Brooklyn-based alto saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins mightily impressed critics with 2020's Omega. His wispy yet resonant tone revealed a wildly inventive soloist with an advanced compositional facility executed with authority by his quartet -- pianist Micah Thomas, bassist Daryl Johns, and drummer/percussionist Kweku Sumbry. That group returns on The 7th Hand to ask an audacious question across seven tunes: What would happen if God joined the band? This hour-long suite of seven stand-alone movements investigates the space ...
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Brooklyn-based alto saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins mightily impressed critics with 2020's Omega. His wispy yet resonant tone revealed a wildly inventive soloist with an advanced compositional facility executed with authority by his quartet -- pianist Micah Thomas, bassist Daryl Johns, and drummer/percussionist Kweku Sumbry. That group returns on The 7th Hand to ask an audacious question across seven tunes: What would happen if God joined the band? This hour-long suite of seven stand-alone movements investigates the space between two existential poles: the abundance of sacred presence and the nihilistic poverty of nothingness. The music on the provocative The 7th Hand moves through evolutionary stages. As it plays, elegantly rendered post-bop embraces harmonic modalism, then develops outward in the echolalia of free improvisation. In considering his existential question, Wilkins pondered the biblical significance of the number six, which represents the maximum potential of human possibility. He wondered that if the band actively sought divine intervention as an intended part of their creative process, would God's spirit, the heavenly seventh element, possess and guide them? Opener "Emanation" balances release and tension with harmonic inquiry through modernist post-bop. Played with intricate melodic invention and barely restrained energy, Wilkins' horn offers a plethora of harmonic ideas. Thomas' piano employs expansive chord voicings as the rhythm section swings hard underneath. "Don't Break" features the Farafina Kan Percussion Ensemble. The djembe drums employ chantlike rhythmic motifs, directly reflecting the evolution of the African diaspora as Wilkins and Thomas answer with the blues. "Fugitive Ritual, Selah" is a gorgeous ballad derived from prewar Black gospel. It's introduced by a lyric statement from Johns before a recurrent riff claims the center. Sumbry's delicate brushwork gives way to a relaxed beat caressed by syncopation from piano and alto. "Shadow" sways alongside the blues with a minimal riff-laden theme in a deceptively easy groove until it drifts naturally into restrained abstraction. Both "Witness" and "Lighthouse" feature flutist Elena Pinderhughes. Her graceful approach adds a spectral dimension to the former, while on the latter, her cerebral lyric invention provides both contrast and depth to Wilkins' skillful, intuitively tempered improvisation amid forceful drumming and frenetic bass runs. The sprawling, 26-minute closer, "Lift," is a furious labyrinthine group improvisation that recalls John Coltrane's Ascension. Wilkins' knotty blowing acknowledges the modal intention in Thomas' spiky, harmonic piano stabs. Propulsive intervallic bass lines accentuate crashing cymbals and clattering tom-toms as snare and kick drum drive the molten flow of energy. The 7th Hand is a major work. It travels dazzlingly from tranquility and comfort to ambivalence, restlessness, and impatience before it engages re-entry, rebirth, and transcendence. This band understands that Wilkins' bold question may be unanswerable, but they play as if they know. They commit to asking it with music-making as compelling and inspired as it is exploratory and dazzling. ~ Thom Jurek, Rovi
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