On the Tender Spot of Every Calloused Moment
| On the Tender Spot of Every Calloused Moment | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ambrose Akinmusire's studio album | ||||
|
Publication |
||||
| Label (s) | Blue Note Records | |||
|
Format (s) |
CD |
|||
|
Contemporary jazz , avant-garde jazz , modal jazz , post bop |
||||
|
Title (number) |
11 |
|||
|
running time |
48:05 |
|||
| occupation |
|
|||
|
Ambrose Akinmusire |
||||
|
||||
On the Tender Spot of Every Calloused moment (dt. On the delicate point of each hardened Moments ) is a jazz album by Ambrose Akinmusire . The 2019 recordings were released on June 5, 2020 on Blue Note Records .
background
The title refers to a trip the trumpeter took to his hometown of Oakland , California in 2016 , where he witnessed the changes brought about by gentrification as a result of population changes caused by the expansion of Silicon Valley , resulting in longtime, often impoverished residents from the city. He himself grew up in a culturally rich community that has turned into an unrecognizable place for him, an emergency that has struck many black communities in large cities. Akinmusire says, “In a way, I've been thinking about this as a sequel to my first record. I'm going back to the sights in my first album. "
The album contains eleven compositions by Akinmusire, which he recorded with his quartet consisting of pianist Sam Harris , bassist Harish Raghavan and drummer Justin Brown . There were also guest vocalists Genevieve Artadi and Jesus Diaz.
At the beginning of the album is the painful howl and moan of his horn, with which "Tide of Hyacinth" begins. Shortly after half-time, Jesus Diaz gives a guest performance with drums and spoken word and contextualizes both jazz and blues as branches of folk music on the African continent. This is followed by "Yesss", which begins as a ballad of exquisite, heartbreaking beauty, in which Raghavan evokes emotional sounds from his arco bass line. It underlines the economic yet expressive exchange between trumpeter and pianist.
"Mr. Roscoe ”(named after Roscoe Mitchell ) is a post-bop composition Akinmusire wrote after meeting and playing the saxophonist for the first time. For the trumpeter, the ballad “Reset: Quiet Victories & Celebrated Defeats”, presented like a slow funeral procession, is an attempt “to express the pain, the beauty and the optimism of blacks”. The title "Roy" pays homage to the late trumpeter Roy Hargrove . "4623" is a 30-second improvisation on the trumpet that was recorded just outside the microphone so that the overtones of this series of vortices appear like a second instrument in harmony with the musician. "Cynical Sideliners" is a duet with the singer Genevieve Artadi. The set ends with "Hooded Procession (Read the Names Aloud)", one of two pieces in which Akinmusire Fender plays Rhodes to remember those who died in the African American struggle for freedom and equal opportunities.
Track list
.jpg)
- Ambrose Akinmusire: On the Tender Spot of Every Calloused Moment (Blue Note 00602508926198)
- Tide of Hyacinth 8:19
- Yessss 5:44
- Cynical Sideliners 2:21
- Mr. Roscoe (Consider the Simultaneous) 5:58
- An Interlude (That Get 'More Intense) 6:38
- Reset (Quiet Victories & Celebrated Defeats) 3:25
- Moon (The Return Amplifies the Unity) 3:45
- 4623 0:32
- Roy 2:41
- Blues (We Measure the Heart with a Fist) 5:30
- Hooded Procession (Read The Names Outloud) 3:18
reception
Thom Jurek gave the album four stars in Allmusic and wrote that although these recordings are no less full of creative and provocative ideas for jazz by Akinmusire, it is perhaps his most emotionally cutting and satisfying studio appointment. Steven Arroyo wrote in Pitchfork that it is music that - despite a world of unrest - also seeks peace in it at the same time. On previous albums Akinmusire recorded tribute tracks that pronounced the names of black victims of police murders - like Trayvon Martin - out loud (as in "Rollcall for Those Absent" on The Imagined Savior Is Far Easier to Paint ). This time he said it in silence. It's hard not to think back to the drowning that opened the album.
