Recording of the Week, Immanuel Wilkins, 'The 7th Hand'

Saxophonist and composer Immanuel Wilkins has been hard at work since the release of his hugely popular debut on Blue Note Records, 2020’s Omega. Immanuel has made a handful of guest appearances on his labelmates’ own releases; Joel Ross’ 2020 album Who Are You? (Ross also had his own guest spot on Omega), as well as Johnathan Blake’s Homeward Bound and James Francies’ Purest Form in 2021, even an appearance on NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert series. With the success of Omega coming so soon in Wilkins’ musical career – having debuted on the wide-reaching platform of Blue Note Records – it’s hard not to imagine the pressure felt to craft a worthy successor. Omega was already an incredibly ambitious project for the saxophonist’s first studio album, a chronicle of the Black American experience – both from his personal experience and the wider historical context of the United States – with lengthy, progressive works that are no small feat for a player still early in his career to pull off. It was the New York Times’ ‘Best Jazz Album’ of 2020, and one of our personal favourites too for good reason.

The 7th Hand is even more conceptual in scope than Omega, with the album this time around being an hour-long, seven-part suite heavily based in Biblical symbolism – with the number ‘6’ often representing the imperfection of humans, the 7th seeks to surpass the extent of human possibility. Immanuel brings back his Omega quartet of fellow young jazzmen – pianist Micah Thomas, bassist Daryl Johns, and drummer Kewku Sumbry – as well as guest appearances from flautist Elena Pinderhughes on tracks ‘Witness’ and ‘Lighthouse’, as well as the Farafina Kan Percussion Ensemble on ‘Don’t Break’. These guest spots are kept to just a few, though, as Immanuel’s approach on The 7th Hand sees him exploring a concept he dubs ‘vesselhood’, whereby the band can achieve a kind of complete synergy, the music wholly improvised in the moment. This approach is manifest most powerfully in the 26-minute closing track ‘Lift’, a lengthy free jazz shred-off; and while it can’t quite replace Immanuel’s own carefully-composed tracks, it does manage to hit a solid middle-ground between free jazz chaos and the quartet’s more grounded melodic leanings.

Photo by Rog Walker

It’s the written moments on The 7th Hand that see Immanuel coming into his own as a composer more so than on Omega. A track like the opener ‘Emanation’ hits on some spiritual sounds, while the wilder ‘Lighthouse’ at times shows flavours of some early post-bop madness that’s very welcome in the already diverse tracklist. While Wilkins definitely has an ear for the sounds of the past, tunes like ‘Emanation’ and ‘Lighthouse’ showcase a facility with the sound of contemporary small-group jazz, not to mention the seamless progression of the ‘7th Hand’ suite itself allowing the saxophonist to flex some of his narrative songwriting. The more downbeat and hypnotic ‘Don’t Break’ benefits greatly from the Farafina Kan Percussion Ensemble’s contributions, bringing a rhythmic variation to the tune, while Pinderhughes keeps her contributions fairly wispy on ‘Witness’ and ‘Lighthouse’, the latter featuring an interesting counterpoint of gentle melodic flute as Wilkins tears into his saxophone, a particular highlight of the record. ‘Fugitive Ritual, Selah’ and ‘Shadow’, contrastingly, take a more smokey blues-style approach.

Immanuel Wilkins’ The 7th Hand is quite the resume for the young saxophonist, the hour-long suite being as varied as it is coherent, each step a logical one, though your appreciation of to the long closing track may depend on your affinity/tolerance for free-jazz in general, after only hints of it during the first half. Wilkins describes this concept of ‘vesselhood’ as akin to a “being a conduit for the music as a higher power that actually influences what we’re playing”, and whether you’re a religious person or not, there’s no denying that Wilkins and co. certainly have something special going on here.