There are no lectures here. Just, at times, an atmospheric plea in music, to help save our planet.
Orenda Records
Ivanna Cuesta Gonzalez – Drummer, Composer, Electronics; Kris Davis – Piano; Max Ridley – Bass; Ben Solomon – Tenor Sax; Pauli Camou – Special Guest Voice
I have listened to one of the best pleas for saving our planet. It comes from Dominican Republic drummer, composer, and educator, Ivanna Cuestra Gonzalez’s debut album, A LETTER TO THE EARTH. Ivanna said she has always loved nature. Growing up in the Dominican Republic she was always surrounded by trees, rivers, and beaches. She said because of climate change, everything she experienced as a child is just memories.
Ivanna Cuesta graduated from the Dominican Republic Conservatory of Music and from Berklee College of Music. She’s played with many of the greats, including Esperanza Spalding, Aaron Parks, Jane Bunnett, Pepe Rivera, and others.
I like the group of musicians Ivanna Cuestra has assembled for A LETTER TO THE EARTH. Pianist Kris Davis was named Pianist of the Year by Downbeat magazine in 2020 and 2022. She has 25 recordings as leader and a big handful as sidewoman. Boston native, bassist Max Ridley has played with many jazz legends. He’s an educator at colleges around New England. Spiritually, he grew up Jewish, and every Sunday he serves in the praise and worship team at the Somerville Community Baptist Church in Somerville, Massachusetts. New York based, tenor saxophonist Ben Solomon played with one of my favorite trumpeters Wallace Roney for six years. This Coltrane influenced horn player has developed a great unique sound of his own.
The beginning of ‘A Letter to the Earth ’is a muted electronic rumble. I wonder what the beginning of our planet “sounded” like. Ben Solomon’s serene tenor mirrors the first stirrings of life. Kris Davis’s piano and Solomon share a lovely melody. Cuesta’s mallets, a low and muffled growl. Max Ridley’s bass sings quietly out of the way until the piano grabs and pulls it in. Cuesta is using sticks now, and the sound is delicious.
If you follow the news, you know with a song title like ‘Humans vs Humans ’it probably isn’t going to be a lullaby you would hum to your kid before bedtime. The electronic effects from Cuesta are tasteful, daring, birdlike. The bass and piano lines are angular and straight-forward. Cuesta said, “The power of technology has deprived us of our personal lives. There is no real bond of love or empathy between humans, but just the rush of being ‘connected’.”
Ivanna Cuesta wrote all the music for A LETTER TO THE EARTH. Her compositions start slowly, building to what she wants to say.
‘Chaos ’is one of the jazzier cuts on the album. Kris Davis helps this group push the boundaries. Her angular lines can sound Monkish. Solomon and Ridley’s double time walking bass are along for the ride, and then the tenor sax starts to sound like Coltrane’s “sheets of sound.”
‘Este Lugar ’or ‘This Place’, is a captivating way to end. Cuesta’s monolithic electronics dance and swirl while her thoughts on her relationship with the earth are narrated in Spanish by Pauli Camou.
There are no lectures here. Just, at times, an atmospheric plea in music, to help save our planet.
