Jane Ira Bloom's Flights

by Fritz Byers

On April 2, 1991, at Town Hall in New York City, the soprano saxophonist Jane Ira Bloom augmented her working group with a 20-piece wind ensemble and an array of electronic effects in the service of her spacy, appealing compositions. Among the works Jane premiered that night were “Sixteen Sunsets” (a world premiere) and “Art and Aviation” (a New York debut). The former would season for a couple of decades and then emerge as the title of a marvelous 2013 release, although the tune doesn’t appear on it.

The latter would emerge much more quickly on record as the title track for a 1992 release that clarified Jane’s place at the forefront of both jazz composers and  innovators on her instrument. Art and Aviation is this week’s featured recording on Jazz Spectrum Friday.

Jane came to the soprano by a roundabout route: piano first, then drums, then the alto, and finally the straight horn. Most saxophonists who carry a soprano treat it as a second voice, a color to use for a tune or two. Jane chose to make it her only real voice. She has said the pull began in her Boston lessons with Joe Viola, the woodwind wizard who chaired the Woodwind Department at Berklee College of Music. As he listened to Jane play alto, Joe would pick up the soprano and play along; she liked what she heard. By the time she made her first record in the mid-‘70s, with tracks on both horns, she knew which one she would claim as her own. Few players have so completely committed themselves to the instrument, and few have taken it as far. The critics have noticed: she has topped the DownBeat Critics Poll on soprano again and again.

She has always built her own runway. She founded her own label and publishing company, Outline, while still a student at Yale, and, a half century on, it carries much of her recent work, which continues to broaden, deepen, and embroider her formidable legacy.

Then there is the space program. By Jane’s own account, her career was stalled in the 1980s. Over dinner, her friend, the actor Brian Dennehy, asked what really interested her. She said the space program: she had watched every launch since Mercury. Brian told her to write NASA a letter. (That’s the kind of advice we should all look for from a friend.) She thought, You’re nuts, but she did. Six months later an envelope came back from the director of NASA’s Art Program, and their correspondence led to Jane’s becoming the first musician the program ever commissioned. One of the results, “Most Distant Galaxy,” scored for soprano saxophone, live electronics, prepared tape, bass, drums, and electro-acoustic percussion, sits at the center of Art and Aviation, which Jane has described as a spin-off of her NASA work. And there’s this: an asteroid, somewhere out past Mars, bears her name: Asteroid 6083 Janeirabloom. Maybe Sun Ra was right – maybe Space really is the place.

Art and Aviation, recorded in 1992, was the first of her five albums for Arabesque. Those albums are searching and a bit experimental, with an edge of the avant-garde fringing the accessible, engaging core of her compositions. This one is the boldest of them, and my favorite. Jane threads live electronics through acoustic small-group playing, bending and extending her sound in real time, at a moment when few jazz musicians were trying anything of the kind.

At her side is Kenny Wheeler, a Jazz Spectrum icon. The pairing is a study in melding and contrast of two of the most original musical minds of their generation: Kenny’s flugelhorn wide-intervalled and rueful, Jane’s soprano quicksilver and bright. The title track is a high point in both of their careers, and it also showcases the marvelous percussion work of Jerry Granelli.

Jane’s later records, Sixteen Sunsets, Early Americans, and Wild Lines, have turned toward the melodic and brought her a wider audience and a broader range of praise, including a Grammy. Art and Aviation comes before that recognition. But the inner circle paid attention then, and, as you’ll hear Friday, it retains its fresh adventurousness 34 years later.  

Jane followed Art and Aviation with The Nearness, which is my second-favorite of her releases. Kenny Wheeler is on this one too, along with Julian Priester on trombone and Fred Hersch on piano. These two recordings aren’t the gentlest introduction to Jane’s work, but they reward close listening as much as anything she has made.

My guess is that over the years, on stage and off, Brian Dennehy gave all sorts of advice. He, or at least his public persona, gave off that kind of vibe, as though he’s the sort of person you can trust to set you straight. “Write a letter to NASA” may be the best of it.