CD: Nat Baldwin - People Changes

Nat Baldwin’s alt cred is impeccable. Not only is he a former bassist for Brooklyn’s über-cool Dirty Projectors, he’s also responsible for a string of releases that began with 2003’s free jazz set Solo Contrabass. Also prepared to take a stroll with the less cool, he’s been heard on a TV ad for Orange mobile phones, the one with the barefoot, ladder-descending lady. Although People Changes worms intimately in, it’s hard to detect a singular voice. Formerly in thrall to Anthony Braxton, he’s now trying on Arthur Russell.

Opening People Changes with a faithful cover of Russell’s “A Little Lost” wasn’t a great idea. Cello oscillations defined Russell’s most affecting music, as did his high, emotive voice. Baldwin has both, although he employs a double bass. Second cut “Weights” – which Baldwin originally recorded on a 2008 EP – could be another Russell cover. It’s only on the assumedly not ironically titled third track “Real Fakes” that Baldwin exhibits his own voice. About 1 min 15 secs in, a discordance takes over and the song fragments into a sawing semi-concrête cacophony with atonal bowing. “The Same Thing” (another unfortunate title) also intermittently escapes Russell’s shadow to turn beautifully hymnal.

“Lifted” is another reprise of one of Baldwin’s old songs, also originally released in 2008. Even so, it’s the album’s most extraordinary cut, the cello bed and his voice suddenly, unexpectedly, assaulted by free jazz sax, clarinet and drums. But it doesn’t take Baldwin elsewhere, as the additional instrumentation sits on top. “What is There” follows. Its full-on atonality is where “Lifted” might have arrived at. The album closes with a cover of sometime collaborator Kurt Weisman’s 2010 album track “Let My Spirit Rise”.

People Changes frustrates. Baldwin’s persona is struggling to escape, but it’s held in check by what he’s borrowed, both from others and his own recent past.

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