A Path of Light

When Jeff Adler sat down to write a song as a gift for his friend's daughter on the occasion of her bat mitzvah, it birthed an idea. The song was an accompaniment to a reading of a text from the Tewa speakers of the south-western US. To fit smoothly with the reading (taking place at the bat mitzvah), Adler wrote it as a duet for two Cherokee flutes and performed it with his friend Laurie Friedman. That's where inspiration hit - what if these flute melodies were part of something bigger? What if they were intertwined with classical or jazz compositions? And so the Hevreh Ensemble was created - a group of New York City-based musicians, led by Adler, who combined their classical training with a propensity for diverse instrumentation.

On A Path of Light, Adler composes songs that blend conventional classical and jazz music with these diverse instruments, such as the Cherokee flute or tabla. The opening track, ‘Sima de los Huesos’, features a bright flute melody above the deep, jazzy twangs of a double bass. The title-track has a deep tabla percussion beneath a klezmerstyled clarinet lead. ‘Sweetgrass, Cedar and Sage’ a few tracks later has an incredibly jazzy feel, while ‘Wudeligv’ feels more like a sombre classical piece led by a minor piano lead. In short, the ensemble comfortably traverses both instrumental and genre boundaries on this album.

On the whole, it works. The album feels both sonically restless and yet softly meditative, shifting between styles with grace and ease. The tabla and the flute soar above the more conventional piano and strings, and Adler's compositions continuously feel tight and fresh.