David Cieri - The Mayo Clinic - Unity of Forces (2018)

Once again David Cieri translates life into music. His recent release - Notes From The Underscore show his work on a variety of documentaries with Florentine Films. His previous work with Yusef Komunyakaa and Mike Brown captures the intersection of poetry and music just as if you were wandering by a downtown club and heard it live. And now, David returns with the soundtrack to the new documentary - The Mayo Clinic: Unity Of Forces. Here David composes for the unique film, with the great Bill Frisell on guitar. He describes the documentary in this way:

‘Talk surrounding our current health care crisis needs to step away from the divisive, un-nuanced, and essentially useless binary modes of I’m right and you’re wrong. The Mayo Clinic model is actively shifting this conversation away from political gridlock and into the realms of discovery and earned possibility.

The music is striving to represent this ideal - historically and into the future. This is perhaps an uncommon story because it offers real hope and prescription rather than description of our ills, which too often get inordinate attention. My intent was to bake the church pew and Wagner and Americana into the compositions; it’s the most moral music I’ve made to date. The sessions were challenging; it’s one thing to give the darkness due weight in music but it was another challenge altogether to make very positive gestures have real and earned gravity too. And the musicians! Listening back to Bill and Putnam dialoguing on a few of these cuts is to feel immense love and joy in being here to witness, to watch, to pry, to learn, to become something better than we have imagined.

Tracklist:
01. David Cieri - Unity of Forces
02. David Cieri - I’ll Twine Mid the Ringlets
03. David Cieri - Yoko's World/Wagoner's Lad
04. David Cieri - Shenandoah
05. David Cieri - Will
06. David Cieri - Sisters
07. David Cieri - Give to the Wind Thy Fears
08. David Cieri - Concerto for Two Mandolins
09. David Cieri - Charlie
10. David Cieri - Sister Alfred and the Handshake
11. David Cieri - April is the Cruelest Month - little variations on Rite of Spring
12. David Cieri - Hard Times
13. David Cieri - Give to the Wind Thy Fears (Alt Take)
14. David Cieri - Slane
15. David Cieri - Sister Generose In the House
16. David Cieri - Be Thou My Vision
17. David Cieri - Henry Plummer's Dream
18. David Cieri - Unity of Forces in Motion