In his latest single, “Sea-Song,” the Brazilian-American composer Cassio Vianna invites us to float across boundaries, letting emotions and cultures mingle and then get lost in a big jazz band’s billowing, romantic gestures.
A native of Rio and current resident of Seattle, Vianna wears many hats as a composer, educator, and Director of Jazz Studies at Pacific Lutheran University. But in “Sea-Song,” it is the storyteller within him who comes to the fore. Inspired by the dark realities of immigration. The fear and danger involved, as well as the resilience and hope necessary for crossing oceans and lives, channel these complex themes into a piece that is as moving as it is beautiful.
This is not your typical big band swing piece. “Sea-Song” begins as a slow, deliberate intake of breath, as if the ocean itself were readying to speak. A guitar line hovers into the room gently, tethering the overall mood in a moody calm. Soon, the trumpet ascends as a question over the waves, wistful, yearning, and profoundly human. The two solo guitars and trumpet don’t simply trade phrases, they feel as if they’re speaking to each other from a distance, memories echoing over different shores. Vianna’s orchestration is astute, understated, yet highly expressive. The big band doesn’t overpower, it breathes alongside the soloists, swelling in cycles like a tide to recede and allow intimate moments to shine. The piece’s movement echoes its subject, twitchy flows, sudden gusts of tension, and long, pregnant silences that read as both apocalyptic and holy.
One can easily imagine “Sea-Song” soundtracking the first steps of a refugee disembarking from a boat, the quiet awe of a child as they hear a new language for the first time, or the ache of a parent leaving everything that has ever meant something behind. But it’s also a celebration of survival, of resilience, of that fundamental human yearning for connection and belonging.
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