Cosmic Transitions (Division 81 Records)
Isaiah Collier & the Chosen Few
Released May 12, 2021
DownBeat Five-Star Review
YouTube:
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About:
Musical journeys represent a sense of duality, with the music defining a moment in time and also music being influenced by moments in time.
Isaiah Collier & The Chosen Few fully explore moments of the past, present, and yes the future.
Cosmic Transitions, is a Five-part suite, that addresses interpersonal relationships during a Retrograde period. The recording of this project took place on September 23rd, 2020 at Rudy Van Gelder’s legendary studio where greats like John Coltrane, Wayne Shorter, Joe Henderson, and many other great musicians expressed what they felt in those moments. Isaiah Collier a brilliant talent from Chicago leads the way on Soprano and Tenor Saxophone, with the support of the other members Jeremiah Hunt, Michael Shewoaga Ode, and Mike King. A release filled with a wide range of human emotions and musical possibility. Cosmic Transitions was crafted with the full intention to awaken those who hear it. Each part of the Suite weaves into the next. Not for the faint of heart, the album sets out to be a timestamp for before and after. Enjoy the journey.
Track Listing:
1. Invocation 6:35
2. Part I. Forgiveness 9:59
3. Part II. Humility 10:19
4. Part III. Understanding 11:21
5. Part IV. Truth & Guidance 3:15
6. Part V. Mercury’s Retrograde 15:01
Composed, Written, and Arranged by Isaiah Collier
Personnel:
Isaiah Collier: soprano & tenor saxophones
Jeremiah Hunt: upright bass
Michael Shekwoaga Ode: drums
Mike King: piano
Recorded on September 23rd, 2020, at Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey
Produced By Sonny Daze
Recording Engineer: Don Sickler, Maureen Sickler
Assistant Engineer: Tommaso Gambini
Mixed and Mastered: Sean Owens
Photo Collage: Sonny Daze
Photography: Tiffany Smith, Ramon Norwood, Sonny Daze
Design: Lisa Armstrong
Executive-Producer: Sonny Daze
Review:
This offering is the third from the Chicagobased saxophonist, who at the age of 23 has transcended the realm of prodigy. It is not his age that shocks. It is what he’s playing. Isaiah Collier and his band, the Chosen Few, walk through several moments of transition in the music, moving from its foundation in the blues directly into hard-bop. What we know as the avant-garde are an extension of the blues. And this album handles the blues with care. They are the foundation, again and again, for a musical gift that is an ancestral inheritance. Fully in the tradition, Collier’s music is not unthinking imitation. Though he recorded this album in 2020 at Rudy Van Gelder’s studio, utilizing the same equipment that John Coltrane used for A Love Supreme, Collier’s move is to honor transition by reanimating it. This is no easy task. One has to be prepared, something Collier clearly understands. It is an album inspired by the cosmic energy of Mercury in retrograde. From the downbeat, with a literal tolling of the bell, until the final note that finds Collier improvising, forcing the limits of his soprano saxophone, Cosmic Transitions is like the moments after an afternoon rainstorm. What Collier describes as the survival process, of living through the matrix, is a sound that disturbs the grounds of our imagination. Over five movements, the suite can be heard as a single statement: The blues give life to ballads, which give life to bebop, which are merely expressions of free modes of expression.
Joshua Myers (DownBeat)
