Compact Disc (CD)
“Every shape is in your purview / Let it live,” sings jazz vocalist and composer Sarah Elizabeth Charles on the first track of her third album. And sure enough, Free of Form is an eclectic set, with Charles’s supple vocals swooping in and out of jazz, fuzak, and pop. Charles uses her voice as a be-bop instrument, bouncing around the melody: leaping up to the top of her considerable range, slowing down and then catching up. But she’s no traditionalist; the album never sinks into the round-robin soloing structure of most jazz songs.
“Purview” starts with a lovely lyrical dying-duck trumpet sound, courtesy of collaborator and co-producer Christian Scott, before it slides into quasi-ambient ripples—think: “In a Silent Way” as vocal showcase. “Free of Form” throws in deep, fuzzy electronic keyboard, as her regular drummer John Davis scatters percussion around, landing just this side of funk. “The Struggle” is built on wispy, pulsing, multi-tracked vocalizations; Charles comes across as a kind of jazz Enya. “Zombie” has an honest to goodness, get-stuck-in-your-head pop hook—the Rihanna-like stuttered “Zombie-eh-eh-eh” on the chorus sounding like the song could be a radio hit, if it gets to the right DJs.
The “Freedom” of the title doesn’t just refer to stylistic breadth; it’s also a quiet social message. On “March to Revolution Part II,” Charles wails with Grace Slick-esque stentorian power: “Will we let reason die? / When we know what we march for will we fight a revolution? / Revolution of real thought / Revolution of real mind.” Political freedom, spiritual freedom, and artistic freedom swirl around one another, part of the same picture, like the musical traditions Charles draws on. “So many songs have been left unsung,” she declaims. She’s working on singing them now.
—Noah Berlatsky
