Julie Sassoon: Land of Shadows – review

The Berlin-based, British-raised pianist and singer Julie Sassoon, a one-off who joins classical discipline to a jazz and improv curiosity without being audibly dominated by either, recorded this meditative solo music of self-discovery (of her Jewish ancestry) live in Germany in April, and played a well-received version on the opening night of the London jazz festival. Sassoon has regularly worked on the cusp of jazz and contemporary-classical music, but this solo set represents her most personal work – a journey back through the 1930s German-Jewish history her family had barely been able to discuss. Some episodes are dreamlike and barely mobile, like the opening Just So, with its repeating four-note figure only momentarily intensified by mild dissonance. What the Church Bells Saw has a repeating treble call as its dominant phrase, before its rhythms begin to push and tug each other other out of line. The trickling Forty Four fitfully waltzes with some of the most engaging melodies of the set, and gleams with Sassoon's ghostly vocal sounds, but there's a compelling Keith Jarrett-like jauntiness to its later stages. The closing New Life is a 20-minute kaleidoscope of fast, systems-like ostinatos, choral vocal sounds and explosively percussive low-register effects. It's an unclassifiable venture, but Julie Sassoon consistently makes the piano, her voice and her deepest emotions sound awesomely and naturally inseparable.