After the stunning modern jazz trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire delivered on the acclaimed When the Heart Emerges Glistening in 2011, he plays it anything but safe on the imagined savior is far easier to paint.
With his working quintet — tenor saxophonist Walter Smith, drummer
Justin Brown, bassist Harish Raghavan, and pianist Sam Harris — he
expands the frame to include guitarist Charles Altura in a sextet or
alternating with Smith. In addition, vocalists Becca Stevens, Cold
Specks, and Theo Bleckman (all of whom contribute lyrics) appear, as do
the Osso String Quartet and flutist Elena Penderhughes. Akinmusire
self-produced this set and showcases a diverse range of carefully
scripted, genre-blurring compositions — modern classical, vanguard pop,
spoken word — in addition to jazz. the imagined savior is far easier to paint is
provocative: its moodiness, myriad musical directions, and 79-minute
length may be initially off-putting. What is revealed with repeated
listening, however, is that this set's achievement is commensurate with
its ambition.
The New Yorker has called him “a thrilling young trumpeter
and astute bandleader [who] has a unique spark in his playing.” On the
new album—which Akinmusire produced himself—he subtly shifts the focus
away from those thrilling trumpet solos to his compositions (Akinmusire
wrote 12 of the album’s 13 tracks) while still leaving ample room for
the band to stretch out and improvise.
Hearing vocals and lyrics set to his music was a different experience
for Akinmusire, who often writes elaborate storylines and unspoken
characters as inspiration for his instrumental compositions. With each
of the vocal songs Akinmusire gave the vocalist the sketch of an idea
and allowed them to flesh out lyrics based on that idea. Stevens
returned both the music and lyrics for “Out Basement (ed)” while
Bleckmann and Cold Specks set lyrics to Akinmusire’s music on “Asiam
(joan)” and “Ceaseless Inexhaustible Child (cyntoia brown),”
respectively.
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