manifest”). Each track is a medley of free form
development across a loose architecture, and in these compositions,
the musicians generate their own intense and technically demanding
variations and embellishments, creating swirling atmospheric
whirlwinds and tunnels of sound.
While the two cuts cover a range of human feeling and thought
processes, the second has slightly more dramatic and emotional heft,
with its “camel crossing desert” opening and its spiritual and
sorrowful winddown. However, each track features incredible passages
that allow the musicians to create meaningful contributions.
Dikeman’s sax voicings burn upward and outward – his wails, legato
notes, and slurry runs generate intense arcs and dark moods. At the
end of track 2, listen to how he responds to Lumley’s lines, like a
kite tethered yet free to whip about in the high wind and rain,
loose and unconstrained. Warelis provides pronounced Cecil
Taylor-like rambles and clusters of dissonance – at times she even
whisks her fingers up and down the inside of the piano. Lumley
supplies a precise combination of plucking and bowing; his motifs
vacillate between scratchy effects and notes that traverse odd yet
fascinating intervals. Hong adds full trap set sonic riptides as
well as timely colorful cymbal splashes.
When listening to the dense sonorities and cerebral soundscapes of
Old Adam on Turtle Island, it may be helpful to remember that murky
and somber anguish will always be a part of reconciling sinister
human nature (Old Adam) and its effect on “Turtle Island,” the
indigenous expression for the Earth.
