The unusual credits listings reflect the co-operative nature of this work. It’s not an album, as such, but an EP (Dinner Party) from 2020 and a remix EP (Dessert) from later that year intended as an alternative to the original. Both have now been combined onto a CD for the first time in that format. It’s fairly smooth, urban late night jazz/soul/hip hop and it’s a lovely piece of work. The relatively smooth music is a way of smuggling in some more pointed lyrical comments, most of which are sung rather than rapped.
Three of the principals, namely
Glasper, Martin and Washington are respected instrumentalists in their own
right, but for this project they have grasped opportunities afforded by newer
technologies and newer ways of working to frame their instruments in a
different way. There is some strong soloing, notably from, (I believe), Terrace
Martin on The Mighty Tree and Kamasi
Washington on Luv U. The song that
follows Tree, Freeze Tag, wins the
points for a beautiful flowing melody.
The striking artwork from Amani
Washington is due praise as well, as is this video for Sleepless
Nights in which our leads are cast as superheroes in a piece of
Afro-Futurist animation. This video for Freeze Tag
is a more straightforward ‘recording of the song’ video. Dave Sayer
*(There are no useful sleeve
notes so most of this information has been cribbed off Wikipedia and other
sites).
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