Ronan Delisle
Write To Me A Coda
Self-Released

Ronan Delisle’s first full-length album, following a collection of beautiful EPs, has been eagerly awaited by an established audience and scores of friends and supporters. Concurrently, the music was released in March as guitarist and vocalist, Delisle departed his home in Seattle for a new chapter in Los Angeles. The alchemy of these two pivotal moments helps Write To Me A Coda read like a love letter to the jazz scene and the musicians that shaped him while he was here.

The nine tracks play like a story told in three parts and made with nearly the same instrumentation throughout, but with a rotating cast of some of Seattle’s finest musicians. The first four songs are performed by a trio including Delisle, trumpeter Raymond Larsen, and bassist Tony LeFaive. Instantly, their music challenges the confines of genre in its thoughtful, drumless saunter, delivering something reminiscent of the American prairie one hears in Jimmy Giuffre’s Western Suite. The third track, “Thorn,” takes it a step further, playing in rondo form with no improvisation; “Nation of Three” gives us the only take featuring Delisle’s singing, haunting along with the main melody and bridging the timbral differences between the brass and strings.

“The Icebergs” stands alone in the center of the album—the only track featuring Abbey Blackwell (upright bass), Neil Welch (tenor sax), and Thomas Campbell (drums), while introducing keyboardist Matt Williams for the rest of the recordings. This song is rich with grandeur, not just in contrast to the previous mood but in the undeniable chemistry of this quintet of musicians. Campbell, in particular, shines in two perfect, understated drum solos. With “Thick As Thieves,” we enter what feels like the final act of the album. Suddenly there is a groove figure and Rhodes and cross-sticking. Delisle, Larsen, and Williams are joined by Kelsey Mines on upright bass and

Chris Icasiano on drum kit, transporting the closed-eyed, head-rocking listener into their favorite dimly-lit venue. While the album is ripe with compositions that allow those playing them a considerable sense of sonic freedom, that sense is most palpable through the end of the record. The sounds are modern and even conceptual—listen closely for the sounds of paper and pencil in “Ever Thus,” and the collaborative universe woven together in the final track, “Orphans.”

Perhaps the most special element of this release is the zine-style booklet that accompanies the digital download. With help from friends, Delisle has collaged together photos, gilded paper, and hand-typed liner notes for each track and words of thanks. This crafted component adds a layer of love and thought that transforms Write To Me A Coda into a beautiful parting gift from the musician to the listener, close friend or stranger. –Haley Freedlund