Ambrose Akinmusire goes it alone

A talk with one of our finest trumpeters, as he releases a stunning solo recital

Ambrose Akinmusire performing in Milan, 2019.

A few years ago, when Ambrose Akinmusire was preparing to release his riveting quartet album On the Tender Spot of Every Calloused Moment, I had a conversation with him for NPR Music. We talked about the first single from the album, which he’d titled “Mr. Roscoe (consider the simultaneous),” after the ever-inspiring, ever-formidable AACM composer and multireedist Roscoe Mitchell.

The NPR Music piece traced this connection back to Akinmusire’s first visit to a jazz club, after winning tickets in a radio contest. It was The Art Ensemble of Chicago at Yoshi’s; he and his mom sat in the front row. You can see how such an experience would leave a mark. I think about it almost in terms of a radioactive spider bite.

Akinmusire just went a step further in this direction, with an improvised solo trumpet album titled Beauty is Enough. (Find it here.) Recorded at the the Église Saint-Eustache, an ornate cathedral in Paris whose history stretches as far back as the 13th century, it’s a work of deep luminosity and superhuman focus. The rare technical achievement involved, in trumpet terms, is somehow entirely beside the point.

Yesterday I reached Akinmusire, long distance, at a café in Rotterdam. I was keen to learn more about the impetus behind his solo outing, and how it fits into the whole arc of his career. We touched on that and much more, including the fact — not in any way a secret, but not yet widely known — that after a dozen years, he’s no longer a Blue Note recording artist. Beauty is Enough is his first independent release, and he will soon announce a series of albums for another label.

Suffice it to say that there’s cause for excitement about that development, and about his new label affiliation. For now, Beauty is Enough should be more than enough. “I feel like I’ve been here for a long time, and I just haven’t been able to show or express that,” Akinmusire reflects of his current freedom. “In a way it’s new, but also in a way it’s the complete version of who I am, and who I’ve been for a little while now.”

If you support The Gig as a paid subscriber, keep scrolling to hear my interview with Ambrose, and read a transcript. If you aren’t there yet, thanks for reading this far — and hey, maybe consider pitching in? In any case, here’s to some great listening ahead.