With “Blues Blood,” saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins reaches a milestone – Libération

In concert on Tuesday, September 3 at Jazz de La Villette, the New York saxophonist prodigy is releasing a third album in October that draws on the heritage of African-American blues.

No fewer than three voices will be staged around the Immanuel Wilkins quartet, which is arriving in Paris as a prelude to its third album on Blue Note, to be released on October 11. Entitled Blues Blood in reference to the words spoken by Daniel Hamm, one of the Harlem Six beaten up in 1964 by prison guards while awaiting their unfair trial, and produced by Meshell Ndegeocello, whose commitments in this area are well-known, this album, which has the feel of a postmodern oratorio, brings into play the central question of the blues people, in light of the Upper Darby native’s own experience, not far from Philadelphia. If his two previous collections positioned him as the heir to the stylist Kenny Garrett – we’ve seen worse references – the saxophonist modulates a much more original discourse, which is not without echoing the recent Nublues of vibraphonist Joel Ross, of whom he is one of the faithful accomplices.

At the origin of this change, there is the meeting with Theaster Gates, recognized visual artist and director of the Rebuild Foundation who reinvests the South Side of his hometown, Chicago, with the ambition of restoring pride to his community by reconnecting it to its cultural heritage, but also by introducing it to a more contemporary art. Immanuel Wilkins was thus inspired by his group, the Black Monks, which brings together gospel singers anchored in the Deep South with musicians from the Chicago avant-garde, like