Steve Dawson & Funeral Bonsai Wedding – Last Flight Out
Kernel Records – 8 May 2020
Touchstones. Talismans. Certain pieces of music have the ability to transport you to a different dimension. More than mere music, they become a part of your DNA. You can never imagine a moment when they were not a part of your life. Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks, John Martyn’s Solid Air and now Steve Dawson & Funeral Bonsai Wedding’s Last Flight Out. Merging the landscape between folk and jazz, it approaches the sublime with subtlety and grace.
Uncharacteristically for albums made these days, Last Flight Out was captured live in a single five-hour recording session. And just to make the session even trickier, the strings of the Quartet Parapluie were also part of that process. What emerges over the course of thirty minutes is an illustration of how great players can inspire and invest moments with meaning.
The fragile strings cast a spell at the beginning of Last Flight Out. Dawson sings an impassioned yet restrained cry, “last flight out grounded where you stand. No benefiting from the doubt, no clinging to dry land.” The vibes centre the listeners giving us something to cling to while the lyric suggests just the opposite.
Combining the country-soul background of Dawson with the free-jazz improvisation background of vibraphonist Jason Adasiewicz, bassist Jason Roebke and the drums of Charles Rumback, seems like a mission destined to failure. Yet the strings of Melissa Bach, Vannia Phillips, Inger Carle, and Andra Kulans may indeed be the glue binding these disparate elements together. Greater than the sum of their parts, their alliance weaves a spell that never threatens to break.
The descending string phrase at the heart of However Long It Takes establishes a base for Dawson’s loving reverie. A song about transformation without artifice Dawson established the change, “we are the broken frame, we are the constant storm. However long it takes to give back the wasted breath, ‘cause there is no time for that. I will be filled with love.”
Instead of threatening to come apart at the seams, Last Flight Out has a quiet strength at its core. There is no witchcraft or sorcery at play, just solid musicianship, played with passion. While We Were Staring Into Our Palms offers a notion in short supply, stressing, “can we at least try to be kind?”
A touchstone for our times, a talisman pointing to a moment of sheer beauty, Last Flight Out reminds us of the power of music to engage and inspire. Steve Dawson & Funeral Bonsai Wedding offer a gift of humanity. We are connected. May that connection never die.
https://stevedawsonmusic.com/
Photo Credit: Matthew Gilson