Lady Blackbird: Slang Spirituals

In the aftermath of George Floyd's killing in 2020, the relatively unknown Marley Munroe dropped a cover of Nina Simone's 1966 song "Blackbird." Having adopted the title into her new stage name of Lady Blackbird, she took sombre pride in seeing this version chime with a fiercely engaged Black Lives Matter community. This came purely by zeitgeist chance after decades of endeavour to establish herself.

"Blackbird" was also a taster for her 2021 debut album Black Acid Soul on the London-based Foundation label. Along with producer and guitarist Chris Seefried, she tackled works by the likes of Tim Hardin and Allen Toussaint, while adding words to the prayerful Bill Evans number "Peace Piece." Resilient and vulnerable, unsettling and sultry, it made for a vivid debut of chamber jazz.

For this second outing, Lady Blackbird draws upon gospel music's powerhouse aesthetic, her body a pulsating sound chamber. This time she and Seefried have crafted their own material and the results are wildly seductive. Away from the autumnal vibe of their first effort, Slang Spirituals evokes a sap-rising springtide and glorious summers of awakening. From the outset with "Let Not (Your Heart Be Troubled)," Lady Blackbird has the aura of a flower child singing in tongues of fire from a heavenly scroll. Her fantastic vocals testify about thorned roses growing from a stone, as Seefried's sparkling production captures a certain Muscle Shoals essence.

"Like A Woman" sashays in with conviction, blessed by grace-filled responses from the backing vox. Even greater is the hallelujah hot stuff of "Reborn," where Lady Blackbird outmuscles allcomers in the anthemic stakes. But not everything here is about reclaiming her inner warrior. The acoustic pleadings of "Man On A Boat" and "Someday We'll Be Free" would each grace an intimate night at Ronnie Scott's. Then consider "When The Game Is Played On You" and "Whatever His Name," which enter altered states of perception like Don Cherry merging with Minnie Riperton. Indeed, there is a sense in these songs of the what the 1960s scholar Gordon Wasson called "god- generated-within," his response to the negativity around psychedelic innuendo. Lady Blackbird grew up a devout Christian in New Mexico, but her music separates the joy of religious experience from strict religion itself.

Elsewhere, both "The City" and "If I Told You" are like soul celebrations from Stevie Wonder's stomping ground, while the bittersweet ballad "No One Can Love Me (Like You Do)" is rapturous.

On her breastbone Lady Blackbird has a tattoo of an Egyptian ankh, the symbol of eternal life. The sun god Ra is often shown holding an ankh to symbolize his powers of creation. The actual hieroglyph is a teardrop-shaped hoop with a cross below it, to represent the sun making its path upward over the horizon. If this superb album's shout of redemption also sends Lady Blackbird's fortune skyward, then karma will have been well served.

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