"The transcendental mantras of Alice Coltrane and interplanetary transmissions of Sun Ra no longer occupy jazz's fringes: By now these styles have earned a respected place in the genre's narrative, and the spiritual side of avant-garde jazz constitutes a tradition of its own. Working within this established field, jazz vocalist Ami Taf Ra finds a lot to say on her quietly astonishing solo debut, The Prophet and The Madman."
"As starting points for grappling with life's big questions, the singer and songwriter looks to Khalil Gibran's century-old book of poetry, The Prophet, and his earlier collection, The Madman. Both books took on timeless, weighty concerns such as family, friendship, the self, and the other. The Lebanese-American writer was all about stripping away appearances: the illusion that the divine is separate from humanity, the illusion that our bodies and identities are a meaningful part of what we truly are."
Spiritual strains of avant-garde jazz, informed by Alice Coltrane and Sun Ra, have become an established tradition that Ami Taf Ra engages on her debut, The Prophet and The Madman. She uses Khalil Gibran's The Prophet and The Madman as lyrical source material to probe themes of family, friendship, the self, the other, and the dissolution of appearances. Taf Ra sings with a clear, lilting voice that performs an exegesis on Gibran's lines, finding personal shades of truth. Her method treats free jazz as an applied spiritual technology, emphasizing discipline and musical exploration of spiritual realms rather than a single sound.
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