Mama, You Can Bet (eOne Music)

Jyoti

Released August 2020

Jazzwise Top 20 Releases of 2020

AllMusic Favorite Jazz Albums 2020

YouTube:

https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mzPYoQQqVx7-LGIFWch00x0ChNkabe6a4

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/album/44xNirJYEj58KLNxnMaE1e?si=MNeLFU_fQgGbiZGwtHQzmw

About:

Acclaimed Grammy-nominated singer, songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Georgia Anne Muldrow returns with her 3rd studio album as part of her one-woman jazz ensemble Jyoti. The album follows the critically acclaimed ‘Ocotea’ and ‘Denderah’ released via her independent label SomeOthaShip Connect.
Unlike the previous two records, this album contains tracks with vocals from Georgia including the lead single ‘This Walk.’ The album’s only guest musician includes Georgia’s long-time friend and acclaimed saxophonist Lakeica Benjamin on the track ‘Ra’s Noise.’ The album also features two Charlie Mingus compositions that Georgia remixed for the album ‘Bemoanable Lady Geemix’ and ‘Fabus Foo Geemix.’

“This record is an adventure through my attitude. It’s been programmed to echo emotional states I visit into sonic locations because the art of music production has a mirror-like quality that encourages that. I wanted my mother to know that she deserves passionate love, that i see her as a beautiful woman. Wanted my niece to know I dig her genius dance & brain moves. Wanted to make a bebop experiment out of how astral travel to Benin could feel. To dedicate a tune to how proud I am of my grandson’s love of writing. To tell my buddy how much we still love her even though she’s left this world. All types of intimate stuff as usual. Because this style of music is the closest to my heart.”

Georgia Anne Muldrow

Track Listing:

1. Mama, You Can Bet! 03:11

2. Bop For Aneho 02:04

3. Zane, The Scribe 02:43

4. Our Joy (Mercedes) 01:44

5. Ra’s Noise (Thukumbado) ft. Lakecia Benjamin 03:22

6. Bemoanable Lady Geemix Fonk 03:33

7. Orgone 03:06

8. Skippin and Trippin 01:12

9. Swing, Kirikou, Swing! 02:08

10. Quarry’s Queries 03:06

11. Ancestral Duckets 04:04

12. Hard Bap Duke 02:55

13. This Walk 02:34

14. Fabus Foo Gemix 04:50

15. The Cowrie Waltz 03:55

Personnel:

Georgia Anne Muldrow: vocals, piano, keyboards, vibraphone, bass, drums, percussion

Lakeica Benjamin: alto saxophone (5)

Produced and arranged by Georgia Anne Muldrow

Review:

LA-based singer, multi-instrumentalist and producer Georgia Anne Muldrow is an original. Under her own name she makes left-field contemporary soul. Her 2018 album, Overload, released on Flying Lotus’ Brainfeeder label earned her a Grammy nomination and made numerous end of year lists. Mama, You Can Bet! is her third release with solo jazz project Jyoti (‘divine light’), a name that was given to her by Alice Coltrane. It’s wild, free and brilliantly creative, perhaps her most experimental release to date.

Aside from a feature from her close friend Lakecia Benjamin, who adds a rangy alto solo to ‘Ra’s Noise (Thukumbado)’, Muldrow plays, sings, records and produces everything herself. Across 15 short tracks she experiments with waltzing vibes melodies, lopsided beats, wobbly synths, clacking hand drums, shamanistic chants, gorgeous melancholic songs, wild scat, trippy electronics and howling guitars. She also includes two remixes of Mingus tunes from her ‘Muldrow Meets Mingus’ project, commissioned by Jason Moran at the Kennedy Centre in 2017. ‘Fabus Foo Geemix’ is anchored by a heavy slap bass groove, while ‘Bemoanable Lady Geemix’ sets Mingus’s love-sick melody to hissing hip hop drums.

Mama, You Can Bet! is like a sonic sketchbook, a torrent of ideas – most of them very cool indeed. Sometimes it’s disorientating. Tracks cut off at random; one seems to end with a full minute of silence. That could be an error in the stream I was sent, but it could just be Muldrow doing her thing. It’s hard to be sure and I like that a lot. 

Thomas Rees (Jazzwise)