Bellbird - Root in Tandem (2023)

They met in Montreal in 2021 - four musicians with different backgrounds from three different countries. Tenor saxophonist Claire Devlin was born in Ottawa, Canada, but has long worked in Montreal. Alto saxophonist Allison Burik is an American from Kansas City, a 2016 graduate of Berkeley College, a participant in several projects, mostly American: Allison lives in the Boston area. Bassist Eli Davidovichi started in Vancouver, now lives in Montreal, graduated from Capiliano University in Vancouver in 2014 and is also involved in teaching, in addition to performing and producing. Drummer Mili Hong came from South Korea to Vancouver to study English and music. She also received a Bachelor of Science in Jazz Performance from Capiliano University. With Eli Davidovichi, they became partners not only in music but also in life.

The meeting in Montreal showed that all four are united by common creative interests and, importantly, by a common “chemistry”: they are comfortable working together. This is how the Bellbird quartet was born, an ensemble in which there is no piano, and two saxophones are nominated for the role of leading solo instruments, supported by a combination of double bass-drums. In January 2023, it came to recording the band's debut album. The members of the quartet retired to the town of Saint-Zenon in Quebec, on the shore of a frozen lake with peaceful snowy landscapes. In three days, they recorded here the Root in Tandem album we are presenting.

The album's program is the embodiment of complete equality: each of the quartet members brought two author's compositions to the program. When listening, it becomes clear that there is enough space left for improvisation in each track. For example, this is how the opening piece of Blurred Season by Allison Burik looks like: first, two saxes work in unison, then a short break from Mili Hong follows, a series of solo episodes and a finale that repeats the intro with the playing of saxophones in unison. Bellbird prefers the modern mainstream, but musicians find in it a lot of opportunities to create bright and emotional works, where everyone finds a field for self-expression. The drummers get a big extended solo in Devlin's Manakin piece. More than once or twice, along with the saxophones (Allison also plays the bass clarinet), Davidovichi’s double bass comes to the forefront, as, for example, in Claire Devlin’s second composition Pigeons and Disco: here everything starts with a gentle saxophone solo against the background of a double bass, then drums become the main assistant, the development of the piece looks very dynamic, the tension grows, Eli Davidovichi plays a solo closer to the finale, at the same time using the body of his instrument also as percussion - for my taste, this composition is one of the most interesting in the program. Again, for my taste, it is competed with Davidovichi's very melodic piece Bluff with its calm melancholic development, perhaps inspired by the landscapes outside the studio window. Root in Tandem as a whole looks like a very convincing debut of an interesting band, in which the sum of four personalities gives a new and very creative quality.

Tracklist:

01. Blurred Season
02. Bluff
03. If You Can't Swim, Dance
04. Manakin
05. Pigeons & Disco
06. Well
07. Ten Dog
08. Maybe I Won't Go