TO BE CONTINUED
Carol Liebowitz, piano 
Claire de Brunner, bassoon
Daniel Carter, tenor, alto, soprano saxophones, flute, trumpet, clarinet 
Kevin Norton, vibraphone, drums, percussion

REVIEW OF POETRY FOR THE FUTURE

 To Be Continued takes a new approach

Individually, the members of To Be Continued are educated and successful in their respective instruments.

Poetry from the Future is a full-length album of their latest work. The recording’s purpose is to show that the art of improvisation is without boundaries. The quartet uses slightly eclectic instrumentation (a bassoon and vibraphone are included) to take jazz beyond its traditional limits. The result is the art of sound.

What is poetry?

As a person with degrees that involve lots of words, when a declarative puzzle such as Poetry from the Future is presented to me, I immediately begin taking the short phrase apart to see where the core of it is. In this case, I also needed to listen to the music that was presented under that heading. The music is what the group has promised: heavily improvised jazz. But how is that poetry from the future? Am I being too literal? Maybe not. Poetry and jazz share commonalities. For starters, they are either loved or hated by most people. For many, the haphazard arrangement of notes or words is too much and fails to make sense. And that is what I had to let go of to enjoy this recording–stop trying to put it in a box and apply logic to it. Let it flow.

Outside the box listening

Usually, when listening to jazz, I expect that the texture will come from the interplay between instruments in different classes, or when the vocalist changes keys. Throughout Poetry from the Future, it was frequently the bassoon parts that gave the pieces life. The title track is the shortest song on the album. There are undoubtedly some people who will find the extremely improvised nature of the work here too unformed to be enjoyable. Artists cannot please everyone. This is not a jazz CD to put on to form the soundscape of a summer party. But it is artful. The instrumentation is clearly skillful. Maybe the point is that, in the future, art will not be explained. Art, then, is symbolized by the word “poetry.” This is a short album with a running time of about 45 minutes. Some standout tracks are “Invisible Colors,” “Poetry from the Future,” and “Cascadeascope.”

To Be Continued’s new album Poetry from the Future will be available Aug. 4, 2017. It is the perfect album for jazz fans who think they have heard it all when it comes to improvised jazz.

Dodie Miller-Gould, lemonwire.com
June 13, 2017