Maria Schneider Orchestra
Sky Blue

When do you realize that a piece of music has caused a total and definitive upheaval in your heart?

When 13 minutes and 28 seconds have passed and they seemed like the flutter of a butterfly's wings.

And you want more.

This is exactly what I felt listening to the first track "The Pretty Road" from this album by a musician, composer, and bandleader who I absolutely didn't know until a few days ago. But self-criticism is welcome if, in return, I receive these enchanting epiphanies. These indispensable discoveries.

Maria Schneider (a curious namesake of the actress from "Last Tango in Paris") actually boasts a decades-long career and has an apprenticeship with none other than Gil Evans, the charismatic "grand old man," perhaps the one who has most innovated the big band language in the jazz realm. She inherited the airiness in compositions and especially in arrangements from Evans, adding her exquisite contrapuntal taste, probably stemming from her classical studies. It's no coincidence that she prefers the name "Orchestra" for her large ensemble. This gradual shift of coordinates, from a traditionally jazz-influenced big band to the exploration of a broader and more all-encompassing musical language, which also includes orchestral blends of "classical" style, is very evident in the progress of her career and culminates precisely in this latest "Sky Blue," which critics around the world have rightly hailed as her masterpiece.

Alongside such an original artistic journey, there couldn't but be an unconventional approach to productions and the music industry. Her last two CDs are released by Artist Direct, an association of fans who finance recordings by self-funding, granting total creative freedom to the artists involved. "Sky Blue" and the preceding "Concert in the Garden" are completely detached from major distribution; they are not available in stores but can only be purchased on Schneider's website. Both albums have won a Grammy Award, to the chagrin of those who think a musician cannot have visibility and success outside traditional circuits.

In this latest work, we find a handful of instrumentalists deeply loyal to her, many of whom have been in the band since its inception. The soloists involved are still little known to the general public, but they are names that are forcefully establishing themselves on the New York scene in recent years. It is impossible not to mention the saxophonist Donny McCaslin, author of an exhilarating solo in "Cerulean Skies," lucid, compelling, and perfectly integrated with the sumptuous spirals of sound created by Schneider. The accordion played by Gary Versace, a true keystone in the most delicate and dreamy passages, often in an inspired dialogue with pianist Frank Kimbrough. Clarinetist Scott Robinson climbs the zigzagging paths of "Aires of Lando," heavy with Latin melancholy. Or again, the remarkable trumpeter Ingrid Jensen, who shines in "The Pretty Road" with flugelhorn and electronic effects. They all do an excellent job, proving to be particularly empathetic and functional to the sound vision of the blonde bandleader. In the end, what truly matters is the contribution each musician makes to the creation of a unique sound organism, capable of channeling vast masses of light and energy in the evocation of landscapes of boundless serenity and purest emotion. But how wide, and blue, are Maria's skies... And what staggering, unspeakable charm emanates from the main piece of the selection, the long and intricate "Cerulean Skies"...

Even the most distracted of you will have understood that I am absolutely in love with this album. Long live Maria Schneider, may she continue for a long time to assemble her vessels of air, wind, and light. I am sure that from up there, Gil Evans approves.

And smiles.