At the beginning of 2023, Shabaka Hutchings announced that he was stepping away from the saxophone. It’s the instrument he is most associated with, after building a career as one of the UK’s brightest stars in their inventive and bustling jazz scene, performing in the groups Sons of Kemet and The Comet Is Coming. His final performance with the instrument took place in Dec. 2023, when he performed John Coltrane’s "A Love Supreme" in its entirety at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London.
Since then, Shabaka has been focusing his energy on flutes. "Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace" is his debut full-length under his own name, and the first full-length he’s released since saying goodbye to the saxophone. The album features guest appearances from various artists including Andre 3000 (who Shabaka collaborated with on his own album recently), Brandee Younger, Saul Williams, Moses Sumney and Shabaka’s father Anum Iyapo.
Shabaka recently caught up with WUNC Music’s Brian Burns on Future Shock to talk about the album.
This is an excerpt of an edited transcript of that conversation. You can hear the full interview by clicking the LISTEN button at the top of this post.
Can you tell us how flutes came in to your life?
It kind of sounds like a cliché now, but actually, it came in through the pandemic when I had a ton of time to explore what I really wanted to do on a personal level in terms of my artistic development. I just found I wasn’t playing the saxophone, I was practicing flutes and clarinets a lot more. I realized I had a real love for the instrument, and it’s all that I want to do. I don’t want to be in a situation where I wake up every morning and want to play the flute, but then have to go on stage and the audience wants to see something else. I wouldn’t want to present something that’s not true to what I’m actually working on intimately.
Tell us a bit about the studio you recorded this record in.
We recorded in the famous Van Gelder studio, which is arguably one of the most famous studios in jazz music. You read about a studio like that in the history books and you think to yourself as an artist, I wonder what those heroes of mine were hearing and feeling in this room that they all gravitated to? Once the opportunity came, I jumped on it and realized the room really does sound amazing. It’s really one of the greatest rooms I’ve had the pleasure of recording in. It acoustically sounds perfect, it sounds like I’m playing in a really intimate concert hall. There’s the history of the room, but on an acoustic level it was brilliant and allowed me to have a lot of control.
