Song Review: Ambrose Akinmusire's “a blooming bloodfruit in a hoodie”

Ambrose Akinmusire’s validation of my hot take on his new song “a blooming bloodfruit in a hoodie” gratified me last week.  Minutes after I suggested that the “essential new ‘a blooming bloodfruit in a hoodie’ is the jazz equivalent of Lou Reed’s monumental ‘Street Hassle’” on Twitter, Akinmusire affirmed the assessment.  Like “Street Hassle,” the coarse 13-minute track is simultaneously funny and tragic as it fluently merges high art and popular music.  The opening selection from the forthcoming album Origami Harvest is one of the most exciting things I’ve heard in 2018 and reinforces my belief that Akinmusire is one of the most vital artists of the new millennium.


---
I write weekly concert previews for The Kansas City Star.

---
I reviewed the Count Basie Orchestra’s new album All About That Basie at Plastic Sax.

---
I’d be lying if I suggested I was a fan of Mac Miller.  Even so, his recent Tiny Desk Concert featuring a band that includes Thundercat and Justus West showed Miller evolving toward a musical direction that appeals to me.  Miller died last week.

---
The rugged saxophonist Big Jay McNeely has died.

---
Maartin Allcock of Fairport Convention and Jethro Tull has died.  (Tip via BGO.)

---
Katherine Paul, the woman behind Black Belt Eagle Scout, is less heralded than many of her similarly winsome indie-rock peers, but I prefer her album Mother of My Children to most of the more acclaimed efforts.  Here’s “Indians Never Die”.

---
Rich the Factor makes a cameo appearance on Rico, the new album by the ostensible drug kingpin and rapper Berner.  Chronixx, Cam’ron and Kevin Gates are also featured.  Here’s the title track.

---
Cedric Burnside’s Benton County Relic is an admirable blues album.  RIYL: R.L. Burnside, family traditions, T-Model Ford.

---
I’m still mourning the February death of Jóhann Jóhannsson.  The Icelandic composer’s posthumously released score for the horror flick Mandy also acts as an unsettlingly abrasive soundtrack for the current societal discourse.

---
Most people think I’m kidding when I tell them I adore Ariana Grande’s recent music.  Maybe they’ll come around to my way of hearing things after they take in the pop star’s interpretation of Thundercat’s “Them Changes.”

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)