Angel Bat Dawid - Requiem For Jazz

"Thy Kingdom Come" purple vinyl /  or standard black vinyl.

Jazz polemicist and all round visionary, Angel Bat Dawid, strides back into view with this wildly ambitious second record, described as a twelve-movement suite that takes inspiration from the 1959 Edward O. Bland film, The Cry of Jazz. It's brought to life by a huge ensemble cast of all Black Chicago musicians, as well as Marshall Allen and Knoel Scott from the Arkestra, who's presence represents a smart circularity. More still, it's rounded out by the inclusion of a number of interludes that stretch the sonic palette into varying crossover forays through hip hop, contemporary R&B and electronic production styles, and even musical theatre (yes, really!). It's a mammoth endeavour, rooted of course in the jazz and sometimes blues vocal tradition, but with a kind of ahistorical flattening, the past sitting alongside futurist impulses in a disorientating, fractal manner (there's precedence for this of course - futurism was always a part of Ra's vision). You're getting a lot of ideas all at once here, but i'm not gonna call this postmodern - Requiem for Jazz is sincere, boundaryless music making that seeks to recalibrate the canon. In that sense, it kinda reminds me of what D'Angelo did with soul/R&B on that last record of his, linking impossibilities and all that. But then again, Black American music has always been radical, positioned at the sharp end of the vanguard, the one it created no less. Requiem for Jazz continues that grand tradition and also reaffirms the presence of a once-every-now-and-then talent. Requiem? More a re-birth and affirmation.