by Patrick Jarenwattananon (npr music)
The collage artwork for the new Christian Scott
double album seems to show the trumpeter and composer in a ceremonial
outfit: full jacket, ornate beadwork, headdress and pink feathers
jutting out in every direction. If you know about his personal history,
you connect the dots quickly. He has long been "masking Indian" in the
long-standing Mardi Gras tradition of his family — and of the black
communities of his native New Orleans — and the album cover can be
processed as a statement of pride in his heritage. Indeed, Christian aTunde Adjuah is even named that way — Scott has recently adopted the names aTunde and Adjuah as a way of declaring his West African past.
Look
closely at the center image, though, and you'll see things that don't
quite fit. The jewelry doesn't match; the pink comes from a
salmon-colored button-down. And the pose, accented with kinky pompadour
and goatee stubble, is one of arch confidence as he stares into the
indeterminate distance. It lends itself to an different narrative, one
of a young man declaring himself something apart from a history he still
claims.
It's hard to hear typical New
Orleans styles in Christian Scott recordings, at least explicitly. He
might give you a prompt to chew on, stating his inspiration in titles
like "New New Orleans (King Adjuah Stomp)" or "Of Fire (Les Filles de la
Nouvelle Orleans)," but it often comes out as a clarion trumpet,
sometimes muted or drenched in reverb, surfing the wave of a prepared
piano or driving guitar vamp. (It's often mastered to be very loud,
too.) Scott has taken to calling what he does "stretch music," a
widening of the boundaries of jazz to incorporate other textures,
notably rock and hip-hop [...].
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