Pianist Holly Bowling’s third studio album, Seeking All That’s Still Unsung, completes a circle—sort of. Her similarly-titled sophomore effort, Better Left Unsung, was wholly comprised of Grateful Dead material and it followed a debut, Distillation of A Dream, devoted exclusively to songs of Phish. But 2019’s brilliant Live at the Old Church stands as the pinnacle of the solo approach by which the woman made a name for herself over the last five years, a seamless string of interpolations from those two sources.
In comparison, then, this new work might seem less ambitious by definition. That is, if Bowling wasn’t taking a cue from iconic jazz pianist Bill Evans and his 1963 album Conversations with Myself (and its sequel of fifteen years later More Conversations) and thereby availing herself of the liberty of overdubbing her piano playing. It’s testament to the intricacy of Bowling’s imagination, however, that when she unfurls flourishes of melody in constructing the main progression of “St. Stephen,” it’s difficult if not impossible to tell if it is a solo excursion.
Formal expertise aside, Bowling’s familiarity with the material fosters the uncanny ability of great jazz musicians, that is, to execute spontaneous improvisation(s) virtually indistinguishable from set arrangements. Such distinctions become moot too in hearing her follow the aforementioned tune with “The Eleven,” a progression the Grateful Dead itself often tendered. Yet it’s these very touchstones, of the utterly familiar turned utterly new, that makes the woman’s performances accessible.
On another artful segue, “China Cat Sunflower” and “I Know You Rider,” the pianist reveals just enough of the essential melody and rhythm so those components of the compositions become gateways into her deeper explorations of the material, from the differing angles of the multiple pianos. If Bowling achieved nothing else with her approach, these sparse arrangements would reveal the beauty at the core of these numbers. But she’s also able to conjure a stunning clarity through the use of a single instrument, even with more than one recorded track.
That said, she’s hardly self-indulgent on Seeking All That’s Still Unsung. For instance, Bowling chooses not to make more of “Sage and Spirit” than its skeletal tune allows and leaves it after a little over three minutes so that it effectively functions as an intro to the coupling of Bob Weir’s collaborations with John Perry Barlow, “Lost Sailor” and “Saint of Circumstance.” Conjuring up similarities in atmosphere between that merging and the short instrumental from Blues For Allah, Bowling refuses to allow her ingenious take to become predictable for herself or the audience. Instead, in a gesture of artistic generosity, she’s using her virtuosic technique to illustrate the well-defined style of the authors.
Bowling’s passion for this work as both a fan and an artist clearly elevates such performances. In fact, that attribute may be the source of the ambition by which she chooses to close this record with one of the Dead’s most challenging compositions, “Weather Report Suite Prelude, Part I, Part II (Let It Grow),” then follows with one of its most nakedly emotional, “Stella Blue.” In doing so, Bowling enters territory frequently inhabited by its authors, but she approaches the terrain from an angle all her own, so that, as with the cuts that open this LP, she’s challenging herself and her listeners on two fronts: to recall the essence of the tunes and to fully grasp her own complex interpretation(s).
In the end, Seeking All That’s Still Unsung succeeds on multiple fronts. This uncommonly gifted musician proffers direct communication with listeners nurturing that sense of community surrounding her inspiration. And, in more pragmatic terms, the LP should also function as means to the end of rediscovering the songs in the context of performances by the iconic band itself.
Photo Credit: Jesse Bell
