Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Jimi Tenor & Kabu Kabu "4th Dimension" (2009)


It takes a lot of guts to open an album with an obvious allusion to Sun Ra.  But while Sun Ra's music pushed forwards, into the space age, incorporating the history of jazz only insofar as it was needed to summarize that history, "4th Dimension" looks firmly to the past, with only illusions of progress or transcendence.  The past focused on here is not the deep history of jazz, but rather afrobeat and dance music.  Disco anyone? 

While technically sound, this lacks the true transcendental nature of more forward thinking jazz, as well as the true earthy thrust of afrobeat.

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