American alto saxophonist Steve Coleman, who performed at Jazz Fest Sarajevo in 2004 with his ensemble Five Elements, has released a new album called Synovial Joints.
Critics agree that this is without a doubt Coleman’s most ambitious project so far. It gathers 21 musicians in the ensemble The Council Of Balance, though the core of the new group still consists of musicians from his Five Elements ensemble.
The music on Synovial Joints is based on the idea of reflecting processes, functions and rhythms of the human body. Coleman’s aim was to model single elements of the composition based on movements in the body while also exploring a concept called “camouflaged orchestration” which is inspired by sounds recorded in Amazon’s rain forests, where Coleman resides every year.
Steve Coleman was honored with numerous awards in the past year including MacArthur and Guggenheim fellowships as well as the Doris Duke award for performing excellence for which he was nominated again this year.
Watch footage released two days ago showing the recording of the new album and listen to only one part of Coleman’s original composition Tempest.