Recommended: Yuhan Su – “A Room of One’s Own”

It’s particularly interesting how vibraphonist Yuhan Su reveals the storyline of her newest recording.  A Room of One’s Own begins rather ordinary, making a first impression that indicates it’ll be a typical straight-ahead modern jazz session.  It has a pleasant structure and there’s some tasteful soloing and the group interaction is rock solid.  But then near the tail-end of opening track “Amulet,” suddenly the harmonic influence alters the shape and form of that structure, and it’s a sonic equivalent of suddenly realizing that you’re in the middle of a dream and the walls fall away and everything is shot through with alien imagery that gives the barest approximation of a comforting reality.  But the thing of it is, this isn’t a bad dream, and once a level of acclimation to the new environs is achieved, the alluring beauty of this music emerges with a ringing clarity.  This transformation continues on the three-part “Valedicere” suite, which shifts between states of chamber music serenity, jazz-rock fusion electricity and a post-jazz pop melody free-for-all.   The lullaby of “No. 13 Waltz” has Su’s vocal harmonies to send things off to sweet dreams.  And continuing with the theme of dreams, “All Kinds of Dreams” stretches an elastic melody to its breaking point, then lets it recoil back into the motion of a nifty groove.

Lots of compelling moments on this one.

Your album personnel:  Yuhan Su (vibraphone, MalletKat, vocals), Matt Holman (trumpet, flugelhorn), Kenji Herbert (guitar), Petros Klampanis (bass) and Nathan Ellman-Bell (drums).

Released on Inner Circle Music.

Listen to more album tracks at the artist’s Bandcamp page.

Jazz from NYC.

Available at:  Bandcamp | Amazon | CDBaby | eMusic