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Jill Haley — Colors Collide
((Not on label) No #, 2024, CD / DL)

by Peter Thelen, Published 2024-12-30

Colors Collide Cover art

Another in Jill Haley’s ongoing series inspired by America’s national parks, Colors Collide brings that number very close to a dozen full length albums now. This celebrates the beauty and colors of the Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona, east of Flagstaff near the New Mexico western border and south of the painted desert, an area that features numerous examples of wood that became submerged and eventually crystalized over two hundred million years ago, which was followed by the rise of the Colorado Plateau, again over millions of years, which has left the area as a desert. Haley spent several weeks living and working in the park, composing the eleven pieces that comp rise the album at hand. Along with the beauty of the petrified wood, the park also contains many examples of ancient (13,000 years ago) Native American petroglyphs, the ancestors of the Pueblo people. Haley documents all of what she experienced there in her compositions. Throughout, she plays piano, oboe, English horn and synthesizer, and is joined by her husband David Cullen on guitar and bass, and her son Graham Cullen on cello, as well as guest flutist Dawn King-Krown. For the most part, piano is the structural element that holds each of the pieces together, while the double-reeds handle most of the solos; there are no drums or percussion, and the synthesizer is used sparingly for coloration, and other instruments play a supporting role, although there is a beautiful cello solo on the opening piece “Crimson Bands.” Other titles like “Earth Tones,” “Sepia Dunes,” “Orange Melts Into Blue,” “Splashes of Silver” and of course the title track are concerned with the beauty and varied colors, while “Crisp Desert Morn,” “Hues of Nizhoni” and “Ochre Etchings” offer interpretations of other aspects of the park’s unique qualities. While light and refreshing, Colors Collide is a sublime example of modern chamber music of the highest order.

Filed under: New releases, 2024 releases

Related artist(s): Jill Haley

More info
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSDqqGav1CQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7SkrEqpYHs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZS3Jm_Xhso

 

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