Blank Canvas is the fourth album from composer and vocalist Sarah Elizabeth Charles and her band SCOPE. This one comes via Chief Xian Atunde Adjuah’s (aka Christian Scott) Stretch Music label in partnership with Ropeadope. It’s her first release since 2017’s Free of Form, also on the same label.
Much has transpired in the intervening years beyond the societal turmoil we have all experienced as Charles suffered through a miscarriage and the loss of her brother, but she also became a mother with the birth of her son and thus she shares the highs and lows on this recording. Having participated in albums from Adjuah and Jesse Fischer, she reciprocates by inviting them as guests joining the SCOPE lineup. She also for the first time adds guitar to the ensemble by way of Jordan Peters who works along with Jesse Elder (keyboards & piano), Burniss Earl Travis II, a.k.a. Boom Bishop (bass), and John Davis (drums). Peters, who has a crisp but often hard-edged tone adds a rock-like element to the SCOPE sound, and Travis II should be familiar to jazz listeners through his work with Robert Glasper and James Francies. Travis II, Elder, and Davis have been her cohorts for each release.
Consider Charles a very socially and culturally attuned artist in the vein of Abbey Lincoln and Betty Carter. One of the clear highlights is her interpretation of “Freedom Day,”, from Max Roach’s iconic 1961 protest album We Insist! Freedom Now Suite, which originally featured Abbey Lincoln. This version, with Charles absolutely wailing, comes more than sixty years later but is just as importantly relevant. It features atmospheric drums, a striking bass feature, and Adjuah’s pizzicato-like string tones on his Adjuah Bow, a self-designed string instrument modeled on the African kora and n’goni enhanced with electronic effects. While Chief Adjuah played trumpet and produced the last effort, he plays a lesser role here but makes a striking impact with his instrument, which also more directly colors “Brother,” co-written by Charles and Adjuah, a mournful lamentation on the loss of Charles’ sibling. The song is a bookend to “Out Loud,” written for her brother Luke before his passing and previously heard as a duet on Tone with pianist Jarrett Cherner.
She opens with the reverent, meditative “Guest House Intro” (incorporating a poem by Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks), Charles is in exploration mode, ferreting out the emotions she’s been facing. Her imaginative use of effects and vocal layering has long been part of her approach, but Blank Canvas takes it to a higher level. Charles gives us plenty of thematic clues along the way – subtitling her pieces such as this one with ‘for humanity’. “Freedom Day,” for example has “for true liberty.”
The keyboard-heavy “Borders,” like many here trace to Fischer as co-producer, who came aboard after the initial tracks were cut but added layers and sonics to complete the process. The title track dreamily weaves in guitars and keyboards to frame Charles’ passionate vocals which teeter between sung and spoken word passages, buttressed by echo effects. “Angel Spark” brings one of the better melodies over Davis’s inventive, African-flavored percussion while “Malba” is a ballad (‘for women of color”) with Charles exhibiting an impressive vocal range over a soft, ethereal backdrop. The latter characterizes the layered, keyboard tinkling “Blind Emotions” (‘for growth’) while “BE the solution” is a soft piano tune akin to “Malba.” The closer, “The Message” (‘for higher self’) falls into this dreamy, spacey pattern as well. Peters’ guitar weaves in and out of the electronics to great effect as she sings “I will find my way forward.”
For Charles the album is both cathartic and spiritual., a progressive vocal effort from an artist with a limitless imagination.
