Allison Miller: Rivers In Our Veins

Rivers In Our Veins is the textbook definition of a concept album, and a very focused one at that. Commissioned by the Mid Atlantic Arts Organization and Lake Placid Center for the Arts, the 12-song cycle finds award-winning drummer Allison Miller—accompanied by Jenny Scheinman (violin), Jason Palmer (trumpet), Ben Goldberg (clarinet, contra-alto clarinet), Carmen Staaf (piano, Rhodes, accordion) and Todd Sickafoose (upright bass), as well as a troupe of tap dancers— drawing attention to five East Coast rivers that have, at one time or another, experienced pollution (the James, Delaware, Potomac, Hudson and Susquehanna), and to the organizations dedicated to repairing and saving them. That’s a weighty, important topic, and Miller and her crew treat it as such—this is not lightweight music. But neither is it inaccessible. The two-part suite that opens the collection, “Of Two Rivers (Part I),” is at first serene and, like a river undisturbed, flows naturally. By its second half, it’s turned murkier, busier, each component instrument jockeying for position and often clashing. Such juxtapositions characterize several of the tunes, Miller’s own percussion alternately pushing, dodging, setting the pace and maintaining. The tap dancers, meanwhile, add a sense of hectic clatter, just as willing to bring chaos as cooperative calm to the proceedings. “GO!,” a piece that lands just past midway, is, as its all-caps title and punctuation suggest, relentless and jittery, while “Hudson,” earlier on, is a smoother sail, more the upstate segment of the grand body of water than the reined-in, raging, foreboding waterway that traverses Manhattan’s West Side. This is compelling music but because it lacks lyrics, some listeners will never know its inspiration. But that’s fine too—it’s impressive and imposing, even if you don’t know any of the backstory.