Warmth and patience are the first words that come to mind upon hearing the opening strains of “Waves,” the title track of Burke Ingraffia’s latest release of the same name. The record is filled with broad-stroke wisdom in which lines like “Live like it’s your first day / and love like it’s your last” are saved from coming off as overly familiar by virtue of their humility-driven delivery.
The sweetness of the album’s opening track shifts into a sentimental mood with “Change of Heart” and the bluesy “That’s the Way Mountains Are Made” whose sparse treatment is still almost too much for Ingraffia’s subtle delivery. The slippery and clever “Business as Usual” offers just the right “Mad Men” inspired backdrop to set up each refrain’s punch line.
“Above And Below” is a soulfully understated song for a steady sojourner that reminds us just how much two chords are able to communicate in the hands of the right lyricist. “Dusty Old Clock” is elusive enough to miss if you forget to sink your teeth into its masterful lyric. Served up at just the right tempo, this tune—mapped so closely to the bone of its narrator—might induce chills if the journey of each line is ingested properly.
“One Body” is a toe-tapper with an inviting simplicity that would be as at home in a children’s television program as it would be in the hands of a Walter “Wolfman” Washington, true enough to take on any tone. “St. Andrew’s Day” offers quiet appreciation for fleeting moments that we later find matter very much to us while “You Gotta Breathe” is a best friend of a song you might keep in your front pocket as a grounding luck totem. The album’s final track “Free Again” is the perfect benedictus to a record that ultimately offers an essential dose of encouragement to a world full of seekers.
The tone is apropos for someone who spent four months in a Jesuit novitiate in Grand Coteau, Louisiana, and refreshingly welcome in times of uncertainty. Nearly every track offered on Waves offers a roadmap for just such tender times. Whether it’s atmospheric contemporary chords or Tim Laughlin’s shimmery clarinet over more familiar front-porch changes, Ingraffia’s craftsmanship dances across a number of approaches to the intimacy required of a folk-jazz oriented singer-songwriter.
Of course covering all that musical terrain requires a deft touch, which Ingraffia found in producer Scott Billington whose effort did well not to “bury the song” in production. Recorded in a five-day session at Uptown’s Rhythm Shack Studios, the cast of players is as fine as the city has to offer with Johnny Vidacovich (drums), James Singleton (bass), Helen Gillet (cello), John Gros (organ), aforementioned Tim Laughlin, Dave Easley (pedal steel guitar), Michael Skinkus (percussion), Jeff Albert (trombone), Marcello Benetti (percussion), Jake Eckert (guitar), Johnette Downing (background vocals), and Billington himself on harmonica.
The effort on the whole rewards listeners who remember the satisfaction of reading along with the music. With close enough attention, each song allows us to see “something shimmer in [the] written words / …strung together with intention and mystery.”
