Cosmic Vibrations ft. Dwight Trible - Pathways & Passages

Dwight Trible first came onto our radar as part of Carlos Nino’s Build An Ark collective that started to spread universal love to the world in the early 00s. Trible is a jazz vocalist with spiritual and cosmic leanings, following in the footsteps of Andy Bey and Leon Thomas. In 1998 he has directed the (LA legends) Horace Tapscott Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra, and while his dedication to the spiritual jazz school of the likes of Pharaoh Sanders and Charles Lloyd has always been his guidance, this has never prevented him from experimenting and searching for his personal sound (check out the might cover of Max Roach’s classic ‘Equipoise’ he did with Sa-Ra for instance). 

Perpetually searching for cosmic connections, he created the Cosmic Vibrations project by inviting a few of his fellow spiritual cosmonauts (all heavyweight musicians in their own rights) to be part of an ensemble that would be based on spiritually connected artists with an improvisational approach to live performance.

The collective was formed in 2017 and Pathways and Passages is their first offering, an invitation to open the doors to the cosmos via their strain of interplanetary music presented by the bijou label Spiritmuse. As with their other releases (read Kahil El’Zabar reviews below), this music offers new directions for spiritual jazz in the 21st century. A genre-defying amalgamation of divine vocals, soul-stirring jazz, healing poetry, with a rich tapestry of African, Mesoamerican and indigenous North American percussion and instrumentation, taking you on a cosmic journey of spiritual improvisation and beyond. 

Improvisation forms the core of this record, but with intricately layered percussion both the rhythm and the groove are at the forefront. The atmospheric, poetry led 'Nature’s Vision' sets the tone for the pathway of travel, which peaks on the group’s incredible rendition of 'Motherless Child'. A live favourite of Trible’s, this bluesy take rides heavy on John B Williams’ bass and enjoys the addition of guest Scott Fraser’s lap steel guitar. With his rich, emotive singing Trible takes full possession of the song and creates a cosmic spiritual jazz monster. On 'OLBAP,' he’s spitting out streams of wordless syllables, shadowed by overdubbed voices, as percussion and kalimba rumble and rattle all around him and the saxophone cries out from the darkness - Sun Ra and his Arkestra would have been proud. 

As drummer, percussionist and loops wizard Breeze Smith writes in the liner notes, this is one hell of a vibrating cosmic family!