On Bryony Jarman-Pinto's records "Cage and Aviary," and "Below Dawn"
Lyrical jazz speaking to my bear heart
Some weeks ago I came across Bryony Jarman-Pinto’s song “For the bear,” in some recommended music I’d been listening to.
I’ve listened to both of Bryony Jarman-Pinto’s records several times at this point - her 2019 release Cage and Aviary as well as her current-year release of Below Dawn. The former is from where the song “For the bear originates,” and carries with it a strength of purpose through the journey of its lyric.
Some days ago, in one of my more socially anxious moments in recent years, I stepped outside to a neighbor’s going-away party wearing one of my safety-pieces: a gift from a dear friend of a soft and fuzzy hat of a bear with blushing red cheeks, two small, smiling eyes, and some naturally round and cute ears overtop. Someone down there mentioned a few times in short succession how desperately he wanted to simply pet me while wearing that hat.
I’ve been working on a book of bear poems for nearly a decade now and, for some time, it operated within a framework of four sections: bear, hunter, fish, bird. Bear eats fish, bird eats scrap, hunter eats bear, fish — eventually — eat hunter. The record, Cage and Aviary, is framed between the starting song “For the Birds,” and ends with “For the Bear,” — a position that made such intrinsic sense to me that I forgot I do not know this musician personally, have not had the pleasure of discussing bears and birds and dancing with her.
Listening to Cage and Aviary feels akin to the journey of body from airborne to groundedness. From restrained to unbound. Or perhaps the binary is too simple of a mechanism to describe what’s at work in the play of sound in Jarman-Pinto’s melodies. What I love here is that both creatures — the bird and the bear — are restrained in their own ways as well as free and capable in their own innate spiritude.
Take this quote from Colin McGuire off Popmatters, for instance,
The most memorable moments come when Jarman-Pinto takes those values and throws in dashes of jazz spices to make the pot particularly appetizing. “All About Life” centers around swinging drums that evoke a time in music when twerking wasn’t even a figment of the imagination, and ball gowns were as prevalent as suits and ties on a dance floor. There’s a touch of class in everything Jarman-Pinto does and here, her winking vocals and bopping bass line all but demand nothing but the sweetest glass of champagne as the proper companion for a dance such as this.
If Cage and Aviary is a very earthly album, Below Dawn is certainly more of a watery album. A literal start to the album in “Water Come,” and more songs like “Riverside,” and “Bathe In Me (Station Road Acapella),” all collaborate with water and its natural sounds for the melodic entrancement of the lyric. These songs juxtapose with a song like “O,” well, as it feels akin to the exuberance of welcoming the embrace of a washing over you. In this case, a love and a delight washing over you, enveloping your frame with the vitality that sends your feet moving around, your hips rocking gently, your eyes softening.
If you’d like to listen, please check out Jarman-Pinto’s records here, for example.