Blue Note Records’ legendary status has long been established. Since its inception in the early 1950s, many of the jazz albums of the first 20 years of its existence are indisputable classics. What helps the label thrive now under the guidance of Don Was, some 70 years after its creation, is the savvy way in which it celebrates its past, while embracing the here and now to forge future classics that will be lauded in the same way as those epochal jazz records of the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s.
The latest artist to find what seems like a natural home at Blue Note, is the incredible Meshell Ndegeocello, who has unveiled her new single, entitled “Virgo.” At an epic eight-and-a-half minutes long, it is a surging, funky piece of intergalactic voyaging. She is ably assisted by dynamic drummer/pianist Julius Rodriguez and Brandee Younger, who follows in the musical footsteps of Dorothy Ashby and Alice Coltrane in sprinkling the wonders of her magical harp playing across the track.
The single is the centerpiece of the forthcoming album The Omnichord Real Book that is due to be released on June 16th. This debut for Blue Note is her first album since her acclaimed set of cover versions, Ventriloquism, which was released in 2018 and finds her tapping into the “broad spectrum of her musical roots” in the space forced upon her by the pandemic during which she says she “got to really sit and reacquaint myself with music” according to an official statement.
“This album is about the way we see old things in new ways,” Ndegeocello continues. “Everything moved so quickly when my parents died. Changed my view of everything and myself in the blink of an eye. As I sifted through the remains of their life together, I found my first Real Book, the one my father gave me. I took their records, the ones I grew up hearing, learning, remembering. My mother gifted me with her ache, I carry the melancholy that defined her experience and, in turn, my experience of this thing called life calls me to disappear into my imagination and to hear the music.”
As with everything Meshell Ndegeocello does, the forthcoming album is bound to thrill and surprise in equal measure, so settle in and take the astral journey she has blessed us with as a taster of things to come.
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