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Shabaka: Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace review – an elegant rebirth
British jazz star Shabaka Hutchings drops the sax for reeds and flutes on an album exploring fear, courage and the power of breathwork
Hot on the exhale of rapper André 3000’s New Blue Sun, released last November, comes another exploratory redefinition, this time from British sax phenomenon Shabaka Hutchings. Since the pandemic, this maven of the London jazz renaissance has been reassessing, exploring the gentler timbres of the shakuhachi, a Japanese bamboo flute whose breathwork takes time to master. This 11-track release features Hutchings on flutes and reeds, with added dilatory instrumentation and appearances by luminaries such as Floating Points, co-author of Promises(2021) with the LSO and Pharoah Sanders, a team-up that I’ll Do Whatever You Want inevitably recalls.
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