Scott Clark – Dawn & Dusk (Out of Your Head Records, 2023)

By Nick Ostrum

OOYH Records owners Scott Clark and Adam Hopkins collaborate for the first time on record on Dawn & Dusk. Clark may be a familiar name to many. He has several releases as leader under his belt, including 2016’s Bury My Heart on Clean Feed and 2021’s potently poignant solo percussion The Darkness on OOYH. Dawn & Duskis a step beyond these two. On it, Clark and Hopkins are joined by Laura Ann Singh on vocals , Bob Miller on trumpet and flugelhorn, J.C. Kuhl on bass clarinet and tenor saxophone and Michael McNeill on piano.

Dawn & Dusk is powerful suite, though in a different way from, for instance, the maudlin and probing This Darkness. It is cyclical, spanning the rising and setting of the sun, always with the hint if not always overwhelming presence of shade. The mood can be somber, as in the impressionistically tonal opener The Wind. The refrains are catchy; the band, of course, is much larger and really sounds like a tight unit. Tight, however, in an open way, wherein the composed portions bleed into the improvisations almost without notice. Once the listener homes in on the structure, they realize that something subtle has changed, that a horn has wandered here or there, though the underlying harmonic and modal logic remain. Clark and Hopkins keep the plodding rhythmic drive. Laura Ann Singh, previously unknown to me, has a hauntingly angelic voice, that is at once assertive and fragile. If anyone is showcased on this, she is, and for good reason.

The insistent 'Silent Singing,' the third track, closes with a somber meditation on the repeated phrase, “and hum to ourselves,” followed by some glittering, afterglow piano and soft accompaniment that persists for several minutes. The closer, 'Above the Gray' seems to pick up as dusk starts to give way. It is bluesy but spread out, and picks up into a jaunty jazz portion about halfway through, replete with solo reed and brass sections. It is a brief second wind, or a coda. And it both punctuates and reopens the story, as any good sunrise should.

Now for the studio/live divergence. This is an interesting project. The percussion comes out more strongly in the live recording and a few passages, especially in 'Silent Singing,' extend in interesting ways. This music, however, seems largely scripted, and the value in the live recording lies not in the deviations but in the intensity. The studio recording is beautiful. The live recording has just a little more rawness, a few more exposed and frayed edges. For that it lends some additional gravity to an already heavy and introspective release. Which, I guess, brings us back to This Darkness. Dawn & Dusk is a very different album in many ways, but that retreat into the interior, the metaphorical and very real shades of dark implied in every dawn and heralded by every dusk, connects these releases in terms of concept as well as mood.

Dawn & Dusk is available as on LP and CD and as a download here.