The Oracle

Recovering from a brain tumor and disconnected from her day job, Angel Bat Dawid spent much of 2014 stuck inside her own head — though as locales go it at least served as a place where she could stay grounded and focused between her trips to London and Cape Town. In any case, the itinerary proved enlightening, and the music she recorded during this period — all recorded on her cell phone, and the vast majority of it performed and overdubbed solo — passes along her revelations with measured grace and spiritual directness. The clarinetist’s gorgeous electric-piano-laced rendition of Dr. Yusef Lateef’s “Destination,” the Arkestral hymn “We Are Starzz,” and the stunning, anxious meditation on Dr. Margaret T. Burroughs’ poem “What Shall I Tell My Children Who Are Black?” meet that on-the-move simplicity of its recording methods with the weight of a long-ruminated series of thoughts spoken aloud for the first time. And “Capetown,” her one collaborative piece with drummer Asher Simiso Gamedze, reveals that when there’s another person in the room the sense of spontaneity can make for some spirited communications.