When The Heart Emerges Glistening
    
Review by Willard Manus

Watch out for the new Miles, the next Dizzy. His name is Ambrose Akinmusire, a 28-year-old trumpeter/composer out of Oakland by way of the Berkeley High School Jazz Ensemble, USC, the Thelonius Monk Institute of Jazz, and the Manhattan School of Music. Akinmusire, named recently by the LA Times as a "Face to Watch," released his first CD four years ago, Prelude...To Cora on the Fresh Sound New Talent label. Now he has released his first album with a major label (Blue Note Records): WHEN THE HEART EMERGES GLISTENING.

Co-produced by Akinmusire and the noted pianist Jason Moran (who also plays on two tracks), WHEN THE HEART features thirteen compositions, eleven of which were written by Akinmusire. A few of the tunes, like "Henya Bass Intro," are brief, but that doesn't matter: everything on the album is deeply felt, sensitively played and fresh sounding.
Akinmusire and his band (sax man Walter Smith III, pianist Gerald Clayton, bassist Harish Raghavan and drummer Justin Brown) love to drive fast and hard, then suddenly downshift and find tender and poetic moments. Akinmusire leads forcefully with his trumpet but never overwhelms the ensemble, who are every bit as nimble and creative as he is, particularly Smith on tenor. They've been playing together for twelve years and are like Siamese twins in thought and execution (check out their dazzling interplay on "Confessions to My Unborn Daughter").

What also clearly emerges from this album is Akinmusire's voice, his point of view. There is an emotionally invested honesty and spirituality about his music; what he wants above all is to move people with it, inspire them to connect more deeply with one another. His strong social consciousness motivated him to write "My Name is Oscar," a powerful piece dedicated to Oscar Grant, the unarmed 22-year-old African-American shot dead by a BART policeman on New Year's Eve in 2009. Akinmusire's cryptic narration:

"...Inauguration...I am you...Don't shoot...Oakland...Live...We are the same...etc." is backed by Brown's insistent and fierce drumming.

Akinmusire isn't afraid to talk about death either; his "Tear Stained Suicide Manifesto" deals unflinchingly with that taboo subject, giving it a haunting beauty. On the upbeat side is "What's New," a tribute to one of his trumpet idols, the late Clifford Brown.
Akinmusire is without doubt the 21st century's Young Man With a Horn.