Chase Elodia's Perennials

OPEN TO THE PUBLIC | Chase Elodia and his group "Perennials" will be playing music from their new album, Have, Know, Want, which releases on May 10 on Biophilia Records. Elodia's circle of influences includes poets June Jordan and Victoria Chang, composers Joni Mitchell and Maurice Ravel, and drummers Billy Hart and Terri Lyne Carrington. Have, Know, Want explores the psychosocial concept of "Ambiguous Loss" through a multilayered narrative throughout its eight tracks. Penned by social scientist Pauline Boss,"ambiguous loss" refers to that particular, ongoing mode of grief that emerges without a clear beginning or ending point. Far from easily passing through the traditional "five stages of grief," those gripped by ambiguous loss live their lives perpetually in the shadow of a grief that is both omnipresent but difficult to articulate and define, taking on a phantom-like quality. This idea materializes in songs such as "Tense," which explores the language and textuality of passing on; "Drift," written from the perspective of a 95-year-old with dementia, and his alternating moments of lucidity and disorientation; and "Hold," told from the viewpoint of a search engine, which considers what it means to deposit and archive a sense of self in digital space. The ephemerality of pleasure and the certainty of grief remain at the thematic center throughout the music, as Elodia considers what it means to strive and yearn in lives that seem to be constituted by dissatisfaction and decay.

Chase Elodia’s Perennials is a Brooklyn-based ensemble. Their 2022 Biophilia Records release, Portrait Imperfect, was named one of the Best New Albums of 2022 by Downbeat Magazine, who awarded it 4.5 stars and hailed it as “artful” and “ambitious.” Founded in 2020, the band combines a collaborative and improvisational sensibility with an aesthetic orientation that has been nourished by singer-songwriters and electronic artists like Meshell Ndegeocello, Norma Winstone, and Becca Stevens.

The group frequently tours across the United States and abroad; in the past few years, they have performed at the San Teodoro Jazz Festival (Sardinia, Italy), DC Jazz Festival, Bird’s Eye (Basel, Switzerland), Lakehouse Jazz (San Francisco), The Muse (Boulder, CO), Rudy’s Jazz Room (Nashville, TN), Fulton St. Collective (Chicago, IL), and Rockwood Music Hall (New York, NY).

The band was featured at the 2023 Winter Jazz Festival, has received accolades from the Café Royale Cultural Foundation and South Arts, and is set to release their next album in Spring 2024 on Biophilia Records.

Performers:
Danielle Wertz, Voice
Yvonne Rogers, Piano
Paul Pandit, Bass
Chase Elodia, Drums