Toronto musician Chelsea McBride and her large jazz ensemble have returned with an ambitious new recording called Aftermath.
The album follows the composer and multi-instrumentalist’s critically praised 2017 effort The Twilight Fall, the first full-length album from her 19-piece modern jazz orchestra Socialist Night School. With it, McBride explores “conflict in all its forms,” and the consequences of the actions that people take during conflict.
“The works found on this album were meant to be dark, and scary,” McBride says. “Conflict is never an easy thing to explore. But I can’t look at all the hurt that inspired this recording without remembering that even in the worst moments… somehow there is hope. People are inherently good. We may gravitate to the negative at times, but we could use a little more practice of love and gratitude. To remember that if we don’t teach, no one learns, and if we don’t open, no one loves. Consider this album to be an invitation and a call to action: to be true to your word, to own your actions, and your commitment to making the world a better place. No one person has all the answers, all things right, all things good. But you are much stronger when you’re not alone.”
The majority of the album was conceived at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. It was recorded at Canterbury Music Company in Toronto on April 7-10, 2019.
McBride says her compositions are influenced by artists such as Bob Brookmeyer, Maria Schneider and Darcy James Argue.
Aftermath was released independently on Nov. 1, 2019.