The O'Zone | "About Ghosts," a new Mary Halvorson Album

Do you know about guitarist Mary Halvorson? If not, let me pass along some pertinent information. Mary started her musical education on violin, but in 1991, at age 11, when she heard her father’s copy of “Axis Bold as Love” by the great Jimi Hendrix and she made the choice to become a guitarist. Her first guitar teacher was Israeli-born jazz guitarist Issi Rozen, who was based in Brookline, Massachusetts, where Mary was born. Rozen was known for mixing traditional Middle Eastern and straight-ahead jazz elements into his music.

Halvorson enrolled in Wesleyan University to study biology, but dropped her expected major when she sat in on one of saxophonist Anthony Braxton’s music classes upon connecting with him. Braxton strongly encouraged her to discover her own artistry on guitar. “He’s such an inspiring, magnetic person, and unless you’ve met him, it’s hard to understand what an incredible person he is, the depth, what an incredible presence he is.”  If not for Jimi Hendrix and Anthony Braxton, she might have become a Biologist who played violin; you never know where an influence will take you.

About Ghosts is her 14th album as a leader since her debut album of 2008, “Dragon’s Head”, and her third as the leader of this year’s Downbeat Critics’ Poll for Group of the Year, “Amaryllis”. Mary Halvorson’s last three records were named Jazz Album of the Year in Downbeat’s annual Critics’ Poll, where she was also named Guitarist of the Year in 2017, 2019, 2023, 2024, and 2025. In 2012, Troy Collins of “All About Jazz” called Halverson “the most impressive guitarist of her generation, The future of jazz guitar starts here.”

 In 2019, she was awarded a MacArthur “Genius” Grant for music. I asked her about it. “That was crazy… I thought this has got to be a joke. It was a huge shock, but also one of the things I’m the most grateful for. It’s been pretty incredible to have that kind of freedom for me to just invest in projects, some larger projects…and I had the great fortune of having this happen right before Covid so when there was no work for musicians I was able to not stress about money in addition to all the other stressful things that were happening so it’s been a real blessing… I feel very lucky I didn’t consider it as a thing that could happen.”

Amaryllis is comprised of Halvorson, Patricia Brennan (vibraphone), Nick Dunston (bass), Tomas Fujiwara (drums), Jacob Garchik (trombone), and Adam O’Farrill (trumpet). Mary added a pair of incredible saxophonists to the mix for a few songs on the new recording, Brian Settles and Immanuel Wilkins. I asked her if there were any surprises that came up as she was listening to playbacks or during the recordings… “I mean, there’s always little surprises. I feel like the energy will be a little different than you think, or the tempos will get faster and you just kind of go with it. I mean, ideally, you have some degree of spontaneity and obviously a lot of improvisation, even if you’ve played the music a lot. What was cool about this session is I actually feel like it felt very easy, which it doesn’t always so it felt like everything came together well. I felt like I put a lot of thought into making sure people had space to improvise within the music, and feeling like that worked out fairly evenly, which is what I wanted.”

About Ghosts is not literally “about” ghosts, rather it is a celebration of sonic ghostly effects. Random sounds, sighs from electronic sources, horn bleats that call to mind the chill of a ghostly presence. Halvorson does nod to other ghosts having immersed her compositions in the form of Duke Ellington and Charles Mingus, major jazz composers who balanced intricate orchestration and composition with individualistic improvisation. The album is dedicated to her friend and colleague, pedal steel guitarist Susan Alcorn, who passed away recently. “Her death came as a complete surprise; she was very close to my heart. She played in my octet, and I played as a duo with her. I also played in her band. Finding out she died left me in total shock. It was very much a struggle to get through that first week. It was such a huge loss. Susan was a totally unique and brilliant musician who did things no one else could do. She was a wonderful person. I loved working with her.”  she continued, “Of all the leader albums I’ve made, About Ghosts is most similar to my octet record “Away With You” (2016) which Susan played on, although the personnel on the albums is almost entirely different – the instrumentation is the same except for swapping vibraphone for pedal steel guitar. So, I felt a vague kinship between the two records, and therefore it felt right to “hear” Susan almost as another ghost in this music.”