In recent years, the arrival of the holidays in Santa Barbara has brought with it an array of traditions, one of which has been the regular appearance of S.B.-raised and increasingly acclaimed N.Y.C.-based jazz trombonist Mariel Bildsten on the SOhO calendar between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. Of course, that tradition is one of many that will take a holiday in this COVID-afflicted year, a period without live music.
But the gifted Bildsten is arriving in a different fashion this year, having just released her debut album, Backbone, on the Outside in Music label. The trombonist-bandleader grew up locally, studied at Manhattan School of Music, and has played with such artists as the Arturo O’Farrill Afro-Jazz Orchestra (in which she is the lead trombonist), and in the rock group Brass Against. She has performed in an impressive array of high-profile N.Y.C. venues like Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola, Carnegie Hall, and the Apollo Theater. Gigging prospects, whether Dizzy’s or SOhO, have of course taken a huge nosedive since March. “Unfortunately, live performances and touring have really slowed down,” she said in a recent interview. “The upside is that all of us have become excellent at-home recording studio musicians.”
Recorded in one night in January 2019 following a week-long stint at Dizzy’s, Backbone showcases Bildsten’s sundry talents beautifully as a tasteful player, arranger, and musician with a respect for historical tradition, reenvisioned and freshly arranged. The album is framed by Horace Silver’s sensual swing thing “Ecaroh” to open, and it closes with a Latin-Jazz-fired version of “The Lamp is Low,” replete with an amped-up Ravel reference. The set list also touches on both familiar turf (“Mood Indigo,” “The Man That Got Away”) and lesser-known gems (“Rosita,” from an Ernst Lubitsch film, and “Monaco”).