WISDOM OF ELDERS LP

TRACKLISTING: 2LP: A1. Mzwandile A2. Joyous B1. The Observer B2. The Sea C1. The Observed C2. Natty C3. OBS D1. Give Thanks D2. Nguni OVERVIEW: Tradition shapes your work. For saxophonist and bandleader Shabaka Hutchings, that™s something he™s long understood. After years spent in the orbit of London™s jazz circuit, he examines and reimagines his influences with a dexterity that™s unique. Drawing out the vision underlying his new album, he says, šI see energy as being a form of wisdom to be passed down through the ages.› Unpicking the album™s title, he continues, "When we study the music, the lives, the words of our master musicians we obtain a glimpse of that artist's essential energy source. This is the core vitality of the individual which leads them to utilise the musical specifics of their chosen genre in a way that mirrors their inner source of power. This is an intuited wisdom that's handed to us from the legacies of our elders. The album is a document of sessions combining Hutchings with a group of South African jazz musicians he™s long admired. His connection to the group was Mandla Mlangeni (bandleader of the Amandla Freedom Ensemble), whom he™d flown there to play with over the past few years. Recorded across just one day, the group drew on their South African lineage  heroes like Zim Ngquwana and Bheki Mseleku  to bring their own slant to the American jazz lineage which is reconfigured in Hutchings™ compositions themselves. Going beyond the jazz greats Hutchings cites, influences are drawn from plenty of other sources: Caribbean calypso, central African song structures and Southern African Nguni music all play a part. Bringing together those ideas with the contributions of his bandmates is, he explains, crucial to what he sees in the role of an album artist. šEven though I wrote all the music, for me, the leader of the project isn™t the person who writes all the music but the one who has a vision for how certain musical elements will be combined." A regular sight on stages around London and beyond, playing  and often leading  groups like The Comet Is Coming, Sons of Kemet and Melt Yourself Down, he™s part of a generation whose idea of jazz is pointedly unrefined. That™s to say, Wisdom of the Elders comes from an artist interested in the indefinable gaps more than fitting into boxes.