According to Will Layman, who reviewed the album in Pop Matters, the album is as ambitious as the previous productions and just as rich in different timbres, but it puts the quartet in the limelight. Although two of the eleven tracks currently highlight the singers Jesus Diaz and Genevieve Artadi, this is not as central as Becca Stevens was with her song that she wrote for Akinsusire's the imagined savior is far easier to paint . Rather, Akinmusire dares with this recording to achieve his diverse goals in a narrower range; This increases the tension and Akinmusire redeems this too. Among his many strengths, this extraordinary improviser and soloist could very well deviate from what was expected, Layman continued. “From the first moments of his Blue Note debut in 2011, when the heart emerges glistening , Akinmusire has shown a fresh trumpet voice . It uses a range of tones with exceptional control and can break down unusual intervals in creating melodies that seldom sounded like 'the usual' blues- based licks that jazz players have relied on for decades. To find a new sound and approach in the second decade of jazz - neither neo-traditional nor simply inconsistent, is impressive. "
Patrick Hadfield (London Jazz News) thinks Ambrose Akinmusire makes music that seems full of contradictions and yet is whole, consistent and coherent. There are “passages of seemingly free improvisation that are deeply rooted in the jazz tradition . There are moments of innocence that are balanced with music that feels politically charged. ”At the same time, there are passages of great beauty. The long opening piece “Tide of Hyacinth” already embodies many of the different moods on the record and moves from one form to another, almost like a suite. It includes free improvisation and inventions, rhythmic drive, strong melodic lines. The band has a full sound that makes them sound bigger than a quartet. They are joined in a section by Jesus Diaz, who sings in Yoruba and creates a connection that goes back much further than the birth of jazz.
Akinmusire's compositions are particularly powerful on slower pieces, Hadfield wrote. “Reset (quiet victories & celebrated defeats)” leaves plenty of space for Akinmusire's contemplative trumpet, the other members of the quartet simply mark the time with the underlying chords. "Roy", dedicated to the late Roy Hargrove, conveys a wistful sense of loss that is played both as a spiritual gospel and as a slow New Orleans funeral march. Akinmusire's fifth album for Blue Note is full of contrasts, exciting and emotional, the author sums up.
Jim Hynes wrote in Glide that Ambrose Akinmusire was returning to the point of his career when he started Glistening with When the Heart Emerges in 2011 . “It's the dark tones of what black life in America means to him, broken by equal levels of jazz and blues. While the mood is inevitably dark, a wonderful tapestry of sounds appears on the tender spot of every calloused moment . While life can take heavy blows, Akinmusire is a fighter who believes in pride, resilience, and hope. After the brutal death of George Floyd and the screams for justice as protesters take to the streets, the album couldn't be more topical. "
According to Langdon Hickman (Treble), one of the big challenges in balancing these many different approaches to music on such a record is making sure that each song or composition stands on its own. “These songs are full of life, be it a melody with starry eyes dreaming longingly in the cigarette smoke, or the deep post-Hancock hip-hopisms that are scattered across the record. Sometimes it feels like a thin crystal, clearly cut facets in apparently irregular shapes that cast strange colors over a dimly lit room, so that you can turn the crystal over and over and never capture the same color more than once. "
Individual evidence
- ↑ Stylistic classification according to Discogs and Allmusic
- ↑ Stylistic classification according to Allmusic
- ↑ a b c d On the Tender Spot of Every Calloused Moment at Allmusic (English). Retrieved July 1, 2020.
- ↑ a b jim Hynes: Ambrose Akinmusire: on the tender spot of every calloused moment. Glide, June 10, 2020, accessed July 1, 2020 .
- ^ A b Will Layman: Ambrose Akinmusire: on the tender spot of every calloused moment. Pop Matters, June 15, 2019, accessed July 1, 2020 .
- ↑ Ambrose Akinmusire: On the Tender Spot of Every Calloused Moment at Discogs
- ↑ Steven Arroyo: Ambrose Akinmusire: on the tender spot of every calloused moment. Pitchfork, June 18, 2020, accessed July 1, 2020 .
- ↑ Patrick Hadfield: Ambrose Akinmusire: on the tender spot of every calloused moment. London Jazz News, June 1, 2020, accessed July 1, 2020 .
- ↑ Langdon Hickman: Ambrose Akinmusire: on the tender spot of every calloused moment. May 6, 2019, accessed June 7, 2020 .