My review of Oceans of Vows, the broad-scoped, gorgeously package double-disc box set by percussionist Alex Cline and his Flower Garland Orchestra, today at All About Jazz.
Inspired by and revolving around a series of Buddhist texts, and poems written by Cline's Zen Buddhist Master Thich Nhat Hanh, it's a piece of work that defies easy categorization, and is all the richer for it. Rich Breen's engineering, mixing and mastering documents Cline's group with attention to every detail--no matter how small, how subtle--and sounds particularly sweet on my Tetra 333s.
Despite being a key participant in the "Left Coast" scene of more avant-leaning music from the American west coast--in particular, part of the Cryptogramophone imprint that, while less active than in its "glory days" during the first years of the new millennium--Alex Cline releases so infrequently as a leader that any new music from the percussionist/composer is worthy of attention. That he has flown so far under the radar, in recent years, that his last Cryptogramophone release, 2013's For People In Sorrow, was largely (and unfairly) overlooked. Thankfully, that's not the case with Oceans of Vows, a sumptuous two-disc set that documents a two-hour suite of music--two parts, each consisting of five movements--inspired by and revolving around several Buddhist texts and poetry, the result of a grant awarded to Cline in early 2015, culminating in its premiere at California State University, Northridge's Plaza del Sol Concert Hall in October the same year, followed by two days of recording in the studio.
When it's a major work such as this--and with a fourteen-piece ensemble that, amongst others, includes guitarists GE Stinson and the percussionist's twin brother, Nels Cline, alongside violinists Miguel Atwood-Ferguson and Cryptogramophone label head Jeff Gauthier, percussionist Brad Dutz, keyboardist Wayne Peet, flautist Will Salmon and bassist/keyboardist Scott Walton--it's too easy to fall back on descriptors like "sweeping," "bold," "ambitious" and "epic." While, in some ways, every one of these words can be used to describe parts of Oceans of Vows, in many ways such grand words deflect from others that are far more appropriate. Given Buddhism's selfless ambitions--and, as Cline's own liners describe, the percussionist's "musical settings of small excerpts from the voluminous Buddhist scripture known as the Avatamsaka Sutra or Flower Garland Discourse, combined with four-plus thematically related poems by my spiritual teacher, the Vietnamese Zen Buddhist master Thich Nhat Hanh"--it seems almost contrary to the faith's fundamental tenets to use such potentially broad, self-indulgent terms.
That's not to suggest that there aren't plenty of passionate, hard-hitting moments throughout a recording whose earlier precedents include, in particular, Cline's back-to-back Cryptogramophone releases Sparks Fly Upward (1999) and The Constant Flame (2000), both of which had their genesis in The Lamp and the Star (ECM, 1989) and Montsalvat (Ninewinds, 1995). Unlike more recent, improv-heavy Cline-led dates including Cloud Plate (Cryptogramophone, 2005) and Continuation (Cryptogramophone, 2009), Oceans of Vows returns to his earlier albums' seamless combination of form and freedom, despite the line between the two being often blurred...or, in some cases, dissolved completely.
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