JAZZ
BY ANDY COWAN
Aaron Shaw
★★★★
And So It Is
LEAVING. DL/LP
Debut by Kamasi Washington sax/flute protégé details recovery from serious illness.
A key mover in Los Angeles’ new jazz renaissance alongside his bassist brother Laurence, Aaron Shaw’s world collapsed when he was diagnosed with bone marrow failure. Sensitively overseen by producer Carlos Niño, this eight-song cycle finds Shaw composing his way out of the darkness, his pastoral flute work conjuring a womb-like warmth on The Path To Clarity and effortlessly dovetailing with Nate Mercereau’s spectral guitar on Jubilant Voyage. Heart Of A Phoenix is a simmering progressive odyssey, offset with dreamy harps and Dwight Trible’s wordless wails, with Trible also central to left-field takes on Flying Lotus/ Kendrick Lamar’s Never Catch Me and Chick Corea’s Windows. With nods to Miles Davis, Joe Henderson, Alice Coltrane and the church music of Shaw’s childhood, it’s a moving, spiritually deep testament to resistance, resilience and recovery.