Deaf Dumb Blind (Summun Bukmun Umyun) cover

Deaf Dumb Blind (Summun Bukmun Umyun)

Released

Pharoah Sanders’ follow-up to the unexpected counterculture hit Karma was this album of dense, polyrhythmic Afro-jazz improvisation featuring some amazing musicians: Woody Shaw on trumpet, Gary Bartz on alto sax, Lonnie Liston Smith on piano, Cecil McBee on bass, Clifford Jarvis on drums, and Anthony Wiles and Nat Bettis on percussion. (Most of the other players contributed percussion, too.) Its two side-long pieces, “Summun Bukmun Umyun” and “Let Us Go Into The House Of The Lord,” feel endless, but in a good way. Solos rise up, then vanish again, like fish leaping out of a river; congas and shakers and bells and African thumb pianos jangle and rattle and hiss and ping, and Smith’s piano shimmers like sunlight on a lake.

Phil Freeman

Recommended by

Suggestions
Nice Guys cover

Nice Guys

Art Ensemble of Chicago
Lovers cover

Lovers

Nels Cline
Bag It cover

Bag It

The Thing
Quiet City cover

Quiet City

Pan American
NOW cover

NOW

Damon Locks Black Monument Ensemble
Gefion cover

Gefion

Jakob Bro, Thomas Morgan, Jon Christensen
Contemporary Chaos Practices - Two Works for Orchestra With Soloists cover

Contemporary Chaos Practices - Two Works for Orchestra With Soloists

Ingrid Laubrock, Mary Halvorson, Kris Davis, Nate Wooley