Blood on the Leaf: Opus No. 1 cover

Blood on the Leaf: Opus No. 1

Released

When the late critic Greg Tate formed this group, the concept was deceptively simple: make music that was spiritual kin to Miles Davis’s Bitches Brew, conjured through conducted improvisation, a methodology borrowed from Lawrence “Butch” Morris. The results sound nothing like electric Miles, and often don’t sound improvised at all. This is swirling jazz-rock/art-soul, like Westbound-era Funkadelic performing a jazz mass, with Lee Perry at the mixing board. Voices and instruments drift in and out as though heard in a dream, honoring no single tradition while embracing them all — the Art Ensemble of Chicago’s motto “Great Black Music: Ancient to the Future” applies.

Phil Freeman

Recommended by

Suggestions
Universal Beings cover

Universal Beings

Makaya McCraven
The Sea II cover

The Sea II

David Darling, Jon Christensen, Terje Rypdal, Ketil Bjørnstad
Love cover

Love

Wildflower
Connect cover

Connect

Charles Tolliver
Wired cover

Wired

Jeff Beck
Bitches Brew cover

Bitches Brew

Miles Davis
Street Priest cover

Street Priest

Ronald Shannon Jackson & the Decoding Society
Man-Child cover

Man-Child

Herbie Hancock
Moon Rappin' cover

Moon Rappin'

Jack McDuff