Search - Ambrose Akinmusire :: Prelude (to Cora)

Dazzling Debut

Scott Williams | Oakland, CA United States | 05/03/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Overview:



27 year old Ambrose Akinmusire has gotten off to a great start with his dazzling debut album Prelude: To Cora. The album features a steller cast of young stars including Aaron Parks (piano), Joe Sanders (bass), Walter Smith III (tenor sax), Justin Brown (drums), Chris Dingman (vibes). Three of the tracks features vocalist Junko Watanabe and 3 tracks feature alto sax player Logan Richardson. Rising star Aaron Parks was Terrence Blanchard's pianist for several years and recently released a great album of his own Invisible Cinema.

Akinmusire who hails from Oakland, CA has a beautful tone on the trumpet and great chops as well. Prelude features 7 songs written by Ambrose + 1 one song by Aaron Parks, 1 song by Walter Smith III and the Benny Golson classic, Stablemates. The overall mood and tone of the album is similar to a mid 60's Wayne Shorter album. The only knock against this album is the use of new age vocals. The vocals are reminiscent of the vocals McCoy Tyner employed on his Asante album. While the new agish vocals worked in 1970, they seem out of place in 2008. However, they are used sparingly and don't really detract that much from the album.



Song Highlights:



Trapped in a Dream - This song written by Aaron Parks is also referred to as "Ghost Ship" in the liner notes. It opens with a somber piano line, a beautiful trumpet ballad, and then some heavy emotional romping on the lower piano notes. It is a very emotional piece and is sure to elicit a response from any listener. It seems to end prematurely though, leaving the listener wanting more.



Aroca - This is real pretty ballad. It was hard to decide between this song and Ruby, which was the prettiest ballad on the album. The title of the song is based on the name of Ambrose's mom, Cora C. According to the liner notes an A section replaced a B section and some sections were reversed and that lead to the name of the song being converted to Aroc A.



Dingmandingo - this song written by Walter Smith III, must be written for vibraphonist Dingman. Smith and Akinmusire trade song great solos on this medium paced tune.



Stablemates - This is a duet between Aaron Parks and Akinmusire. While I wouldn't want to listen to a whole album with just the duet, this is a really nice change of pace from the rest of the album. Parks and Akinmusire are clearly two of the hottest rising stars in jazz and its great to hear them totally re-arrange this toon and play off of each other.



I recently had the opportunity to see Ambrose play and he has gotten even better than his performance on this album. I highly recommend this album to anyone looking to for sneak peak at the future of jazz.

"