Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace

by Shabaka Hutchings, Shabaka

Overview

In 2023, jazzman Shabaka Hutchings shelved his saxophone for the foreseeable future. A consequential decision, it followed the end of Sons of Kemet, the Comet Is Coming, and South African jazz project, Shabaka and the Elders. In November 2022, he released Afrikan Culture, recorded on shakuhachi, flute, and clarinet. He followed in 2023 with the mysterious, ambient jazz/hip-hop offering Flowers in the Dark by Kofi Flexxx on Native Rebel Recordings. Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace was recorded by Maureen Sickler at Rudy Van Gelder's New Jersey studio in 2022. Shabaka uses wits and intuition to summon this music up from the unconscious. He's assisted by a studio cast that includes pianists Nduduzo Makhathini and Jason Moran, drummers Nasheet Waits and Marcus Gilmore, flutist Andre 3000, percussionist Carlos Nino, harpists Brandee Younger and Charles Overton, bassists Esperanza Spalding and Tom Herbert, multi-instrumentalist Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, Floating Points, vocalists, and rappers. "End of Innocence" finds Shabaka playing clarinet with Moran, Waits, and Nino; the brief incantation sounds like a folk song. "As the Planet and Stars Collapse" places his lilting shakuhachi in lush company with both harpists and Atwood-Ferguson's strings. On "Insecurities," Moses Sumney's elastic falsetto engages the flute in seamless improvisation with Overton's harp. Shabaka uses a quena flute on the gently abstract "Managing My Breath, What Fear Had Become" with Nino and South Africans Makhathini on piano and Surya Botofasina on synth. New York rapper Elucid joins Spalding, the harpists -- who all engage with Shabaka's flute line by line -- and electronicist Chris Sholar on the poignant "Body to Inhabit." "I'll Do Whatever You Want" is the closest thing to a fully improvised jam here. It showcases Andre 3000's Teotihuacan drone flute alongside Shabaka's shakuhachi, a Rhodes Chroma by Floating Points, Dave Okumu's guitar, and Herbert's and Spalding's basses, with Gilmore's drums and Nino's percussion framing a wordless vocal from Laraaji. "Living" offers transcendent holism as Shabaka's Slavic svirel (a Russian flute) and Eska Mtungwazi's vocal entwine, ratcheting tension with Kate Bush-esque intensity while keenly interacting with harps and strings. The saxophone does make an appearance on "Breathing" alongside the flute and clarinet. The tune is a virtuosic duet with Rajna Swaminathan's mridangam in improvised call-and-response. Lianne La Havas joins Shabaka, Moran, Waits, and Nino on "Kiss Me Before I Forget," the closest thing to a pop-jazz ballad here. Shabaka's father, the Barbados-born singer Anum Iyapo -- who worked with King Tubby -- offers poetry on set-closer "Song of the Motherland," a paean to the glory of Blackness amid overdubbed flute lines and Overton's glissando harp playing. There isn't anything incendiary or fiery about Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace. Its gentle, warm production and unhurried playing are deceptive: These tunes, as rendered, are far more complex in arrangement and presentation than they appear. Combined, they reveal the artist's pursuit of creative excellence as an aesthetic practice with a spiritual dimension. ~ Thom Jurek

Product Details

Release Date:	04/12/2024
Label:	Impulse Records
UPC:	0602465050356

Tracks

1. End of Innocence
2. As the Planets and the Stars Collapse
3. Insecurities
4. Managing My Breath, What Fear Had Become
5. The Wounded Need To Be Replenished
6. Body To Inhabit
7. I'll Do Whatever You Want
8. Living
9. Breathing
10. Kiss Me Before I Forget
11. Song of the Motherlanda

Album Credits

Performance Credits

Shabaka   Primary Artist
Shabaka Hutchings   Primary Artist,Flute,Clarinet,Woodwind,Bandleader,Shakuhachi,Sax (Tenor)
Laraaji   Featured Artist,Vocals
Carlos Nino   Percussion
Jason Moran   Piano
Chris Sholar   Electronic Percussion
Tom Herbert   Bass
Floating Points   Vibraphone,Synthesizer,Featured Artist
Lianne La Havas   Featured Artist
Surya Botofasina   Synthesizer
Charles Overton   Harp
Nduduzo Makhathini   Piano
Moses Sumney   Featured Artist
Rajna Swaminathan   Mirdangam
Anum Iyapo   Featured Artist
Nasheet Waits   Drums
Esperanza Spalding   Bass
Dave Okumu   Guitar
Andre 3000   Flute
Miguel Atwood-Ferguson   Cello,Viola,Violin
Marcus Gilmore   Drums
Brandee Younger   Harp

Technical Credits

Dilip Harris   Mixing,Mastering,Producer
Gareth James   Photography
Guy Davies   Mastering
Sam Shepherd   Composer,Mastering,Additional Production
Ana Pryor   Design
Moses Sumney   Composer
Eska Mtungwazi   Composer
Chaz Jerome Hall   Composer
William Purton   Engineer
Saul Williams   Composer,Engineer
Miguel Atwood-Ferguson   Composer
Maureen Sickler   Engineer
Shabaka Hutchings   Artwork,Composer,Producer
Laraaji   Composer