Blue Cranes

Blue Cranes function as an inventive jazz ensemble that periodically channels an indie rock orientation, evident through their incorporation of rock-derived rhythms and keyboard textures together with the tuneful, song-oriented motifs executed by saxophonists Reed Wallsmith and Joe Cunningham. Beyond their own compositions, projects such as 2007’s Lift Music! Flown Music!, 2008’s Homing Patterns, and 2010’s Observatories have included interpretations of works by fellow Portland musicians including the late Elliott Smith, indie rockers Blonde Redhead, singer/songwriter Sufjan Stevens, and Seattle-via-N.Y.C. composer/keyboardist Wayne Horvitz. The group has explored expanded palettes, enlisting a string quartet for 2013’s Swim and vocalists such as Laura Veirs and Holland Andrews on 2021’s Voices. Their recordings have chiefly showcased the writing and paired saxophone approaches of Wallsmith and Cunningham while disclosing an indie perspective alongside broader jazz, avant-garde, and classical leanings, as demonstrated on 2023’s My Only Secret.

The earliest impulses that eventually produced Blue Cranes emerged in 1994 when Portland high-school students Wallsmith and Ji Tanzer initiated a joint musical endeavor, yet the ensemble only took definitive shape once bassist Keith Brush united with alto saxophonist Wallsmith and drummer Tanzer in 2003, followed by keyboardist Rebecca Sanborn’s arrival the next year. This four-piece configuration issued its independently released debut, Lift Music! Flown Music!, in 2007.

Homing Patterns, the following year’s second album, enlarged the lineup to a quintet via the addition of Cunningham, aka Sly Pig, a tenor saxophonist recognized for his contributions to the Decemberists; guitarist Ila Cantor appeared as a guest. The paired saxophones supplied greater force and depth to the ensemble, and Blue Cranes maintained the five-piece roster of Wallsmith, Cunningham, Sanborn, Brush, and Tanzer on later recordings.

Blue Cranes delivered their third album, Observatories, in 2010, at which point compositional responsibilities had become evenly divided between Wallsmith and Cunningham. Commenting on the release, Wallsmith observed that much of the preceding album Homing Patterns had been conceived for a quartet prior to Cunningham’s entry, whereas the new recording more completely exploited the contrapuntal opportunities afforded by the expanded group. Los Angeles guitarist Timothy Young, previously a collaborator with Wayne Horvitz, contributed as a guest alongside members of the Portland Cello Project and Paxselin Horns. In 2011 the remix collection Oversea Orbits revisited Observatories through reworkings by local Portland artists together with several videos, while the same year Blue Cranes issued the three-track EP Cantus Firmus containing covers of pieces by Blonde Redhead, Red House Painters, and David Bazan.

Early in 2013 Blue Cranes announced their signing to Cuneiform, and that June the label issued the band’s fourth full-length, Swim. Produced by the Decemberists’ Nate Query, the album presented the core quintet augmented by assorted guests on particular tracks, among them violist Eyvind Kang, Los Lobos member Steve Berlin on baritone saxophone, the Devil Makes Three’s Cooper McBean on musical saw, and a string trio comprising cellist Anna Fritz, violist/violinist Kyleen King, and violinist Patti King.

Voices, released in 2021, involved collaborations with several singers including alt-folk songwriter Laura Veirs, Pink Martini’s Edna Vazquez, Y La Bamba’s Luz Elena Mendoza, Holland Andrews, Peter Broderick, and additional artists. The band returned in 2023 with My Only Secret, resuming an instrumental format yet continuing to develop their harmonic language and pursue a pronounced modern classical direction.