Best of 2019 #16: Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah – “Ancestral Recall”

 

Writing about the 2019 release by Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah for The Bandcamp Daily, I explained that the source of the appeal is that the music “Is both forward-thinking and tethered to the past.  It is embraceable as a pop tune, yet it’s also a puzzle asking to be solved.”  And this ever-present dichotomy presented by the trumpeter has, with each subsequent recording, become increasingly concrete in the expression of these characteristics, even as the lines distinguishing between the two become increasingly opaque.  Adjuah’s music is a statement of what music was, what it is now, and what it yet still could be.  2019’s Ancestral Recall is the most crystallized vision of that statement to date.

Your album personnel:  Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah (trumpet, Adjuah trumpet, siren, sirenette, reverse flugelhorn, percussion, synth percussion, SPDSX, Malletkat, MPC, keyboards, synth bass, Pan African kit, drums, vocals, Sonic Arcitexture) and guests:  Saul Williams (vocals), Elena Pinderhughes (flute), Logan Richardson (alto sax), Corey Fonville (drums, SPDSX, Pan African Kit), Lawrence Fields (piano), Kris Funn (bass), Devan Mayfield, Chris Turner, Mike Larry Draw (vocals), Weedie Braimah, Themba Mkhatshwa, Amadou Kouyate, Munir Zakee Richard (djembe, mande drums, dundunba, sangban, kenkeni, ewe drums, sogo, atsimevu, agboba, kidi, kaganu, tambourine, kalimba, bata, congas).

Released on Ropeadope Records.

Music from New Orleans, LA.

I wrote about this album for The Bandcamp Daily.

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