Ambrose Akinmusire - Origami Harvest

The Guardian 80

(Blue Note)

Trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire is part of that generation of west coast jazz musicians – such as Kamasi Washington, Thundercat and Terrace Martin – who appeared on Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly. But he’s by far the most adventurous musician in that crowd: a soloist who can shift gear from the warm and heart-tugging to the abstract and freaky within the same bar, and a composer whose extended song suites and elliptical song titles (My Inappropriate Soundtrack to a Genocide, for example) show a healthy stylistic restlessness.

Pitchfork 76

Joining the Mivos Quartet’s strings with rapper Kool A.D. and a traditional jazz ensemble, the Oakland trumpeter crafts suite-like compositions that grapple with structural racism and state violence.