The title of
Ambrose Akinmusire
's sixth
Blue Note
album is particularly poignant upon its release in June of 2020. It was issued less than two weeks after the brutal public killing of unarmed George Floyd by a Minneapolis policeman, setting off a wave of protests and uprisings across the globe. Its title refers to a 2016 trip to his native Oakland, California, where he witnessed the physical changes wrought by the encroaching gentrification from Silicon Valley's overflow, which displaced longtime, often-impoverished residents. Performed (mostly) by his longtime quartet -- pianist
Sam Harris
, bassist
Harish Raghavan
, and drummer
Justin Brown
-- it reinforces jazz and blues as twin expressions of the Black Experience in American life.
It's there right from the start in the aching wail and moan of his horn, which introduces "Tide of Hyacinth," the set's opening track. It gives way shortly thereafter to group interplay that flexes its improvisational muscle even as
Akinmusire
refocuses attention repeatedly. Just past the halfway mark,
Jesus Diaz
guests on percussion and spoken word, recontextualizing both jazz and blues as branches of folk music from the African continent. It's followed by "Yesss," which commences as a ballad of exquisite, heartbreaking beauty that features
Raghavan
evoking emotional sonorities from his arco bassline; it underscores the economical yet expressive exchanges between trumpeter and pianist. "Mr. Roscoe" (after
Roscoe Mitchell
) is a knotty post-bop composition that flows into kinetic group improv for a time.
wrote it after meeting and playing with the saxophonist for the first time. (It was actually their second encounter: In eighth grade he won tickets to a jazz show at Yoshi's. He went with his mom and had his mind blown by a ceremonially painted
Art Ensemble of Chicago
.) Two tunes later,
introduces "Reset: Quiet Victories & Celebrated Defeats," a searing ballad where the trumpeter reaches deep into a funereally slow processional that attempts to "express the pain, beauty, and optimism of blackness." Two tunes later,
reveals both in "Roy," a tender, reflective tribute to the late trumpeter
Roy Hargrove
. In "Blues (We Measure the Heart with a Fist)," dissonant splatters and tones, oddly spaced rim shots, spectral piano chords, and woody plucked bass strings explore textural spaces in and around the collective's sound. Little more than halfway through, they come together and deliver a striking modal blues. The set closes with "Hooded Procession (Read the Names Aloud)," one of two pieces here where
plays Rhodes piano to remember the fallen in the African-American struggle for equality, freedom, and opportunity. While this outing is no less brimming with creative and provocative ideas for jazz by
, it is perhaps, his most emotionally searing and satisfying studio outing. ~ Thom Jurek