The uncategorizable Moor Mother (real name Camae Ayewa) is fresh off releasing a new 700 Bliss album (with DJ Haram), and now she has announced her own new album, Jazz Codes, which she's calling a companion to 2021's excellent Black Encyclopedia of the Air. It's due July 1 via ANTI- (pre-order). A press release describes the album like this:
’Jazz Codes’ uses poetry as a starting point, but the collection moves toward more melody, more singing voices, more choruses and more complexity. In its warm, densely layered course through jazz, blues, soul, hip-hop, ’Jazz Codes’ sets the ear blissfully adrift and unhitches the mind from habit. Through her work, Ayewa illuminates the principles of her interdisciplinary collaborative practice Black Quantum Futurism, a theoretical framework for creating counter-chronologies and envisioning Black quantum womanist futures that rupture exclusionary versions of history and future through art, writing, music, and performance.
Moor Mother herself adds, "IT’S POETRY THAT DRIVES THIS ALBUM. THE STORIES OF THESE ARTISTS AND COUNTLESS OTHERS NOT NAMED BUT FELT - IS THE LEADING MOTIVATION. I WANTED TO HONOR & GIVE OFFERINGS, HOLD THEM IN MY BODY, DREAM WITH THEM, SEND SWEETNESS."
You can hear that coming through on lead single "WOODY SHAW," which features Melanie Charles and is a two-minute dose of minimal R&B/soul, but which also comes with an extended Cyrus Moussav-directed video that features Moor Mother a live band in free jazz/spoken word territory. It's an awesome first taste, as you can see for yourself below.
The album also features AKAI SOLO, Orion Sun, Mary Lattimore, Fatboi Sharif, YUNGMORPHEUS, lojii, Moor Mother's jazz band Irreversible Entanglements, and others. Full tracklist, artwork, and list of tour dates below.
Moor Mother doesn't have any NYC shows coming up at the moment, but Irreversible Entanglements have a NYC one-off happening Saturday (6/11) at National Sawdust. Tickets are available. Their latest album is 2021's Open The Gates, which you can pick up on "sands of color" vinyl.
Moor Mother
Tracklist 1. UMZANSI (feat Black Quantum Futurism featuring Mary Lattimore) 2. APRIL 7th (feat Keir Neuringer) 3. GOLDEN LADY (feat Melanie Charles) 4. JOE MCPHEE NATION TIME INTRO (feat Keir Neuringer) 5. ODE TO MARY (feat Orion Sun & Jason Moran) 6. WOODY SHAW (feat Melanie Charles) 7. MEDITATION RAG (feat Aquiles Navarro & Alya Al Sultani) 8. SO SWEET AMINA (feat Justmadnice & Keir Neuringer) 9. DUST TOGETHER (feat Wolf Weston & Aquiles Navarro) 10. RAP JASM (feat AKAI SOLO & Justmadnice) 11. BLUES AWAY (feat Fatboi Sharif) 12. BLAME (feat Justmadnice) 13. ARMS SAVE (feat Nicole Mitchell) 14. REAL TRILL HOURS (feat Yung Morpheus) 15. EVENING (feat Wolf Weston) 16. BARELY WOKE (feat Wolf Weston) 17. NOISE JISM 18. THOMAS STANLEY JAZZCODES OUTRO (feat Irreversible Entanglements & Thomas Stanley) 19. BLACK HONEY (feat. Loijj & Honeychile) (bonus track) 20. WE GOT THE JAZZ (feat. Kyle Kidd, Keir Neuringer, Aquiles Navarro) (bonus track) 21. BLACK DUST BLUES (feat. Elaine Mitchener) (bonus track)
Moor Mother -- 2022 Tour Dates 6/16 - Lucerne, Switzerland – B Sides Festival 6/23 - Mannheim, Germany – Mannheim Triennale 6/25 - Toulouse, France – Les Siestes Electroniques 6/27 - Bolzano, Italy – Alte Adige Festival 6/30 - Roskilde, Denmark – Roskilde Festival 7/2 - Budapest, Hungary – Kolorado Festival 7/4 - Montreal, Canada – Montreal Jazz Fest 7/8 - Los Angeles, CA – Resident 8/8 - Wiltshire, UK – End of the Road Festival 8/10 - Berlin, Germany – A L’larme! X Berlin 10
