Leland Whitty
Anyhow
INNOVATIVE LEISURE
During the 2010s, BADBADNOTGOOD, alongside artists like Kamasi Washington and Thundercat, helped rehabilitate jazz from its slow descent into unfashionability and associations with dusty record collections. This group of musicians conjured jazz that was cool, genre-bending, and revitalizing with its associations to hip-hop while still being accessible to a wide audience. Now, the group’s saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist Leland Whitty continues this creed with his debut solo project, growing his already-large oeuvre which includes collaborations with Kaytranada, Kendrick Lamar, and Kali Uchis, among others.
Whitty’s new LP Anyhow is an evocative exploration of atmospheric string arrangements and cool, moody jazz lines—a slight departure from the BADBADNOTGOOD sound he’s largely associated with. Despite being a solo album, Whitty’s older brother Lowell and his BADBADNOTGOOD bandmates Chester Hansen and Alex Sowinski contribute to this seven-track LP. The whole affair feels like an epic journey rather than a simple story, largely thanks to the soul-stirring string arrangements Whitty concocted.
These strings, reminiscent of John Luther Adams or Jonny Greenwood’s classical work, oscillate between uplifting and uneasy. But Whitty pairs this instrumental foundation with solos that feel inspired by John Coltrane’s energetic sax lines and the moodiness of Miles Davis’s “Circle” and “In a Silent Way.” It would feel wrong to categorize Anyhow as a pure jazz album, though, as the tracks rarely follow a typical jazz structure, sometimes opting for long sections of strings instead. For example, “Awake,” with its evocative string arrangements, sounds like it belongs in a film soundtrack. However, it’s experimental without becoming too cacophonous. In a way, it’s jazz without jazz.
The tension, uneasiness, and tranquility evoked by Whitty across Anyhow feels almost sublime by Edmund Burke’s definition of the word, where emotions overwhelm rationality as we experience the power of the natural world, making us feel small. The strings on Anyhow feel very much like the audio equivalent of a huge wave breaking on a rocky coast—thunderous and powerful. If this LP even stirs a tiny smidge of emotion, making you feel like a small cog in a powerful machine, I think it’s done its job.
