American, Seattle-based pianist-vocalist-composer Robin Holcomb and Canadian, Vancouver cellist Peggy Lee have been making music together for two decades, including as a duo since 2005, and in expanded formats, as in The Point of It All (Songlines, 2010), with Holcomb’s spouse, keyboard player Wayne Horvitz, and Lee’s spouse, drummer Dylan van der Schyff. Reno is their debut duo album, featuring Holcomb’s eight poetic, intimate instrumental pieces and eight equally poetic songs, produced by Horwitz. The album was recorded at Majestic Oakwood in Seattle, a space with the intimacy of a living room, in September 2023.
The chamber, introspective music navigates freely and patiently between jazz, contemporary music, folk, and Americana. It stresses the profound affinity between these gifted musicians, as well as the organic, conversational interplay of Holcomb’s unique harmonic language with Lee’s texturally rich cello playing, with their subtle, relaxed yet unpredictable improvisations. The songs, delivered by Holcomb’s unassuming but deeply soulful delivery, reflect melancholic feelings of grief and despair, but also of stubborn resistance and hope.
The music revisits Holcomb’s compositions, including the title piece from her debut album, Larks, They Crazy (Sound Aspects, 1988), her first and shortest lyric, and pieces from her suite The Utopia Project, composed in 2004 about utopian communities that thrived in the Pacific Northwest in the late 1800s/early 1900s. The album ends with «Waltz», Holcomb’s earliest song cycle, Angels at the Four Corners (1989), a song cycle reflecting the composer’s experiences sharecropping tobacco in North Carolina. The album is titled after the opening pieces of Holcomb and Horwitz’ duo album, Solos (Songlines, 2004).
This beautiful, moving album distills what Lee calls «simplicity within complexity», or as Holcomb calls it, an attempt to bring together «sensibilities of clarity and chaos». Given the slim discography of Holcomb, this is a rare gem.
Eyal Hareuveni
Robin Holcomb (piano, voice), Peggy Lee (cello)
