Saxophonist and composer Steve Coleman is a mystic and a seeker of hidden truths.
His method involves letting go of conscious intentionality and allowing his pen and his horn to channel rhythms and melodies already somehow “present” in the natural world.
This ambitious suite of compositions for a 21-piece ensemble takes the movement of the joints in the human body as inspiration, and, however sceptical that may initially make the listener, there’s no arguing that the results are startlingly original.
Even today, when Coleman’s influence may be discerned in pretty much every other contemporary jazz musician alive, his own recordings are still unique and utterly compelling in their sinuous, reticulated lines and dense, mysterious structures.
