Survival of the Fittest - Liner Notes
For most of his life, Jordan VanHemert has been on a quest of growth and mastery as a saxophonist, composer and musician. But equally important have been his efforts to contextualize some of the difficulties of his life experiences within the deeper themes of his DNA, discovering in the process resilience, optimism and joy. Jordan's music is meant to convey empathy and solidarity to others who have also faced challenges in their lives. This album, Jordan's fifth as a leader, best fulfills these simultaneous pursuits.
Coming of age as a Korean adoptee had its challenges for Jordan. But the saxophone was a healing force: initially through Charlie Parker from a CD he inherited from his late grandfather; then, as he was drawn to the tenor saxophone: Ben Webster, Dexter Gordon, Sonny Rollins, Joe Henderson. "When I was learning jazz, it was okay to be myself...it was okay to be me," he says. "Throughout my adolescence that was my refuge, and it got me through some hard moments."
Jordan unearthed his lost roots while attending the University of Michigan, where he continued to embrace his identity as a Korean American by delving deeper into the culture and music of his heritage.
Jordan also drew support from the jazz community. "One of my teachers, Geri Allen, put it best when she said the jazz community will respect the people who honor the tradition and put in the work – it doesn't matter who you are," he remembers. He has indeed been accepted by many of Allen's own contemporaries, including bassist Rodney Whitaker and trombonist Michael Dease, two important members of the sextet Jordan assembled for his last album, Deep in the Soil (Origin, 2024), and this sequel, fittingly named Survival of the Fittest (Origin, 2025).
Inevitably, Jordan began to reconcile his Korean heritage with the jazz music he loved. He first did this on a track for his 2021 album I Am Not a Virus (Parma 2021), and on every track for his subsequent record, Nomad (Origin, 2022). He continues the trend here with the inclusion of "Milyang Arirang," a tragic ballad of Arang, the young daughter of a Korean provincial governor who was murdered by a would-be suitor whose advances were spurned. The story is ancient, but Arang’s life and spirit has been preserved in song form. "I think to be Korean is to be a survivor," Jordan says. "I wanted to paint that portrait of the many erasure attempts in Korean history, so that part of the record ties into the thematic material on Survival of the Fittest – of who we are when darkness tries to end our light."
Jordan's own erasure attempt happened in 2022, when, due to budget cuts, he was unexpectedly let go from his job as director of a college jazz program. He recalls, "It was a tenure track appointment, so it completely blindsided me. That was the catalyst for the record because I started writing music to cope….some… Some of the music coalesced around the theme of songs that had brought me peace during those times and others were written specifically for it."
The first two tracks on the album are of the latter. "Here and Now" is an upbeat straight-eighth tune anchored by a pedal bass, creating a suspended sensation of timelessness, over which Jordan, Dease, pianist Helen Sung and Whitaker each take a turn introducing themselves to the listener. "Tread Lightly" is an homage to the great Thad Jones, with plenty of space in the arrangement for drummer Lewis Nash's immaculate brushwork, followed by a whimsical piano solo by Sung.
"Mourning Comes Again" recounts in abstraction a horrifying event in 2021, when a gunman specifically targeted Asians in a massacre at two Atlanta spas. Jordan recounts, "I was so devastated because people who look like us were being killed over and over and over again. I was in deep despair.." Jordan takes a poignant solo, followed by a more urgent one by trumpeter Terell Stafford.
"Mourning" turns into "Morning" in the next track, with the sunrise, softly yet as rays blazing, blasting all in their radius. It's the first of a "trio of duos" on the album and by far the fieriest, Jordan going toe to toe with Nash in a saxophone/drum battle.
The next duo, "Sea of Tranquility," is named after the iconic plateau on our Moon, and features the sublime pianism of Sung. "I wrote that right after seeing the movie Interstellar," says Jordan, who debuted the piece on I Am Not a Virus. "I had thought about how small we are in the vast scope of the universe, and therefore how insignificant are our human problems." Jordan's hushed discourse with Sung truly reflects the movie's juxtaposition of the personal and the cosmic. "
The third of the three duos features Whitaker in an Ellingtonian classic. "Come Sunday" is about the persecution of African Americans in the US – through a nod to the Israelites' flightee from the same in Egypt, and Jordan translates the story into "an anthem for difficult times." He says of his bassist, "It's no secret that Rodney Whitaker is a master of interpreting Duke Ellington's repertoire. Playing with him has really changed me for the better."
The last two tracks represent the hopeful and necessary response to the issues Jordan has raised. "Mo’s Blues" was written by a student of Dease, who suggested it for the album. The head is faintly reminiscent of Harry "Sweets" Edison's tune, "Centerpiece." Fitting, since the blues is central in its ability to turn mourning into dancing. Dease, who is regarded by many as the finest trombonist in jazz today, is generous with wisdom and musicality throughout this album.
While he was still quite angry, Jordan tried to write music for the album befitting his mood. Yet the result was rather different in tone. He acknowledges that what was to be the title track "became instead an uplifting anthem of triumph over adversity, not being willing to be defined by it, not succumbing to the anger that you feel." "Survival of the Fittest" is brisk and buoyant, with all the players deftly negotiating the rough waters of changes and tempo like expert surfers.
Jordan has ridden out the waves, landing a new teaching gig as the Director of Jazz Studies at Northeastern State University in Oklahoma. His message to his listeners is encapsulated by an old Japanese proverb: " Fall seven times, stand up eight." The title track reinforces this message. "I decided to have this song close the record because I wanted to end on that note of hope." As Charlie Parker might say, thriving on a riff of resilience, optimism and joy, surfing on a Sunday sunrise from a Michigan suburb to an ancient Asian province, treading lightly, here and now to the Moon and the tranquil cosmos beyond.
-Gary Fukushima
Los Angeles, January 2025
