Blood on the Leaf: Opus No. 1 cover

Blood on the Leaf: Opus No. 1

Released

When the late critic Greg Tate formed this group, the concept was deceptively simple: make music that was spiritual kin to Miles Davis’s Bitches Brew, conjured through conducted improvisation, a methodology borrowed from Lawrence “Butch” Morris. The results sound nothing like electric Miles, and often don’t sound improvised at all. This is swirling jazz-rock/art-soul, like Westbound-era Funkadelic performing a jazz mass, with Lee Perry at the mixing board. Voices and instruments drift in and out as though heard in a dream, honoring no single tradition while embracing them all — the Art Ensemble of Chicago’s motto “Great Black Music: Ancient to the Future” applies.

Phil Freeman

Recommended by

Suggestions
Codona 3 cover

Codona 3

Collin Walcott, Codona, Naná Vasconcelos, Don Cherry
Armitage Road cover

Armitage Road

Heshoo Beshoo Group
New Directions cover

New Directions

Jack DeJohnette
Remembrance cover

Remembrance

John Patitucci
Bitches Brew cover

Bitches Brew

Miles Davis
Milton cover

Milton

Milton Nascimento
Flood cover

Flood

Herbie Hancock
The Almighty cover

The Almighty

Isaiah Collier & The Chosen Few
You’ve Been Watching Me cover

You’ve Been Watching Me

Tim Berne's Snakeoil
Dark Magus cover

Dark Magus

Miles Davis