The album’s opening track “Confessions to My Unborn Daughter” immediately establishes several of the quintet’s hallmarks including their striking juxtaposition of bombast and beauty, with searing solos turning on a dime to reveal moments of touching tenderness, and the profound frontline interplay between Akinmusire and Smith. The way the two intuitively trade lines back-and-forth, finishing each other’s musical sentences, is surely a result of the 12 years that they’ve been making music together. “He and I never have any musical conversations,” says Akinmusire. “It’s amazing, it feels like he’s part of my brain and I’m part of his. I know exactly what he’s thinking, what note he’s going to end on, when he’s going to play something, when he’s going to stop.”
“Confessions” also reveals Akinmusire’s penchant for intriguing song titles, as does the album’s penultimate track “Tear Stained Suicide Manifesto” (which features Moran on piano). The titles are secret clues to elaborate storylines that he constructs as inspiration for his composing process. “I always put the title first before I write one note,” he explains. “I need a whole story to have the format for a composition.”
However, some of Akinmusire’s compositions do have explicit references. “The Walls of Lechuguilla” refers to the extensive cave system in New Mexico known for the rarity and unusual beauty of its geological formations. “Every day I practice in front of a documentary because I do long tone for an hour and a half and I have to have something in front of me. This time I was checking out the Planet Earth series on BBC and they went down into this cave that nobody had ever gone into. They shine the light on the walls, and it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my life, and so I immediately started writing that tune and it came out just like that from beginning to end.”
“My Name Is Oscar” is a powerful piece that features Akinmusire’s spoken voice backed solely by Brown’s relentless drums. Oscar is Oscar Grant, the unarmed 22-year-old African American man who was shot and killed by a transit officer on New Year’s Eve in 2009 in Akinmusire’s hometown of Oakland. “I just want people to know the story. I don’t want it to become this ‘Fuck the police’ anthem,” he says. “Every time I go back home I’m reminded of it, people still talk about it, it’s still such a big thing because he got off with just two years, he didn’t get charged with murder. It just really resonates with me because I feel like it could have been me or anyone. The piece begins with me observing what happens, then me talking in the voice of Oscar Grant himself.”
“Ayneh (Cora)” and “Henya (Campbell)” are two delicate interludes that are dedicated to Akinmusire’s mother. “’Ayneh’ in Farsi means ‘mirror’ but more related to ‘reflection’ and I just wanted to write a piece that felt like an exhale, it’s a relaxing thing,” he says. “Then I flipped the song around, so the first bar I wrote is the last bar, so I flipped the title around and called it ‘Henya,’” which coincidentally in the Hebrew language is a name that translates as “Grace of God.”
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