Planetary Prince
Cameron Graves
Graves is a master, laying intricate melodic lines over driving drums and cymbal chokes. “Satania Our Solar System,” the opener, is devilish, like “El Diablo,” a distant relative of “Caravan,”...
Planetary Prince
Cameron Graves
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Graves is a master, laying intricate melodic lines over driving drums and cymbal chokes. “Satania Our Solar System,” the opener, is devilish, like “El Diablo,” a distant relative of “Caravan,”...
About
Cameron Graves is a pivotal figure ushering in a seismic shift within the jazz landscape and the game-changing arrival of the genre-blurring Los Angeles West Coast Get Down collective. With the release of Planetary Prince, the debut album by visionary pianist, keyboardist, composer and West Coast Get Down founding member, Cameron Graves, continues the evolution sparked by the 2015 release of Kamasi Washington's The Epic. All of the songs from Planetary Prince share the same cosmic perspective. Most notably "Andromeda" was sparked by striking images of the Andromeda Galaxy, sister galaxy to the Milky Way and Earth's closest neighbor in the universe. "Isle of Love" is an imagined destination populated by a race of pure love. "El Diablo" takes a slightly more playful approach to the ferocious rhythmic churn of "Satania," this time anchoring it with a buoyant, elastic groove and unleashing Stephen "Thundercat" Bruner for a supernova solo. Finally, "End of Corporatism" asserts a political message by way of a bristling, abstract funk that highlights the interplay of Graves' fleet, fluid keyboard skills and the supple power of his bassists.
Contents and tracklist
Awards and reviews
April 2017
Graves is a master, laying intricate melodic lines over driving drums and cymbal chokes. “Satania Our Solar System,” the opener, is devilish, like “El Diablo,” a distant relative of “Caravan,” Juan Tizol’s signature piece for Duke Ellington. The music continues through permutations to form a suite rich in repeated yet varied motifs. A war between good and evil is at the heart of this otherworldly and exhilarating recording, and if the production verges on the overblown at times, the excess is far more glorious than wretched.