Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah, "Bark Out Thunder Roar Out Lightning" (Ropeadope)
Growing up in New Orleans, Adjuah was raised at the corner of two traditions. He learned to play the trumpet at the elbow of his uncle and mentor, saxophonist Donald Harrison Jr., a true-blue jazz musician. And Adjuah — who was born, and introduced to the listening public as, Christian Scott — seemed destined to become one, too. But their family was also prominent in New Orleans' tradition of Black masking Indians, rooted in the city's history of Black and Indigenous resistance in the 18th and 19th centuries, when Africans fleeing slavery often joined with Native Americans.
While professional musicians laid down the roots of American jazz in the late 1800s — mixing African styles with European repertoire at parades and society functions — groups of so-called Mardi Gras Indians dressed in bright regalia performed songs with a more unbroken connection to West and Central Africa, and little relationship to a commercial audience. To this day, Black masking Indians sing those old songs on Mardi Gras Day.
Adjuah now carries that history. He has become a big chief of a Black Indian group, the Xodokan Nation, just as his uncle and grandfather were before him. He has worked for years to convince the world that he's not a "jazz" musician at all; he says "stretch music" is a more appropriate catchall for the alloy of African influences, Black American improvisation, hip-hop, indie rock and more that he has been polishing for the past two decades.
Adjuah's new and his 14th studio album is the first on which he doesn't touch the trumpet. Instead, he sings and plays a handful of self-made instruments; the album features almost nothing but acoustic percussion, vocals and the occasional sound of trees rustling or birds cawing.
"Bark Out Thunder" amounts to a paean to this legacy of Black Indian recordings, and an announcement of how he plans to carry the torch forward. This is his most compelling, undiluted record.
From the Black Indian canon, he covers the rousing call-and-response of "Shallow Water," an up-tempo version of the traditional song "Iko," here titled "Xodokan Iko — Hu Na Ney," and "Golden Crown," on which the chorus' voices salute the chief: "Adjuah got the golden crown."
GIOVANNI RUSSONELLO, New York Times
