Sankofa is the third album by Brazilian jazz pianist and composer
Amaro Freitas. Its title is named for the Adinkra symbol depicting a bird flying with its head facing backward. The pianist claims that it "teaches us the possibility of going back to our roots, in order to realize our potential to move forward." His first two outings, 2016's Sangue Negro and 2018's
Rasif, drew notice for a truly original, percussive style that emerged simultaneously from the influences of
Moacir Santos,
Hermeto Pascoal, and
Egberto Gismonti, and the modern piano trio jazz of
Thelonious Monk and
Chick Corea. With his rhythm section -- bassist Jean Elton and drummer Hugo Medeiros --
Freitas has reinvigorated the piano trio tradition by drawing deeply on folk sources from swaggering carnival beats of frevo and baião to swinging, sometimes angular harmonic architectures. Across eight tunes, they walk the tightrope between samba batucada, jagged post-bop, and even wonky classical minimalism. On
Sankofa,
Freitas' group more often than not play in unison, and solos are not desired ends, while harmonic and rhythmic discovery are.
In the title-track opener, deep tom-toms, whispering cymbals, and long, single bass notes frame
Freitas' dreamy, ballad-like construction before making a slow, evolutionary journey to the middle section's cascade into moto perpetuo; the piano emulates carillon bells and then settles into a groove amid shifting tempos, dramatic snares with funky breaks, and winding basslines. "Ayeye" opens with a syncopated exchange between
Freitas' sweeping, carnival-tinged right-hand lines and Medeiros' clattering rhythmic invention -- adorned with skittering snare, dancing hi-hat, tom-tom rolls, and bass drum feints -- underscoring the pianist's choppy, hard-swinging lines. Elton's bassline, meanwhile, becomes the hub on which they steer this seemingly uncontrollable vehicle to a dazzling result.
Freitas adds a brief, passionate solo that joins knotty chord voicings to rumbling yet taut glissandos. "Cázumba" is a collision of cross and polyrhythms, propelled by jazz fusion bass riffs and slightly shifting minor-key piano lines amid clanging bells and electronic echoes. "Batucada," the most intense thing here, is arguably the most satisfying.
Freitas' left hand is engaged in furious percussion interplay alongside Medeiros' flailing kit work. The pianist's right hand adds arpeggios, harmonic extensions, and inversions inside the drummer's repetitive, chunky, propulsive pulses, while his left simultaneously solos and punctuates some more. Elton's circular vamps and plucked chords harmonically underscore their polyrhythmic attack and add a droning dimension. "Malakoff" employs electronically prepared piano in an orgy of combative tonal assertions amid the rhythm section's striated maracatu beats, and they close with the sumptuous, moody ballad "Nascimento" in tribute to the Minas Gerais songwriter
Milton Nascimento. On
Sankofa,
Freitas' trio look back to root sounds to interrogate them as possible building blocks. What they discover becomes the cornerstone for a brave, bracing new sound that extends the heritage and legacy of Brazilian music as it simultaneously informs, inspires, and expands the reach of 21st century jazz. ~ Thom Jurek