A Revolving Alliance

A Revolving Alliance has multiple meanings, of course. It revisits some of the broader themes of hope and despair (as they relate to American society) that were part of Slocum’s recording With Love and Sadness (Sunnyside, 2021). But that record, commissioned by Chamber Music America’s New Jazz Works program and composed as a single suite with multiple movements, was focused more specifically on systemic racism in America. A Revolving Alliance “deals more broadly with my seemingly delusional hope that everything we are witnessing currently in the US (i. e. , the unraveling of the fabric of a democratic society) might still somehow be cyclical, that we may find our way back towards becoming a more compassionate society,” commented Slocum. The recording is designed, shaped, and programmed around a narrative arc. Unlike the “melody first” approach that the drummer/composer takes with many compositions, the title track here developed from a bass line