Harry Bartlett: Mountain Air

Guitarist Harry Bartlett released a short EP, Mountain Air, earlier this year with Aline Homzy on violin and Andrew Downing on bass alongside his own acoustic guitar playing.

"I’ve always been interested in jazz music that reaches towards folk and Americana," Bartlett told me this summer. He lists the biggest artists who come to mind when thinking of that fusion: Charlie Haden, Bill Frisell, Brad Mehldau. But he also names Downing, his bassist, right alongside them. In the early 2000s, Downing played with Vancouver jazz-folkers Jesse Zubot and Steve Dawson, appearing on the Zubot and Dawson album Chicken Scratch; and anchoring the group Great Uncles of the Revolution, which featured them plus trumpeter Kevin Turcotte. Downing's taste, tone, and collegial deference shine through Mountain Air.

Bartlett's previous work has been covered in-depth by Chris Fraser at Rhythm Changes. Homzy, who last appeared on this site when she dropped perhaps my favourite Canadian jazz album of 2023, plays with precision on this patient three-track project. On "Trail Song" she steps to the side of the stereo field to add plucking accompaniment to Downing's bass solo, lays way to the background for Bartlett to solo on guitar with Downing, then takes her own solo with audacity.

"Trail Song" is the only track of the three with a swiftly rolling tempo. Bartlett told me about how folk music became a bigger part of his career, but my sense is that none of Mountain Air's three tunes quite capture what he describes here:

"Around 2021 I became more interested in learning these folk traditions explicitly, so I learned 'Billy in the Lowground' and 'Blackberry Blossom' and presumptuously considered myself prepared to visit Nashville. That was in May 2021. Jordan Tice [a Nashville guitarist] was a huge inspiration in bridging the world of folk music to contemporary composition, and I reached out to him about taking lessons. He introduced me to people and I was going to lots of bluegrass and old-time jams. I learned and continued to learn how much depth and nuance is behind playing a tune. I think what I found here that I hadn’t considered before is how to play with a consistently driving rhythm that doesn’t cease and how to keep the melody articulate through this wall of sound. It’s a really physical thing and it has totally shaped the way I play music."

Bartlett brings the sensibility, not the literal style, to his latest recording. "The physicality of playing bluegrass and old-time music has shaped the way my music sounds, and it has also been a source of artistic inspiration," he says.

"A Sun Beneath the Clouds" explores carefully-constructed chords that Bartlett delivers softly from low to high. Homzy dances atop them. The ensemble threatens to break loose in the middle but settles back into the melody before too long.

Bartlett's feeling for the heaviness behind the tradition could also apply to the blues, jazz, and more. "Folk music celebrates the good times and also confronts all the innate suffering of being human, and it does so in a way that simply is. Good isn’t better or worse than bad: they both simply are. This candid acknowledgment of being human is something that I strive to write and play from."

"Eagle River" is the most Frisellian track as well as the shortest. An additional piece of ear candy chimes into the right channel. With its long violin tones, it sounds like a composition all the way through without much improvisation.

Mountain Air is also basically the name of this ensemble led by Bartlett, which in Toronto has been presented over the years as more than a trio, including at the Tranzac. He recorded this EP in Toronto and continues to play both there and in Vancouver despite living in Nashville. His most frequent venue when coming back here has been Tyrant Studios, with Katie Stewart and Emilio Suarez having completed the trio lineup there two months ago in July.

released May 31, 2024 | Buy digital (Bandcamp) | available on streaming