Immanuel Wilkins live from PhilaMOCA

'Coming up in the Philadelphia area, Immanuel Wilkins got his musical training not only in jazz circles but also at the Prayer Chapel Church of God, where he played piano. The active feedback loop of a worship service, with its pulsating cycles of call and response, remained a vivid sense memory for Wilkins as he moved on to some fairly elite institutions — notably the Juilliard School, from which he graduated in 2019, and Blue Note Records, which released his debut album, Omega, the following year. The 7th Hand, his second album for the label, synthesizes lessons learned at the altar and on the bandstand, with a keen awareness of African-American cultural history. "I was thinking a lot about being a vessel," Wilkins told Shaun Brady of the Philadelphia Inquirer several days before this album-release concert in his hometown. "About getting into a super Zen space where it feels like you're not the one making the music. I wanted to write a body of work that triggered that experience".'