Assisted by Jeff Parker, Tomeka Reid, and Makaya McCraven, the Chicago drummer pays tribute to his late brother with an innovative fusion of Jazz composition and spoken-word memorial.
The Weather Up There, drummer Jeremy Cunningham’s second album as a bandleader, is part of a lineage of jazz that uses diverse musical forms to contemplate death and bereavement. Grief, to cite a famous example, prompted Alice Coltrane to turn to the tamboura and oud after the death of her husband, John. More recently, it led the pianist Kenny Werner to mix orchestra and choir on No Beginning, No End, and trumpeter Dave Douglas to synthesize bluegrass, traditional hymns, and Sibelius on Be Still. After suffering a loss, jazz history suggests, musicians look beyond their immediate surroundings, as though seeking beauty in parts of the world they might have missed before.
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