Mary Halvorson: About Ghosts review – restless beauty from jazz’s shape-shifting guitarist

(Nonesuch)
The Brooklyn boundary-pusher’s expanded ensemble returns with a kaleidoscopic blend of angular rhythms, intricate melodies and thrilling improvisations

However edgy and angular Mary Halvorson’s music gets, powerful melodies and inviting harmonies always drift below even the stormiest surface, giving the much-lauded New York composer and guitarist an appeal way beyond the avant garde. About Ghosts features an expanded version of her Amaryllis ensemble, which made one of 2024’s standout jazz albums, Cloudward. The lineup retains Adam O’Farrill (trumpet), Jacob Garchik (trombone), Patricia Brennan (vibraphone), Nick Dunston (bass) and Tomas Fujiwara (drums), augmented by Blue Note Records’ fiery, gospelly alto-sax star Immanuel Wilkins and the rugged, Wayne Shorter-like tenorist Brian Settles.

These two players give this release a crucially different feel, lending richer tonalities and expressive range to Halvorson’s signature brass fanfares, boppish-to-abstract improv, restlessly interweaving melodies and vigilant drumming. Opener Full of Neon begins the set with a textbook piece of Halvorson ensemble variety: elliptically march-like percussion, squirming improv intro, fluent solos and luxurious ensemble passages with woodpecker-like horn chatter. Carved From starts to canter and chime after a soft, unaccompanied arrival in rich horn chords, and features driving improv from Halvorson and Wilkins, mixing crisply defined guitar figures and skidding elisions with flat-out, whooping alto-sax firestorms.