Christine Jensen unveils new album, Day Moon

Canadian Beats | 3 July 2023 | by Jenna Melanson

Saxophonist, Composer, and Conductor CHRISTINE JENSEN Releases Day Moon Album

We’ve witnessed and heard testimonies from countless musicians who were forced to struggle—financially and artistically—through the lockdowns of the pandemic. For some who have survived, there’s been the silver lining of a shift in perspective. Many artists dug deep in isolation and discovered the solution to long-elusive mysteries. Some let go of the tried-and-true and instead explored new means of expression.

While we’re hopefully emerging from the final Covid surge, it’s a welcome that an artist like Christine Jensen is opening ears to the magic of reflection on her long, turbulent days and months locked down.

The exceptional alto and soprano saxophonist from Canada releases the compelling Day Moon with her impressive quartet on Justin Time Records. The music is at turns, melancholic and ebullient, sober and playful. It’s a date where she creates an improvisational community of close friends in quartet and duo settings.

“I got hit hard by the pandemic because I felt alone and was not doing what I’m supposed to do,” Jensen says. “So, I focused on my saxophones, teaching myself to present my sound, my solo voice. It’s almost like becoming the vocalist.”

At home leading her own renowned jazz orchestra, Jensen was forced to pull back by necessity into a more intimate space. “I had to shed the extra instrumentation that was always in my head,” she says. “So, I started to once a week play music with my longtime piano friend Steve Amirault. We worked together—he collaborated with me and pushed the boundaries. It created a stable place for me.”

Jensen invited her regular rhythm team of bassist Adrian Vedady and drummer Jim Doxas to mask workshop in small spaces to bring new colors into the ebb and flow of her compositions. The quartet members became, as she writes in her liner notes “my refuge and sanctuary.”

She continues,

“I feel like we met on thin ice through two cycles of seasons, meeting, greeting, and expanding on this repertoire, so that we could find a place that allowed us to trust and support each other at the highest level—not just in the music, but also in friendship, empathy and love, all words that the lockdown was attempting to repress.”

The album opens with the title tune that was written pre-pandemic for her chordless collective CODE Quartet that included trumpeter Lex French. The ‘60s Ornette Coleman-inspired band issued its Genealogy album for Justin Time in 2021.

“It started out as a demo that ended up being the recording,” Jensen says. “At that point, the tune was just starting to jell, but I never glued to it. So, I thought let’s explore it wider harmonically with the piano instead of trumpet. The changes led to a surprising end.”

It’s the perfect lead tune inspired by a vision Jensen experienced. She was on her street in the middle of the day and saw a perfect moon in front of her with the sun glowing behind.

“It was so strange,” she says. “It’s how the pandemic felt—living in another world. Other worldly and so sci-fi. It makes for a perfect prelude to the rest of the album where the world is shifting.”

The four-song suite Quiescence was written for a commission from New York’s Jazz Coalition that had raised funds for composers. Jensen sketched compositions including the Brazilian clave-feel “Tolos d’Abril,” her April Fool’s birthday song.

“I wrote it because I was alone and I didn’t want to be in the Montreal snow and would just love to be anywhere from here,” Jensen says. “So, I thought of any opposite place, like a beach in Brazil.”

Highlights of the album feature the duo spots with Amirault, including the short-and-sweet torrent of the playful “Balcony Rules” based on “What Is This Thing Called Love?” and the gem of the album, the gorgeous rendering of Jimmy Van Heusen’s “Here’s That Rainy Day.”

“That’s one of my favorite cuts,” Jensen says. “Steve and I hit on the emotion in ballad playing that’s not often captured in this day and age. We just looked at each other, slowed the tune down and played our feelings. I take the melody line and Steve is focused on time. It’s a deep conversation and an elaboration of who we are as musicians. We stole the slowness of this tune from the style of Shirley Horn and her delivery of a ballad.”

Finally, Jensen is happy to play some gigs to support Day Moon. In the future, she continues to be on the tenure track at Eastman School of Music and has more music ready to go, including another CODE Quartet album, more recording and performing with her sister Ingrid Jensen and a big band recording to be released by the end of 2023.

“It’s all in motion,” she says. “And who knows, maybe even an album of duos in the setting I discovered on Day Moon.”

Listen to the title track “Day Moon” from the album Day Moon below and stay up to date with Christine via her socials.

Christine Jensen Gazes At The Day Moon

Tinnitist | 28 June 2023 | by Darryl Sterdan

Christine Jensen rises to the occasion with her new album Day Moon — showcasing today on Tinnitist.

Photo by G. Scott McLeod

We’ve witnessed and heard testimonies from countless musicians who were forced to struggle — financially and artistically — through the lockdowns of the pandemic. For some who have survived, there’s been the silver lining of a shift in perspective. Many artists dug deep in isolation and discovered the solution to long-elusive mysteries. Some let go of the tried-and-true and instead explored new means of expression.

