Jazz fans were introduced to this riveting sound with his acclaimed debut album Omega, which was named the Best Jazz Album of 2020 by The New York Times. The album also introduced his remarkable quartet with Micah Thomas on piano, Daryl Johns on bass, and Kweku Sumbry on drums, a tight-knit unit that Wilkins features once again on his stunning sophomore album The 7th Hand, in which he explores relationships between presence and nothingness across an hour-long suite comprised of seven movements.
While writing, Wilkins began viewing each movement as a gesture bringing his quartet to where the music would be entirely improvised, channelled collectively. “It’s the idea of being a conduit for the music as a higher power that actually influences what we’re playing,” says the Brooklyn-based, Philadelphia-raised artist who Pitchfork said “composes ocean-deep jazz epics.”
‘The 7th Hand’ derives its title from a question steeped in Biblical symbolism: If the number 6 represents the extent of human possibility, Wilkins wondered what it would mean — how it would sound — to invoke divine intervention and allow that seventh element to possess his quartet.
Wilkins and his band members reveal their collective truth by peeling themselves back, layer by layer, movement by movement. “Each movement chips away at the band until the last movement, just one written note,” says Wilkins. “The goal of what we’re all trying to get to is nothingness, where the music can flow freely through us.”
Line-Up:
Immanuel Wilkins: alto sax
Micah Thomas: piano
Tyrone Allen: contrabass
Kweku Sumbry: drums
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