Shabaka/Photo: Joseph Ouechen
Shabaka Hutchings moves like a quiet disruptor. Now decades deep, he’s made a career of following his own signal until the rest of jazz catches up. He helped define a wave of British jazz driven by velocity with the likes of Sons of Kemet, The Comet Is Coming, and Shabaka and the Ancestors. Those bands surged with purpose, detonated stages and reshaped the possibilities of the form in real time. Now, in his solo work, Shabaka is doing something that may initially read as restraint. But you’d be remiss to mistake it for scaling down.
His recent releases, such as “Of the Earth” and “Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace,” see him laying down the instrument so tied to his identity, the saxophone, in favor of flutes, reeds and woodwinds. The shift is striking, sure. But it’s a part of a broader transformation. Shabaka’s solo era channels the same transcendent voltage he’s long been associated with, inward. Where the saxophone has often been treated like an extension of the human voice, the flute has a reputation for being less ego-driven. For Shabaka, flutes are a practice in breath, being both a physical and spiritual act. It’s a natural transition for an artist who has explicitly rejected virtuosity culture, pushing back against the idea of music as a technical display or an arena for proving skill.
The seismic quality of his work remains. Yet here, it’s no longer about volume or density. Depth rules the day. “Of the Earth” is an LP entirely written, produced, played and mixed by Hutchings himself. It’s also one with increased intention. Tracks carefully resist climax, reaching an almost meditative pressure. Despite being a solo record in the truest sense, he’s successfully decentralized the individual performer. You won’t hear Shabaka soloing as much as dissolving into sound. It’s not exactly ambient, and not quite jazz in any conventional framing either. It feels closer to ritual; sound organized around presence and flow.
If Shabaka’s earliest compositions operated as a call to action, this phase centers on a call to attention.
He’ll bring that deliberate form to Constellation on March 29 for what promises to be an evening, much like his songs, that unfolds with clarity and purpose. The U.K. movement he helped energize has been defined by forward motion and fusion. In Chicago, experimental music has long developed through similar principles of openness and collective exploration. Our current landscape, at its best, embraces fluid movement between improvisation, composition and electric sound. In this regard, the city offers a fitting context for Shabaka’s work. For Chicagoans in attendance, it’s an invitation for immersion, meditation and a deeper engagement with sound itself.
Shabaka plays Constellation, 3111 North Western, on Sunday, March 29. Joy Guidry opens. Doors at 7:30pm; show at 8:30pm. Tickets are $35 plus fees, available at constellation-chicago.com.
