Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Babatunde Lea: Suite Unseen: Summoner of the Ghost

120

Babatunde Lea: Suite Unseen: Summoner of the Ghost

By

View read count
Babatunde Lea: Suite Unseen: Summoner of the Ghost
Suite Unseen: Summoner of the Ghost is yet another practical reminder that one should never judge an album by its cover. Or its shamanistic title or overwritten liner notes, for that matter. What looks conspicuously like a sprawling world music effort is actually a relatively straight-ahead jazz session linked by African folk chants and Afro-Caribbean polyrhythms. That might explain why the small print on the reverse side advises clerks to "File under Jazz" instead of the less frequented areas of the record store.

Suite Unseen, Lea's fifth outing as leader, kicks off with bassist Geoff Brennan's vamp, a conga roll, and then Glen Pearson's firm piano underscoring, and soon throws itself headfirst into a groove powered by the brawny horn section. Trombonist Steve Turré—a prominent Bay Area musician, like Lea and many other performers here—gets a full workout on his short solo, showing his range from grumbles to squeals before being joined by saxophonist Richard Howell. Titled "Ancestral Stroll" (and the first of the proper "Suite Unseen" tracks), there is nothing either ancient or ambling about this opening number. It comes across as fresh and urgent.

Turré's "Motivation" is a bit quirkier and jerkier, though it features that same fat horn section working in unison. Turré has another fine solo, shifting effortlessly from staccato to smooth lines; Howell goes straight for smooth. Together with Lea they shake up the standard solo protocol a bit, throwing back and forth to one another for the last minute or so. "On the T.L." continues the jaunty mood one last time before Howell's subdued ballad "A Song for Ani." Lea accentuates the track with cymbal splashes and rumblings like distant thunder. "The Bay Area's Afro-Latin Funky Love Shuffle" is a swinging, feel-good track penned by Howell—though it sounds slightly more Big Apple than Bay Area.

"Invocation," a percussion solo, precedes the smoke-and-whisky Turré chart "Inconspicuous," but it more-or-less delineates the overtly African-inspired part of the disc dominated by Lea's own compositions and his unifying thematic thread. Beginning breezily enough, "Suite Unseen: The Unseen" makes a few ominous departures and then builds into a kind of collective ecstasy. The ensuing rendition of James Taylor's "Fire and Rain" runs entirely contrary to this (the "flow" of the disc Lea mentions in the liner notes requires a huge imaginative leap)—a bright, swinging number replete with finger snaps that seems to overlook the latter half of the title. It closes with the group chant, "I've seen fire and I've seen rain" (repeat indefinitely).

"Chants from Home" is similar, with Lea invoking the ocean deity Yemaya by following an old Yoruba chant, slowly segueing into the spiritual refrain "Sometimes I feel like a motherless child," which in turn segues into the succeeding track, "From Home." In the final movement, a George Clinton-style funk jam, Lea literally shouts out across the spiritual divide to family members and musical forerunners, an apt way to close out this lively, inspired (in the strictest sense of the word) disc.

Track Listing

1. Suite Unseen: Ancestral Stroll; 2. Motivation; 3. On the T.L.; 4. A Song For Ani; 5. The Bay Area's Afro-Latin Funky Love Shuffle; 6. Invocation; 7. Inconspicuous; 8. Suite Unseen: The Unseen; 9. Fire and Rain; 10. Suite Unseen: Spirit of the 'Wood'; 11. Chants from Home; 12. Suite Unseen: From Home; 13. Maeeah's Big Adventure; 14. Suite Unseen: Summoner of the Ghost.

Personnel

Babatunde Lea
percussion

Babatunde Lea: drums, percussion, vocals; Ron Belcher: double bass; Geoff Brennan: bass; Richard Howell: saxophones; Bujo Kevin Jones: percussion; Glen Pearson: piano; Steve Turre: trombone;

Album information

Title: Suite Unseen: Summoner of the Ghost | Year Released: 2005 | Record Label: Motéma Music

Tags

Comments


PREVIOUS / NEXT




Support All About Jazz

Get the Jazz Near You newsletter All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who make it. Our enduring commitment has made "AAJ" one of the most culturally important websites of its kind, read by hundreds of thousands of fans, musicians and industry figures every month.

Go Ad Free!

To maintain our platform while developing new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity, we need your help. You can become a sustaining member for as little as $20 and in return, we'll immediately hide those pesky ads plus provide access to future articles for a full year. This winning combination vastly improves your AAJ experience and allow us to vigorously build on the pioneering work we first started in 1995. So enjoy an ad-free AAJ experience and help us remain a positive beacon for jazz by making a donation today.

More

Tramonto
John Taylor
Ki
Natsuki Tamura / Satoko Fujii
Duality Pt: 02
Dom Franks' Strayhorn
The Sound of Raspberry
Tatsuya Yoshida / Martín Escalante

Popular

Old Home/New Home
The Brian Martin Big Band
My Ideal
Sam Dillon
Ecliptic
Shifa شفاء - Rachel Musson, Pat Thomas, Mark Sanders
Lado B Brazilian Project 2
Catina DeLuna & Otmaro Ruíz

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.

Install All About Jazz

iOS Instructions:

To install this app, follow these steps:

All About Jazz would like to send you notifications

Notifications include timely alerts to content of interest, such as articles, reviews, new features, and more. These can be configured in Settings.