For those unaware, the music of American saxophonist and scholar Jason Robinson (rugged and scintillating, New York Times) thrives in the fertile overlaps between improvisation and composition, acoustic music and electronics, tradition and experimentalism.

Playscape Recordings is proud to release Ancestral Numbers I, saxophonist, flutist, and composer Jason Robinson’s second release on the Playscape Recordings label.

On Ancestral Numbers I, Jason Robinson translates his own family history into evocative musical form. The first of two albums reflecting on his ancestry, (and Ancestral Numbers II following on October 8th, 2024) features a superb quintet distilled from Robinson’s larger Janus Ensemble, with trombonist Michael Dessen, pianist Joshua White, bassist Drew Gress and drummer Ches Smith.

1. Second House
2. Malachi
3. Potentiality
4. Remembering Water
5. Roots and Routes
6. Wattensaw
7. Vestibule
8. Ancestral Numbers (alt)

This decadently sculpted new recording opens on the forthright, yet smoothly cultured Second House and the more organic Malachi and then we get the joyously playful Potentially, the sumptuous Remembering Water, the intricate machinations that drive Roots and Routes, the percussion and upright bass-fed Wattensaw, the recording rounding out on the aligned jam of Vestibule, closing on the sombre, stoic at times, and yet always flirtatious Ancestral Numbers (alt).

What does ancestry sound like?, asks Jason Robinson. I’ve long been fascinated by the idea that underlying patterns influence our lives and that they manifest enigmatically and mysteriously across and within generations. I don’t necessarily believe in fate, but uncanny syncretisms–the stubborn coincidences whose songs lurk in the edges of the mind’s ear–bloom across my ancestral record, as they might yours as well.

Ancestral Numbers is a sound meditation on genealogy and family history comprising an ongoing series of compositions for varying instrumentation. The present album, Ancestral Numbers I, along with its subsequent partner Ancestral Numbers II, are the first published documents of the project.

Numbers: the numerical relationships revealed in one’s ancestry, perhaps a guide or motivating energy, a companion, a guardian. Number: a song, a tale, an imaginative fragment or universe, momentarily drawn out of one’s ancestry and generational histories, but also as a broader investigation of who we are and from where we come.

I began composing the Ancestral Numbers series shortly after the passing of my grandmother on my mother’s side. Ruby Annette Kilbury (nee Thomason) was the oldest of four siblings and was raised on farms in Arkansas and Texas, before settling in California as an adolescent. Ancestral Numbers I and Ancestral Numbers II are inspired by the loving warmth of her influence in my family.

Musicians:
Jason Robinson, tenor & soprano saxophones, alto flute
Michael Dessen, trombone
Joshua White, piano
Drew Gress, bass
Ches Smith, drums, glockenspiel

Official Purchase Link