While we’re hopefully emerging from the final Covid surge, it’s a welcome that an artist like Christine Jensen is opening ears to the magic of reflection on her long, turbulent days and months locked down.

The exceptional alto and soprano saxophonist from Canada has released the compelling Day Moon with her impressive quartet on Justin Time Records. The music is at turns, melancholic and ebullient, sober and playful. It’s a date where she creates an improvisational community of close friends in quartet and duo settings. “I got hit hard by the pandemic because I felt alone and was not doing what I’m supposed to do,” Jensen says. “So, I focused on my saxophones, teaching myself to present my sound, my solo voice. It’s almost like becoming the vocalist.”

At home leading her own renowned jazz orchestra, Jensen was forced to pull back by necessity into a more intimate space. “I had to shed the extra instrumentation that was always in my head,” she says. “So, I started to once a week play music with my longtime piano friend Steve Amirault. We worked together — he collaborated with me and pushed the boundaries. It created a stable place for me.”

Jensen invited her regular rhythm team of bassist Adrian Vedady and drummer Jim Doxas to mask workshop in small spaces to bring new colors into the ebb and flow of her compositions. The quartet members became, as she writes in her liner notes “my refuge and sanctuary.” She continues, “I feel like we met on thin ice through two cycles of seasons, meeting, greeting, and expanding on this repertoire, so that we could find a place that allowed us to trust and support each other at the highest level — not just in the music, but also in friendship, empathy and love, all words that the lockdown was attempting to repress.”

The album opens with the title tune that was written pre-pandemic for her chordless collective CODE Quartet that included trumpeter Lex French. The ’60s Ornette Coleman-inspired band issued its Genealogy album for Justin Time in 2021. “It started out as a demo that ended up being the recording,” Jensen says. “At that point, the tune was just starting to jell, but I never glued to it. So, I thought let’s explore it wider harmonically with the piano instead of trumpet. The changes led to a surprising end.”

It’s the perfect lead tune inspired by a vision Jensen experienced. She was on her street in the middle of the day and saw a perfect moon in front of her with the sun glowing behind. “It was so strange,” she says. “It’s how the pandemic felt — living in another world. Other worldly and so sci-fi. It makes for a perfect prelude to the rest of the album where the world is shifting.”

Christine Jensen: Day Moon

All About Jazz | 16 June 2023 | by Pierre Giroux

Christine Jensen has been described by jazz writer Mark Miller of The Globe and Mail as “one of the most important Canadian composers of her generation.” Jensen grew up in Nanaimo, British Columbia with the likes of tenor saxophonist Phil Dwyer and pianist & vocalist Diana Krall but is now based in Montreal, Quebec. She originally went to that city to attend McGill University from which she received her first degree in jazz performance in 1994 and, subsequently, a Masters Degree in that same discipline in 2006. Over the intervening years, as her career developed, she has collaborated with such talented individuals as pianist Geoffrey Keezer, saxophonist Donny McCaslin and her sister, the New York-based trumpeter Ingrid Jensen.

In this small form outing, Jensen is accompanied by her trusted and supportive colleagues, pianist Steve Amirault, acoustic bassist Adrian Vedady and drummer Jim Doxas. As for many other artists, from all kinds of disciplines, the turbulent times of the Covid pandemic brought the band closer together and built a camaraderie which manifests itself in this recording.

The compositions on this session are all by Christine Jensen with the exception of “Balcony Rules” in which Amirault was a co-writer, and “Like in Love” where Amirault did all the writing, and Jimmy Van Heusen’s “Here’s That Rainy Day.” The opening, title track, “Day Moon,” was inspired by Jensen seeing a full moon as the sun was rising. It is filled with an oblique intensity; Jensen investigates the material with inquisitiveness, as the rhythm section provides unwavering support.

The thematic center piece of the album is “Quiescence Suite” which was commissioned by the Jazz Coalition of New York. It has four sections: Lined/Twenty Twenty Blues/Tolos D’Abril/Étude De Mars. This suite is ambitious in concept, texture and tempo, as Jensen covers the themes on either alto or soprano saxophone which she plays with unflappable authority. Although pianist Amirault does not have a lot to do, he plays with a fluid technique when given the opportunity. Here’s That Rainy Day” is a duo between Jensen and Amirault, along with two subsequent tracks including “Balcony Rules” (a contrafact built on “What Is This Thing Called Love”) and “Girls Can Play The Blues.” It is evident from the opening notes of each number that the interplay between the two has an expressiveness and articulation which is built on trust, and an understanding that each has a judicious technical command of their instrument.

