Jagged Edges & Elegant Lines: The Music of Ayn Inserto – WDR BIG BAND with Sean Jones

REVIEW:

★★★★ 1/2 (DOWNBEAT)

Ayn Inserto captures the beautifully complex and soulful essence of the celebrated trumpeter-educator Sean Jones on this spectacular new recording made in collaboration with Germany’s renowned WDR Big Band. When the Boston-based composer-arranger — an important contributor to the worldwide contemporary large ensemble scene who’s worked extensively with her own jazz orchestra for 25 years as well as the Frankfurt Radio Big Band beginning in 2022 — was commissioned by the Cologne-based WDR to present an evening-length concert performance of her original music in 2024, she selected compositions representing various aspects of her existing oeuvre and wrote a brand-new suite for Jones, the night’s featured soloist. The program begins with a series of pieces released on earlier albums by the Ayn Inserto Jazz Orchestra (“Eschel Sketch,” “La Danza Infinita,” “Vinifera” and “Down A Rabbit Hole” for those already familiar with her work). The middle portion of the set includes “Mr. Jones And Company” (a 2019 piece commissioned by NYO Jazz, the Carnegie Hall national youth ensemble led by Jones) and “BJ’s Tune” (Inserto’s arrangement of a Jones composition) — both of which contribute to setting up the show’s grand finale: the 22-minute, four-part “Suite For Sean Jones,” dedicated to the evening’s special guest artist, a personal friend who’s had productive and meaningful musical encounters with Inserto previously. Named for the many disparate qualities that embody Inserto’s work — including deliberate yet heavily syncopated rhythms, flowing lyricism amid a buoyant sea of tonal rubs and harmonically tense ensemble figures, and a youthful attitude that vitalizes her more mature, abstract constructs — Jagged Edges & Elegant Lines documents a monumental event in the large ensemble realm and paints a gorgeous portrait of one of jazz’s most well-rounded and accessible instrumentalists.

-Ed Enright for DOWNBEAT

The big sound of WDR Big Band conducted by Ayn Inserto. The celebrated trumpet of Sean Jones. All with the Ayn Inserto ‘signature’! The Ayn Inserto sound is unmistakable: active, articulated, and constantly in motion. What emerges across the album is a jaggedness that is never random, and an elegance that is never fragile. They define each other. The edges give the music its energy. The lines give it its longevity. Enjoy!

GENRE: Jazz/Large Ensemble/WDR Big Band
COMPOSERS: Ayn Inserto, Sean Jones

“It’s either on the beat or off the beat.” Ayn Inserto

An oversimplified way of describing her writing, the comment feels less like a limitation rather than a kind of generosity – Ayn often minimizes her own compositional voice to highlight the music and the musicians around her.<P>
I’ve known Ayn for over 30 years and I have played a lot of her music. Hearing her work realized “live” by the WDR Big Band is both a personal pleasure and a reminder of how she has constantly been developing her musical voice. Her writing is unapologetic, rhythmically insistent, and built on a language she has refined over time.

Jagged Edges & Elegant Lines is an apropos description of that voice. The phrase is not decorative – it is structural. Her music lives in the tension between those two ideas. The edges are sharp, often angular, driven by horn stabs, bass line interruptions, and unexpected rhythmic resolutions. But the lines they form – across ensemble writing, across form, across time – are surprisingly continuous. What feels fragmented in the moment is part of the master plan. Her compositional identity is built on controlled friction.

Sean Jones is an American trumpeter and composer featured on the 2007 Grammy Award-winning album by Nancy Wilson. As a bandleader, Jones has released eight albums. He performs with his own groups both nationally and internationally. Jones actively tours venues and festivals. Sean Jones is universally celebrated by critics and jazz fans as a trumpet virtuoso with a strong upper register, brilliant articulation, and a rich, lyrical, and fiery tone.

WDR Big Band is the jazz big band of German public broadcaster Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR) in Cologne, Germany.

FEATURING:  Sean Jones, Trumpet

WDR BIG BAND conducted by Ayn Inserto:

Saxophones:  Johan Hörlén, reed 1; Pascal Bartoszak, reed 2; Ben Fitzpatrick, reed 3; Paul Heller, reed 4; Jens Neufang, reed5

Trumpets: Wim Both; Rob Bruynen; Andy Haderer; Ruud Breuls

Trombones: Ludwig Nuss; Raphael Klemm; Tim Hepburn; Mattis Cederberg

Bass, Piano, Drums: John Goldsby, bass; Billy Test, piano; Hans Dekker, drums

A Westdeutsche Rundfunk Cologne Production, 2024

REVIEWS:

“There are many milestones in a jazz career…. For ambitious composers it is working with the WDR Big Band, one of the most august large ensembles in jazz. Now it is Ayn Inserto’s turn with this 2024 concert recording: a set of pieces mostly from Inserto’s book, alongside a new commission for the group with featured trumpet soloist Sean Jones. Inserto has led her own large ensemble for years and directed the Frankfurt Radio Big Band, so she knows well how, in Ellingtonian fashion, to play her ‘instrument.’”

– Andrey Henkin, JazzTimes

“…a thrilling live performance that combines sophisticated orchestration, powerful melodies, and exceptional solo work from Sean Jones, confirming Inserto as one of the leading voices in contemporary large ensemble jazz.”

– Thierry De Clemensat, Paris Move

“…the magnificent music of composer Ayn Inserto performed by the WDR Big Band which ranks among the world’s most respected large ensembles…. On the funky ‘The Human Soul,’ the WDR Big Band propels Sean Jones’s fiery trumpet solo to soaring heights. It is a fitting conclusion—met with thunderous applause—to a concert that is sure to make the hearts of more than just big band fans beat faster.” –

– Gerd Filtgen, Image Hi Fi

“…uber-creative large group music…. a real masterclass in both composition, arranging, and performance…. Inserto’s four part ‘Suite for Sean Jones’ is one of the best musical portraits that I have heard.”

– Mark Griffith, Modern Drummer

“Inserto writes with complexity, but without letting complexity become an end in itself. Rhythm and melody develop their own narrative threads; voices appear, disappear, and are taken up again elsewhere. Dense orchestral passages can suddenly open up, giving individual instruments space to shine. This is precisely where her special quality as an arranger becomes apparent: the architecture is precise, yet constantly in flux.… a compelling portrait of Ayn Inserto as a composer, arranger, and musical director – full of ideas, contrasts, and surprising twists. Contemporary big band jazz at its finest.”

-Jacek Brun, Jazz Fun