Apropos of my previous post, in which I wax rather Eeyore-ish on what Big Tech has wrought, allow me to point you to the latest album by the Maria Schneider Orchestra.
On paper, Data Lords sounds almost comically un-hip: a double-disc concept album performed by an 18-piece jazz band that includes accordion and contrabass trombone—until you realize that two of its members, Ben Monder and Donny McCaslin, backed David Bowie on his final album Blackstar, while Schneider herself cowrote one of the tunes.
Comprising two thematic halves—”The Digital World” and “Our Natural World”—Data Lords explores our relationships with both while “searching for sonic beauty in all of it.” Here’s how Schneider explained it when she launched the project:
In the digital world, data lords, who are in a race to amass the entire world’s information, hypnotize us with conveniences, endless information at our fingertips, limitless entertainment, “curated” content, and endless other enticements. While many of those things offer us wonderful tools that enhance our lives and societies in mind-bending ways, a vast number of the enticements numb our minds and lure us into submissiveness. And almost without fail, the enticements, tools and conveniences delivered to us by these data lords, force us into a Faustian bargain of bartering our personal privacy and individuality for these often fleeting benefits. With the additional consequence of less and less face-to-face contact and no real accountability, humans’ internal compasses that measure empathy, along with their sense of self and purpose, are often hijacked. Fueled by silicon chips, rare earth metals, energy-hungry server farms, this digital world often feels right out of a science fiction novel.
In the natural world, magic is revealed if we intentionally divert our attention away from the virtual world long enough to embrace silence. Not long ago, the natural world was our only world. With a brain much freer of clutter, our minds could coast and daydream – a state of mind that produced many of our world’s greatest ideas. This space also left our senses keenly alert. Our eyes and ears were truly hungry for absorbing new artistic creations. And while far less music was instantly available literally at our fingertips, I think most of us remember longingly how intentional and deep our listening was. Many more people reveled in nature, and the myriad of mysteries one would encounter there, ignited questions and a search for meaning and purpose. A vacuum of space in our lives left humans reaching out to others for discourse and real connection. In this organic, analog world, we feel rooted to the earth as unique beings. Fueled by sunlight and oxygen, along with 117 other elements, this mind-blowingly complex and bewildering world, inversely, offers us a centering simplicity as well.
It’s an intense yet gorgeous work, almost Ellingtonian in its grandeur; the kind of music that can raise the hair on the back of your neck while simultaneously bringing a tear to your eye. I’m honestly not sure I’ve heard anything quite like it. Highly, highly recommended.
