You’re likely already questioning why Jazz Is Dead (JID) would release an album featuring Tony Allen, one of the most formidable drummers of all time now. Checking in at number 18 in their series is curious considering that Allen passed in April of 2020. We don’t have all the answers, but we can piece together a few things. The initial recording sessions were in 2018 and for whatever reasons were likely abbreviated. It would appear from Adrian Younge’s comments that the sessions themselves were experimental and jam-like in nature. He references one of the tracks this way, indicating that at times he would ask Allen to “get crazier here…Like on ‘Makoko,’ I wanted to do something that felt more jazz and Afrobeat were coming together in a unique way…And that’s what we did there.”
We certainly know that Younge and his partner Ali Shaheed Muhammad are production wizards, so we can guess that they somehow stretched out these sessions into individual cuts, comprising an album that clocks in at about 30 minutes, typical for JID releases. And, through that same wizardry, we have one of the best in their series, one that sounds like one infectiously grooving continuous track. As to why we had to wait five years, honoring Allen’s 83rd birthday is one rather feeble piece of rationale. The pandemic slowed down so many things, perhaps it just took more time than originally planned in order to complete the presumably complex production process and find the right time to present it in their series of releases.
Younge is the prime mover here as he joins Allen and an eight-piece horn section on eight tracks, playing a variety of guitars and keyboards, sometimes joined as three percussionists, comprising a 13-piece ensemble. Other than production, his partner Muhammad is not a musical contributor. The album will grab the listener from the first few beats of the opening six-minute “Ebun” with Allen’s kit placed prominently in the mix. Allen is clearly the motor and his Afrobeat approach shapes the punchy horn arrangements. We don’t hear many lengthy solos from the horn section but flutist Scott Mayo and tenorist Jaman Laws as well as one of two baritone saxophonists, David Urquidi or Jacob Scesney do weigh in briefly in the opener, which may be the only live in-studio track that wasn’t’ manipulated with production. The other musical contributors are altoist Philip Whack, trumpeters Emile Martinez and Tatiana Tate, and trombonist Lasim Richards. The additional percussionists are Marcus Gray, Jazmin Hicks, and Loren Oden.
The other seven tracks, as mentioned sound like versions of the opener with slightly different weights applied to certain instruments and textures. Four singles are already out: “No End,” “Ebun,” “Don’t Believe the Dancers,” and “No Beginning.” Younge does a wonderful job of sustaining the energy throughout with Allen’s beats inevitably leading to head bopping, toe-tapping or shaking other body parts. More than simply a listening experience, this is a gigantic energy boost, not unlike those small bottles that claim such. Reach for it when you need a lift.
