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Welcome to a new edition of the Daily Music Picks newsletter!
Today’s music pick is a criminally underrated 70s jazz classic, showcasing Maupin’s facility with spiritual jazz composition.
Genre: Jazz, Experimental
Label: ECM
Release Date: November 1, 1974
Vibe: 🪷
From the opening seconds of “Ensenada,” it’s immediately apparent that Bennie Maupin’s The Jewel in the Lotus will take you on a cosmic journey. Over the years, it’s been labeled as jazz but also classical, avant-garde, and experimental ambient, which should tell you something about the sonic ground it covers. Like Bitches Brew and Head Hunters, two albums Maupin played on earlier in his career, Lotus changed both how jazz was heard and thought about in the public consciousness. Percussive rhythms float in and out of each stereo channel, alternatively crashing into and complementing each other depending on the track or section. Notes are played with varying degrees of intensity and seductiveness, with Maupin and close friend Herbie Hancock producing melodies so stringent and dramatic that they’re almost startling in their beauty. If you have or are considering acquiring a pair of HiFi speakers or headphones, this is one of those records that will make the purchase well worth it.
Standouts on Lotus include “Mappo,” a hair-raising cut that sees bassist Buster Williams and Hancock provide a bottomed-out entry point for Maupin’s muscular saxophone playing, recalling work the latter did with Hancock’s Mwandishi and Sextant groups. The title track is positively cinematic in how alien and beautiful it sounds, with panning and echo effects bringing a lot of texture to the forefront. You feel like you’re at the center of some mystical forest, with wonder and danger closing in fast around. There’s also “Songs for Tracie Dixon Summers,” a composition where you can hear the steam coming off the blazing concrete in the middle of a dusty neighborhood. Once again, Maupin’s playing is so exquisite it’s shocking he didn’t lead more sessions of this quality. At least we have this LP as an enduring document of how accomplished he was as a composer, bandleader, and soloist, bringing together all sorts of influences into a cohesive, sublime listening experience.
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