Track Listing
Day Moon; Quiescence Suite:Lined; Twenty Twenty Blues; Tolos D’Abril; Étude De Mars; Here’s That Rainy Day; Wind Up; Balcony Rules; Like In Love; Girls Can Play The Blues

Personnel
Christine Jensen: saxophone; Steve Amirault: piano; Adrian Vedady: bass; Jim Doxas: drums.

Album Information
Title: Day Moon | Year Released: 2023 | Record Label: Justin Time Records

Orchestre National de Jazz de Montréal & Christine Jensen – Under The Influence Suite

London Jazz News | 23 March 2018

Orchestre National de Jazz de Montréal & Christine Jensen – Under The Influence Suite
(Justin Time Records JTR 8597. CD Review by Alison Bentley)

Under the Influence: a perfect description of music that is immersed in, but not overwhelmed by, the work of musicians and mentors you love. Canadian saxophonist, composer and conductor Christine Jensen was commissioned in 2015 by the Orchestre National de Jazz de Montréal to write this powerful suite, dedicated to Kenny Wheeler, Jan Jarczyk, Lee Konitz, John Coltrane and Wayne Shorter.

Part 1 (the longest section) is For Kenny Wheeler, the great Canadian-born trumpeter who had died the previous year. Jensen has described her music as “coming out of the Kenny Wheeler aesthetic”, after working with him for a number of years at Canada’s Banff Centre, and his influence would seem to be the strongest on this album. The eerie, free sounds of Ouverture make way for Starbright, which sent me back to Wheeler’s ’90s ECM Music for Large & Small Ensembles. Jensen’s orchestral timbres are often Wheeler-esque, with their uplifting melancholy, and dark tones. Jensen’s approach to melody is more motivic; overlapping phrases build and harmonise with increasing intensity. It’s as if you see one phrase through the prism of the next. Just as Wheeler wrote for Norma Winstone’s ethereal voice, so Sienna Dahlen’s pure tones are central to this music. Dahlen’s Keatsian lyrics lead us in (“Timeless star blazing through the night”) before fusing with the orchestra in horn-like lines, lightening the deep colours. She uses free sounds as well as strong tones – sometimes breathy, like glass wrapped in tissue paper. Solos emerge naturally from the textures: François Bourassa’s fine piano solo and Bill Mahar’s elegant trumpet flow from Kevin Warren’s delicate drumming, which draws as much on drum and bass as jazz.

The late Polish-Canadian composer and pianist Jan Jarczyk is sorely missed by Jensen and the orchestra. Jensen: “He was such a great teacher of composition, and he taught us all the rules – what we were to break and what we weren’t, and I would still go break them.” In Part II To Jan Jensen explores a chorale, expanded with dynamic orchestration. Dahlen’s emotive lyrics and Jean-Pierre Zanella’s explosive sax solo pay tribute. A high energy Drum Interlude prefaces Part IV (for John Coltrane) Leap. Based on the chords to his Giant Steps, it invokes Wheeler-esque orchestration, as horns ease out long notes over an intense groove. The sounds fuse: there’s a striking moment where the sax solo seems to emulate the guitar’s slightly distorted rock sound. Part IV (For Lee Konitz) Sweet Lee pits trombone against the superb orchestration, playing hopscotch across the chords of a lopsided tango.

Wayne Shorter is one of Jensen’s greatest influences, and Part V, Anthem and Chant, are for him. There’s a mesmeric section, hinting at Miles’ In a Silent Way, with sparkling guitar harmonics, bass thrumming, and abstract sax shapes. Two saxes duet freely, as the energy increases into a slow rock groove and exquisite meditative theme. The saxes’ free breathiness interweaves with Dahlen’s voice, as they develop into an insistent drone, and then strong rock feel. Stirring blues phrases over punchy horn lines draw the whole orchestra in. A quiet moment bursts into a thrilling sax chase on a cliff edge, but everyone lands together.

“I hope that each movement of my suite contains a fragment of their character,” Jensen has said of her influences. This excellent album is no pastiche, but a development of her own distinctive style of composition and arranging. It’s an amazing accomplishment, along with the superb discipline and improvisational freedom of the Orchestre National de Jazz de Montréal.

 

Ingrid and Christine Jensen: Infinitude review – warm, spacious and empathetic

The Guardian | 18 November 2016 | by John Fordham

A subtly mysterious delight … Christine and Ingrid Jensen

Ingrid Jensen, the Canadian trumpeter often featured with Maria Schneider, is an understatedly eloquent player with Kenny Wheeler affiliations and a composer of affecting slow-burn themes, as she recently indicated on her short UK tour. This warm, spacious and empathically played album unites her with her saxophonist and composer sister Christine, along with bass, drums and imaginative guitarist Ben Monder, on an all-Jensen tracklist, save for Wheeler’s Old Time and Monder’s Echolalia. The two horns often purr and glide together with expressive anticipation, and Monder is a powerful presence, his guitar lines weaving with Christine’s alto sax on Octofolk, while Old Time gets a rugged Miles-fusion urgency that sparks busier conversations. Monder and Ingrid Jensen float in trance-like freefall on Duo Space before the piece becomes increasingly metallic, Garden Hour is a beautiful slow theme, and Ingrid’s Dots and Braids is an ambient meditation in quietly pealing sounds that becomes a collectively improvised glide. The set drifts occasionally, but the harmonies are subtly mysterious and the group playing a delight.

