Jamaaladeen Tacuma is an underrated electric bassist who came up playing the unique harmolodic music of legendary saxophonist Ornette Coleman. On this album, he pays tribute to Coleman's influence with a set of wonderfully invigorating original music that plugs into the electric music Coleman created with his Prime Time band. Starting off with a touching spoken dedication to Coleman, the music then moves into a very fast improvisation which pulls off the great coup of having the master himself as a guest soloist on a few tracks. Joining Tacuma and Coleman are Tony Kofi on tenor saxophone, Wolfgang Puschnig on flute, Yoichi Uzeki on piano, Justin Faulkner on drums, David “Fingers" Haynes on finger drums and Wadud Ahmad on spoken word. The opening track “Journey" sets the tone for the music to follow with a scalding collective improvisation that hews to the harmolodic ideal of “everybody solos, nobody solos" with the music developing in an empathatic nature. “Tacuma Song" was written by Coleman and is a starkly beautiful peice of music centered around the leaders nimble bass guitar. The album also includes two versions of the suite “Movement" which allow interlocking compositions and improvisations to give the musicians an opportunity to improvise at length in a structured, yet free environment. This was an excellent and every exciting album, fans of Coleman's music and free-funk in general will gain a lot of pleasure from listening to this challenging and thought provoking music. For the Love of Ornette—Jazzwerkstatt.
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