Gaia Wilmer, Dancing with Elephants Review

Gaia Wilmer: The Architecture of Emotion: Jazz, Counterpoint, and World Influence in Dancing with Elephants

by Ferell Aubre

At the heart of Dancing with Elephants lies a compelling experiment in form, collaboration, and time. Brazilian saxophonist and composer Gaia Wilmer partners with percussionist Ra Kalam Bob Moses. Moses is a figure synonymous with boundary-dissolving creativity since the jazz-rock era of the 1960s. In this project the two collaborate to forge a cross-continental suite built not on lead sheets or jam sessions, but on Moses’ archival solo “sonic beds.” Wilmer’s task was both compositional and cartographic: to chart music atop the spontaneous percussive terrain, writing around the unpredictable phrasing and timbral shape of Moses’ improvisations while preserving part of the terrain for open space for ensemble dialogue. The result is a varying ensemble jazz that prioritizes structure and spontaneity in equal measure, with wide rhythmic-melodic- expressions of composition, styles, and ensemble interaction.

The album opens with the title track, “Dancing with Elephants,” which functions as a prelude of this melodic and rhythmic intent of the project. Pianist Leo Genovese’s solo introduction is harmonically lush and rhythmically unhurried, a classically influenced gesture that functions like an overture. It is over ninety seconds before the guitar and percussion enter, suspending us in modal space until Song Yi Jeon’s wordless vocals emerge, not as melody per se, but as lyrical counterline woven into the woodwinds and rhythm section. The orchestration, voice, flutes, guitar, and five saxophones, rides atop a Moses pulse that never quite lands, creating a layered texture of vertical groove and horizontal phrasing. World music fan will find this track particularly interesting in how lyrical phrasing and large-ensemble textures can remain fluid without sacrificing directionality, even is a setting of written and freely improvised material.

“Leaving with the Herd” extends Wilmer’s contrapuntal approach, introducing a layered counterpoint of melodic fragments passed between saxophones in staggered entries. This shared construction of melody is an excellent example of Wilmer’s expressions in timbral counterpoint and motivic variation. Pellegrino’s electric guitar textures drift between ambient harmony and free noise, opening space for wild ensemble improvisation. The motivic repeated rhythms Wilmer composes over Moses’ pattern functions as anchor and launchpad, balancing pre-written material with liberated phrasing in the improvisations by the ensemble members.

“Turning the Tide,” inspired by Moses’ gong-centered improvisation features a composition rich in coloristic range. Yulia Musayelyan’s flutes are layered over with woodwind harmonies. A standout solo from Musayelyan around the 2:30 mark merges timbral exploration with linear expressivity, while the return of ensemble counterpoint illustrates Wilmer’s sensitivity to musical pacing. The track’s written architectural logic of tension, release, and re-entry, echoes the groove established by Moses and the improvisational content remain fully rooted in world jazz and spontaneous.

“Finding Water,” featuring Genovese and tenor saxophonist George Garzone, captures the essence of intuitive modal development. Moses’ sings the clave-inspired percussion melody at the beginning, giving the piece its Afro-Cuban undercurrent. Genovese’s rolling left-hand figures and responsive harmonic shifts mirror the evolving rhythmic surface. Garzone enters with a solo that channels the spiritual shadings of the late modal-jazz period with phrasing being fluid, centered, and majestic. Genovese and Garzone engage in a conversational flow, each responding to the other’s phrasing with coloristic finesse, showcasing what ensemble improvisation can sound like when players are attuned to each other and to the larger structural and rhythmic map.

Track five, “When They Meet,” introduces Jeon’s expressive vocal presence in full. Her opening statements are rhythmically elastic and emotionally charged, gradually giving way to a climactic ensemble section in which Wilmer and Garzone steer thematic development while the ensemble builds rhythmic cohesion around Moses. Of note here is the internal logic of Wilmer’s orchestration of melodic layers distributed across saxophones and voice, with percussion and piano reinforcing the phrasing rather than simply marking time. The piece becomes a study in balance: vertical and horizontal rhythm, composed and improvised material, solo and collective energy.

In “Blue Desert,” Jeon and Garzone again share the stage, this time in a floating, rubato environment sculpted by Moses’ unmetered percussion. Jeon’s intonation and tonal shading are immaculate, never drifting, always centered, even as she navigates long, intervallic figures. Garzone responds with modal swells and cascading phrasing, his solo unfolding in waves of overlapping harmonic colors. It’s a enlightening in its free-time interplay, valuable for exploring phrasing outside traditional metric structures.

“Jellyfish Lake” presents a different kind of polyphony. Here, Musayelyan layers overdubbed flutes to create a breathing, tidal fabric which Moses explores shamanic rhythmic patterns with his percussion. This piece, more than any other, gestures toward world music and ambient traditions, marrying them with through-composed jazz orchestration. The performance invites a hypnotic experiences with its timbre as a compositional device, showing how vertical sonority can evolve through color alone.

In “Whales Part to Play,” Gustavo D’Amico’s soprano saxophone becomes the emotional core of the ensemble. His tone, rich in overtones, slightly vocal in articulation, moves through a mantra-like framework provided by Wilmer’s elegant orchetration and Moses’ hand drumming. D’Amico’s control across extended phrases, and his ability to sustain expressive intensity over long melodic arcs, is a highlight and an example of sound as emotion-based improvisation.

“Chase Machine,” meant as a culmination of the album’s ideas, is architecturally fluid in written and ensemble group improvisation. Wilmer constructs an arrangement that blends chant, ostinato, and free improvisation over Moses’ expressive 15-beat percussive cycle. Genovese’s single-note piano paintings and Jeon’s alluring vocal phrase function as hypnotic grounding and textural counterpoint. Garzone’s solo originates from this ground with fearless abandon, supported by ensemble textures and Pellegrino’s spectral guitar work. The layering of rhythmic cells, modal melodies, and expressive improvisation crystallizes the album’s central thesis: structured freedom.

The alternate take of “Finding Water” closes the album not as a repeat, but as an echo — a reframing that allows listeners to reengage with the piece’s harmonic and modal implications. The differences between the two takes offer an opportunity to observe how interpretation, phrasing, and communication reshape the emotional and formal contour of a improvisation over the same rhythmic feel.

Dancing with Elephants is a compositional and rhythmic gift. For listeners, it offers melodic grounding in writing over non-metric frameworks. The various ensemble demonstrates how to integrate voice, woodwinds, and percussion with sensitivity. For improvisers, it showcases dialogic improvisation across styles and traditions, providing a  model for how world music, classical form, and jazz can intersect to form a coherent, expressive, and forward-looking ensemble language.