Beautiful Life is
a beautiful tribute to and album for Jimmy Greene’s 6 year old daughter Ana who
was tragically killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting where
19 other children and 6 adults also lost their lives.
Such a context for this musical eulogy, and creative
impulse, provides a poignancy that doesn’t need explaining or justifying, and
it puts the notion of a critique firmly to the periphery of any observations.
This is a celebration of Ana’s short life, and where Greene
has written lyrics for some of the songs on the album, that verbal expression
of loss and love is understandably poised for any listener on the edge of
appreciation and heartbreak – the purpose to create a public empathy and
positive memory unimpeachable.
The opening track Saludos/Come
Thou Almighty King has a gentle and restrained interplay between Greene on
saxophone and Pat Metheny on acoustic guitar, and it ends emotively with a
recording of Ana singing the hymn with her brother Isaiah playing the piano.
Such highly personal tracks do push the aural engagement to difficult areas,
but that has to be a part of the intention: again, as an absolutely direct
celebration – his daughter’s voice from the past – and the creative catharsis
for Greene. This is perhaps even more heightened in the track Ana’s Way where vocalist Kurt Elling is
joined by a choir of Ana’s former classmates from their time in Winnipeg [not
Sandy Hook – that would have been too traumatic, and too close to the tragedy].
There is a strong statement of Christian faith throughout:
for example in the opening hymn, and in the song Prayer which is a musical re-working of the Lord’s Prayer. This
clearly informed the life of the whole Greene family and offers support and
solace in this album’s remembrance. One can only respect this comfort being
achieved; for me, I see ‘forgiveness’ in the creative impulse that allows Jimmy
Greene in this context to continue so positively as an artist and father.
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