His tunes have that same sensibility- they are layered and sophisticated while “Jeremy is a rare drummer who possesses both insane skills and immaculate taste.
Cunningham also taps regular collaborators Ben LaMar Gay, Jaimie Branch, Tomeka Reid, Dustin Laurenzi, Matt Ulery, and Josh Johnson. Further deepening the textural and emotive impact, Cunningham formed a “drum choir” for these recordings, comprised of close mentors and colleagues Mike Reed, Makaya McCraven, and Mikel Patrick Avery. Co-produced by Jeff Parker and Paul Bryan, and engineered by Paul Bryan and John McEntire, this new work confronts the tragedy of violence and examines the acute ripple effect on several people's lives through the lens of memory, response, and collage. This record is the beginning of a complex conversation.Chicago drummer and composer Jeremy Cunningham wrote The Weather Up There in response to the loss of his brother Andrew, who died in a home invasion robbery in 2008. Violence is essentially the end of language and communication.
Instead, The Weather Up There broadens the perspective of grief and invites the listener to meditate on the meaning of guns. Taken out of context, "Hike" could sound like an instrumental hit on a compilation of the new Chicago sound, but here it becomes so much more: a bright, bouncy moment in a story that refuses to be one-sided. This is a deep story of grief, protest and reconciliation told as a narrative that includes such an irresistibly funky tune as "Hike," with Parker spinning his signature lines on the guitar. They help create a dense musical painting that is far from the quick, numbing newsflashes of television and simplified headlines. He is helped by a strong team of musicians, including co-producers, bassist Paul Bryan and guitarist Jeff Parker, and other Chicago luminaries like saxophonist Dustin Laurenzi, cellist Tomeka Reid and trumpeter Jaimie Branch. While Cunningham conveys the feeling of being isolated on "Return the Tides," he isn't. Using a drowsy acoustic beat and Ben LaMar Gay's soulful background vocals, the music reflects the state of being half-awake with Cunningham saying: "I'm sleepwalking while the whole world is on fire."
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The different voices heard on the record emphasize a narrative that goes beyond a single person, but Cunningham's own voice can also be heard on "Return the Tides," a reflection on memory and loss and how to move on. This collective loss is seen in the bigger political perspective of how gun violence can affect a society. It's also an important aspect of the work that the subjective point of view is transgressed as shown on the track "Elegy," a touching minimalistic tapestry of voices, tinkling bells, soft cymbal sounds and rising rhythms delving into the details of the case and the pain it caused for everyone involved.
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Grief is shown as a process that transcends simple categories and it's the same way about the music: it's both standing still and moving, bleak and full of light, a thread to the past and a link to the present, dreamy and relentlessly raw. The beginning makes it clear that the record is just as much about warmth, hope and gratefulness as it is about sadness, despair and senselessness.
The music is a celestial haze of electronics and soft brass voices that give way to a singing saxophone and buzzing cello and then the rhythm and melody emerge with contrapuntal lines. The album begins with "Sleep" where Cunningham's mother is heard telling about a dream in which Andrew comes to say goodbye. Recorded accounts from my family and friends appear throughout the album to show just how far the ripple effect of gun violence extends through a community." My brother was a kind soul, and I used those warm memories of him to illustrate his life as a counterpoint to the pieces that confront his tragic end. In a statement, Cunningham explains the background: "I wrote The Weather Up There to confront the loss of my brother Andrew to gun violence, who died in a home invasion robbery some 10 years ago. Nevertheless, this is what drummer and composer Jeremy Cunningham's album does. This can be done in many ways, but it is rare that an album connects emotion with complex layers of memory, interpersonal relations, politics and societal structures. The complex landscape of human emotions is still vastly uncharted, but every true work of art adds a little piece to the puzzle.
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