Christine Jensen Jazz Orchestra: Christine Jensen Jazz Orchestra: Habitat

All About Jazz | 11 April 2014 | by John Kelman

It may have been the title of her last album—Treelines, Christine Jensen’s first large ensemble recording—but there was no song of that name on the 2010 Justin Time release. Instead, it’s the lead-off to Habitat, Jensen’s second album with her Jazz Orchestra, a commissioned work for the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Jazz Orchestra, its director, Dr. Paul Haar, looking for the Canadian saxophonist/composer to continue the strong work begun on Treelines. And why not? Treelines may have been the Montreal, Canada-based saxophonist’s first large ensemble recording, but over the past 15 years she has gradually emerged as not just a saxophonist of note—her 2013 Festival International de Jazz de Montréal quintet set with sister/trumpeter Ingrid Jensen made that crystal clear—but a composer of increasing importance also, and not just on the Canadian scene. Jensen has, in relatively short order, evolved into a world class writer capable of going head-to-head with any large ensemble composer/bandleader on the scene today.

Bringing back a good percentage of the players on Treelines for Habitat’s 17-20 piece orchestra, Jensen continues to pursue the longer-form, often episodic writing that defined the previous record while ensuring a bevy of impressive soloists to make equally clear that Montréal remains one of Canada’s most creative jazz locales alongside Vancouver and Toronto. Some of the names are familiar to any who’ve been following the scene, like husband/saxophonist Joel Miller, who impressively shares the solo space with trombonist Jean-Nicolas Trottier on “Tumbledown,” which begins with the sound of a lone clarinet, soon doubled by pianist John Roney (replacing Treelines’ Steve Amirault). Sweeping contrapuntal lines define an introduction that leads to a chordal foundation reflective of the composition’s inspiration—two tours in Haiti in 2007-08, prior to the tragic 2010 earthquake that decimated the small country—and a compositional complexity that mirrors what Jensen describes, in the liners, as “the beautiful and complicated city of Port-au-Prince.” Beyond their own individual spots, Trottier and Miller ultimately solo in tandem, supported only by drummer Richard Irwin’s combination of firm pulse and responsive support. It’s just one of many compelling moments on Habitat.

While sister Ingrid solos on half of Habitat’s six compositions, Christine—sticking solely with soprano for this date, rather than the alto saxophone that’s usually her main axe—remains an ensemble player until the album-closing, waltz-time “Sweet Adelphi,” an ambling tune that doesn’t feature the sisters soloing together until its closing couple of minutes. Still, beyond each sister’s individual instrumental prowess, it’s a brief but more than sufficient moment that spotlights the remarkable simpatico shared by these two siblings. Ingrid has managed to shape a fine career in New York, in particular as a member of Grammy Award-winning Maria Schneider’s own large ensemble and Terri Lyne Carrington’s Mosaic (Concord, 2011) project, but a long overdue follow-up to her own superb At Sea (ArtistShare, 2005) remains sadly MIA.

Meanwhile, as Christine Jensen continues to raise her game as a writer—moving from the smaller ensemble work of Look Left (Effendi, 2006) to her more ambitious Treelines and, now, even more mature Habitat—a voice once redolent of influential Canadian expat Kenny Wheeler’s melancholic lyricism, Maria Schneider’s more joyful exuberance of and Gil Evans’ rich colorations continues to exert itself more firmly. It’s an inevitable evolution clearly recognized at home, with Habitat recently repeating Jensen’s 2010 Juno Award win for Jazz Album of the Year at the 2014 award ceremony.

With the March, 2014 American release of Habitat, it would seem that the high regard Christine Jensen has long held in her home country is finally making its way across the border, and not a moment too soon. Her small but impressive discography—and, in particular, with the back-to-back critical acclaim for the stellar Treelines and Habitat—it’s time that Jensen garnered the same American acclaim as her New York-based sister. Sometimes you don’t have to move Stateside; sometimes, all you need is the patience, the devotion to craft and creativity, and the kind of impressive forward motion demonstrated consistently by Jensen since she first appeared on Ingrid’s early recordings in the mid-to-late ’90s, followed by her own releases starting with Collage (Effendi, 2000). With a career path that, from Collage to Treelines, moved in a corresponding upward direction, with the even more impressive Habitat, Jensen’s trajectory has just taken a quantum leap forward.