Mary Halvorson Hits the Peak

The adventurous jazz guitarist's "About Ghosts" Is Her Best Album Yet

Mary Halvorson is the jazz guitarist of the moment. The just-published Downbeat Critics’ Poll ranks her as #1 Guitarist of the Year, her Amaryllis Sextet as #1 Group of the Year, and Halvorson herself as #2 Artist of the Year (outflanked just barely by tenor saxophonist James Brandon Lewis).

As if to sharpen the point, her new album—About Ghosts, her 14th as a leader since emerging as a wildly adventurous 27-year-old in 2008, her 4th release on the Nonesuch label (which signed her up in 2022)—is a triumph, staking a new level in her ascent as not only an innovative guitarist but an accomplished composer.

 Halvorson first came to my attention about 15 years ago, when she played in a trio with pianist Jason Moran and cornetist Ron Miles at the (long-lamented) Jazz Standard. As I wrote at the time, I didn’t quite understand what she was doing, but she seemed to be painting new colors in jazz guitar—the crystalline intonation, off-centered harmonies, the truncated chords that seemed to dart nowhere till their neon lights lit up an alluringly sinuous back alley. (The trio later recorded a lovely album, Bangs, on Moran’s Yes label.)

Through the ensuing decade, I listened to Halvorson’s CDs as they arrived (most of them recorded for Firehouse 12 Records) and came away with mixed feelings. Usually her pieces (and almost all the tracks on all the albums were Halvorson compositions) started with intriguing hooks, but after a couple minutes, especially once her bandmates slid into their improvs, things would devolve into chaos, as if no one had quite worked out where to carve the rest of the path.

An exception—in retrospect, a breakthrough—came with her 2013 album, illusionary Sea. It marked the debut of her sextet—before this she’d recorded, and as far as I know played, only with smaller ensembles—and that may have made the difference: more musicians to take up the slack or possibly a wider palette of colors from the additional horns. In any event, the music flowed more fluently from start to finish.

 Over the next six albums, she experimented with different band sizes and band members, finally settling, in 2022, on her first Nonesuch release, Amaryllis, with the sextet she’s been leading ever since, all its members leaders in their own right, though they all came up as sidemen (or -women), so they know how to share the spotlight and recede, as appropriate: vibraphonist Patricia Brennan, trombonist Jacob Garchik, bassist Nick Dunston, and drummer Tomas Fujiwara. On five of About Ghosts’ eight tracks, the textures are thickened further by the addition of one or two saxophonists (Immanuel Wilkins and Brian Settles), turning the group into a septet or octet.

This is complex music, complicated further by so many musicians, all of whom spend at least some of the time sketching their own lines, yet the interplay is clear, even elegant, while retaining a vital swing, whether on an up-tempo rouser or a simmering ballad. And after the band plays the head, the complexities—which, in the past, often veered into chaos—turn still headier but no less clear, the lines weaving in and out of each other’s orbits, the players trading off melody with harmony with rhythm, Halvorson herself sometimes twanging the some note over and over (like a dirge, but whose sound seems to change against the swirling backdrop), sometimes strumming the mood, sometimes tracing her own new tune with unexpected, rivetingly wide or tight intervals.

It is beyond time to herald Halvorson as a true and brilliant original. Some have likened her music to Anthony Braxton or Joe Morris, mainly because she studied with the former at Wesleyan and the latter in private lessons. But interviews with all three suggest that what Halvorson gained most from both mentors was permission—and insights into the sensibility that it takes—to go her own way.

All of Halvorson’s albums, first at Firehouse 12 and now at Nonesuch, sound at least very good, and this one is no exception. Chris Allen manned the controls at Sear Sound, drawing on its collection of vintage microphones, mainly Neumann condensers (U-67s, U-87s) and AEA ribbons, coaxing a nice blend of warmth, detail, and dynamics spread across a clear, balanced soundstage. The guitar and horns especially seem right there. My qualms are that the vibes (and what a brilliant player is Patricia Brennan) don’t quite ring as they should, nor do the drumheads and cymbals sizzle quite as they should. Could this be the result of phase-cancellation caused by too many microphones? (Allen supplied me the list of what mics he placed where; there were four over the vibes and a dozen scattered around the drumkit.) Looking up my reviews of other Allen-engineered albums (Marta Sanchez’s Spanish-American Art Museum, Jason Moran’s From the Dancehall to the Battlefield), I see I’ve noted the same many strengths and single shortfall. Might be worth looking into.

 But I’m quibbling. About Ghosts is a terrific album in every way.

Mary opens here own record!

A track from the record: