The first two albums from American alto saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins showed him a force to be reckoned with; a fluent player steeped in tradition (with Kenny Garrett a touchstone) who is also an inventive conceptualist committed to “sacred music”. Co-produced by Meshell Ndegeocello, Blues Blood underscores the lofty ambitions of the 27-year-old Philadelphian, who incorporates several female vocalists into the album’s shapeshifting fabric. Wilkins’s aspiration is to give expression to ancestral black experience in a kind of psychic raid on Jung’s collective unconscious. “Music,” he says, “has alchemical properties.”
What emerges from its 14 tracks (including several short impressionist “interludes”) is a provocative mix of styles. Opener Matte Glaze is a gleeful alto romp set against Micah Thomas’s chiming piano, a mood maintained on Motion. Later come complex pieces such as Afterlife Residence Time, whose long, wailing notes are by turns solemn and anguished. In the mix are calls and moans. Blues Blood, inspired by a notorious 1964 court case of police brutality, turns from a jaunty start into violence and pain. Dark Eyes Smile is stately, a showcase for the nostalgic vocals of Cécile McLorin Salvant, while Moshpit, despite its title, is brooding. Overreaching? Perhaps, but still the work of a lustrous talent.
