
Owl Song (Nonesuch)
Ambrose Akinmusire
Released December 15, 2023
New York Times Best Jazz Albums of 2023
Grammy Nominee for Best Jazz Instrumental Album 2025
Jazzwise Top 50 Albums of the Year 2023
DownBeat Readers Poll Top 11 Jazz Albums of the Year 2024
AllMusic Favorite Jazz Albums 2023
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About:
Composer and trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire makes his Nonesuch Records debut with Owl Song. The album features a trio with two musicians Akinmusire has long admired, guitarist Bill Frisell and drummer Herlin Riley.
“This is my reaction to being assaulted by information,” Akinmusire says of Owl Song. “This record is me wanting to create a safe space. Part of the challenge was: Can I create something that’s oriented around open space, the way some of the records I love the most do?”
He says of his collaborators, “I had a feeling of wanting to record with Bill from the first time we played—it was a duo performance, very little rehearsal. We just played through some of my songs, and it worked. One of Bill’s special gifts is the ability to shape a piece he’s just heard for the first time. He seems to know what the music wants before the first note.
“With Herlin, his commitment to beauty you can find in the groove. I never like to tell musicians too much about what I’m going for, because it should be about what these particular people bring … I said, ‘I know you’re the right person for this because of the way you approach the groove.’ And, of course, what he did is just beautiful.” He continues, “Also, I wanted to put people together who didn’t seem like they would go together … and it turns out they haven’t played a lot. So, it was cross generational, cross subgenre, cross whatever.”
Akinmusire says of “Owl Song 1,” “I have special affinity for the owls. Their personality is so distinctive—always observing. I should add that the titles don’t have huge significance in terms of what they mean—my process is not so literal,” he adds. “I wrote these songs for the people in mind who would play. I was focused on coming up with a set of music … the titles were placeholders that stayed. So, ‘Owl Song 1’ and ‘2.’”
Ambrose Akinmusire’s musical gifts developed rapidly. He grew up in Oakland, California, and while in high school he caught the attention of saxophonist Steve Coleman. Akinmusire joined Coleman’s Five Elements at age nineteen, touring while also a student at Manhattan School of Music. He then pursued further study—earning a master’s degree at the University of Southern California, then attending the Thelonius Monk Institute in Los Angeles, where his mentors included Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock. He is currently the Artistic Director of the Hancock Institute.
In 2010, he was signed to Blue Note Records; his debut for the label, When the Heart Emerges Glistening, drew worldwide accolades. The Los Angeles Times observed that “Akinmusire sounds less like a rising star than one that was already at great heights and just waiting to be discovered.”
In the wake of the acclaim for his debut, Akinmusire composed music for strings and voice (The Imagined Savior Is Far Easier to Paint, 2014), appeared on Kendrick Lamar’s landmark To Pimp a Butterfly (2015), and conjured a tapestry called Origami Harvest (2018) that explored the complexities of Black. His next project, On the Tender Spot of Every Calloused Moment, furthered that narrative direction. Released two weeks after the murder of George Floyd, it contained poignant laments about income inequality and the effects of rapid gentrification on communities like those in the Bay Area where he grew up. Owl Song is the first of three records Akinmusire is releasing on Nonesuch over the next year. Each will spotlight a distinct element of his musical world and involve different instrumentation and production approaches.
Track Listing:
1. Owl Song 1 (feat. Bill Frisell & Herlin Riley) 05:52
2. Weighted Corners (feat. Bill Frisell & Herlin Riley) 04:23
3. Flux Fuelings (feat. Bill Frisell & Herlin Riley) 05:03
4. Owl Song 2 (feat. Bill Frisell & Herlin Riley) 06:27
5. Grace (feat. Bill Frisell & Herlin Riley) 06:26
6. Mr. Frisell (feat. Bill Frisell) 03:15
7. Mr. Riley (feat. Herlin Riley) 03:26
8. Henya (feat. Bill Frisell & Herlin Riley) 07:06
Personnel:
Ambrose Akinmusire: trumpet
Bill Frisell: guitar
Herlin Riley: drums
Recorded at 25th Street Recording, Oakland, CA, by Adam Muñoz
Mixed and Mastered by Dave Darlington
Cover Photo: Zuzanna Gąsiorowska
Design: John Gall
Producer: Ambrose Akinmusire
Review:
Since his 2011 debut album When the Heart Emerges Glistening (Blue Note), trumpeter/composer Ambrose Akinmusire has created music with a deep, soulful thoughtfulness and purpose that stretches boundaries and pulls at the heartstrings. He has done it again with his latest recording, Owl Song (Nonesuch), a quiet rush of gorgeous sound where space, tone and beauty come together in one of the most impactful albums of 2023. For this outing, Akinmusire has chosen a definite less-is-more philosophy, beginning with his bandmates for the recording — a simple trio with guitarist Bill Frisell and drummer Herlin Riley. The music they make is nothing short of stunning. They weave in, out and through each other with grace, Frisell’s guitar serving up beautiful, often repeated, motifs; Riley’s drums keeping steady, fascinating rhythms. For his part, Akinmusire chooses long, lovely tones that squeeze feelings of love, loss and angst from every single note. “Owl Song 1” and “Owl Song 2” offer stellar examples played at achingly slow paces with plenty of space for experimentation and interaction. The appropriately titled “Grace” offers a taste of the appreciation Akinmusire has for this music, while “Mr. Frisell” and “Mr. Riley” demonstrate his appreciation for his two gifted collaborators. This is one of the most interesting recordings to come along in a very long time by one of the most interesting artists of our time. DownBeat will be featuring Akinmusire on the March 2024 issue cover.
Frank Alkyer (DownBeat)