RULER REBEL

Opening with a drone before strains of 1970s Ennio Morricone and Lalo Schifrin arise and the whisper of a trumpet emerges above minimalist piano loops and a pulsing rhythm that segues seamlessly into a sound reminiscent of a hybrid of Miles Davis’s seminal BITCHES BREW and SKETCHES OF SPAIN, RULER REBEL, the latest album from Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah—the first in his trilogy of albums celebrating the centennial of jazz—is a wholly unique musical saga that takes you places you never knew you wanted to go, an off-the-beaten-path diner where hip-hop and Philip Glass merge in the mind of a jazz visionary possessed of unparalleled technical mastery and artistic taste who sits across from you in a pleather booth to tell you a story that could exist only in the unspoken. And you can only listen.

The next album in the trilogy, DIASPORA, drops 23 June.