Jason Anick & Jason Yeager - Sanctuary (2024) [Hi-Res]

In some way, each and every one of us is searching for sanctuary. In certain cases, that search reflects a vital need – a home, a country, a safe haven. For those of us fortunate to have those crucial needs met, sanctuary comes to mean something more personal and metaphorical – the embrace of loved ones, a cherished memory, a quiet space in nature. On Sanctuary, their extraordinary second album as co-leaders, violinist Jason Anick and pianist Jason Yeager explore the vast spectrum of what the concept can mean through the medium of their own personal sanctuary – the music they create.

Due out October 11, 2024 via Sunnyside Records, Sanctuary builds on the foundation set by the pair’s previous outing, 2017’s United. That album marked the culmination of a nearly lifelong friendship and collaboration; Anick and Yeager met for the first time at a local jam session as teens in the Boston area. Since then, both have continued to collaborate while establishing flourishing careers as composers, performers and educators, with both serving on the faculty at Berklee College of Music.

In advance of the album release, on June 28, 2024, the duo will publish Yeager’s composition “Nublado” (Spanish for “overcast”), a single culled from the sessions that yielded Sanctuary. Featuring leading trumpet titan Jason Palmer, “Nublado” will be available exclusively as a digital single on all streaming platforms.

Where United represented a convergence of their distinct voices, with each contributing individual pieces, Sanctuary is a melding of the two, with more than half of the tracks credited to both composers. In addition, the debut’s rotating cast of musicians has settled into a core quintet, with Anick and Yeager joined by trumpeter and flugelhorn player Billy Buss, bassist Greg Loughman and drummer Mike Connors, with guest appearances by trumpet great Jason Palmer, tenor saxophonist Edmar Colón and cellist Naseem Alatrash.

Sanctuary is a direct result of not only the personal evolution that Anick and Yeager have undergone over the last several years, but of the times in which it was created. The project was interrupted by the pandemic, providing time for the co-creators to further develop the music they’d prepared for their cancelled April 2020 recording date. At the same time, headlines around the globe have been filled with stories of refugee crises and immigration battles, bringing home the profound importance of the core idea.

“We had two goals at the outset of this album,” Anick explains. “First, we wanted to develop a cohesive music from our shared voices by composing together. Second, we really wanted to reflect the things that were going on in the world around us. The central theme coalesced around sanctuary, because at the end of the day it’s what we're all trying to find.”

Time and memory both play important roles in the narrative that unfolds over the course of the album. Opener “Futures Past” muses on the way that the future we imagine for ourselves can change in a moment as the result of present events. “When something catastrophic happens,” Yeager explains, “you're not only losing your present circumstance but you're potentially losing the dreams, hopes and fantasies you had for the future. The tune wrestles with the loss of the futures that now only exist as memories.”

Echoing the Hoagy Carmichael classic “The Nearness of You,” “Nearness of Now” takes its title from a conversation with NEA Jazz Master Joanne Brackeen, and in its comforting embrace of tradition harkens back to the standards that Anick and Yeager played in their earliest encounters. Though their music has progressed in myriad ways since, the jazz tradition still lies at the root of their partnership. The elusiveness of the past is captured by the mesmerizing “Ephemory,” a portmanteau of “ephemeral” and “memory” that spotlights Billy Buss’ achingly gorgeous flugelhorn. The determined title track features an impassioned turn from trumpeter Jason Palmer.

“Persecution” and “Farewell,” both graced by the work of Palestinian cellist Naseem Alatrash, are thematically linked, parallel ruminations on the plight of people uprooted from their homes by tragedy. “Both pieces have to do with people fleeing injustice, fleeing war, fleeing poverty and violence,” Yeager says. “’Persecution’ is more aggressive and almost sinister, while ‘Farewell’ has a more melancholic mood.”

Anick and Yeager each contribute a tune of their own as well. Yeager’s darkly chaotic “AI Apocalypse” evokes a future built on machine learning run amok, with Anick and Buss employing extended techniques and Yeager layering futuristic synth textures. Immediately following this piece is the album’s sole violin-piano duet, “Colorado,” co-written by Anick and Rhythm Future Quartet guitarist Max O’Rourke. The song is a dazzling, folk-tinged meditation on the rejuvenating power of the natural world. Sanctuary is rounded out by two aptly chosen pieces from the pens of other composers: a striking arrangement of Chopin’s “Raindrop” Prelude that mirrors the duo’s concerns in its dichotomy of the lyrical and the tempestuous; and “Lost” by the iconic Wayne Shorter, bolstered by a blistering tenor solo from Edmar Colón, who had worked with the late saxophonist/composer as a music copyist.

Jason Anick - violin
Jason Yeager - piano
Jason Palmer - trumpet
Billy Buss - trumpet
Edmar Colón - tenor saxophone
Naseem Alatrash - cello
Greg Loughman - bass
Mike Connors - drums