2017 · Album
A Rift In Decorum
Blue Note · Released: June 9, 2017 · Format: Live double album
Two Discs of Beautiful Excess
Akinmusire's trumpet is penetrating and lovely, but the album stretches so far it tests your patience.
A Rift in Decorum is a live recording that captures Akinmusire in full flight at the Village Vanguard—and it doesn't hold back. The trumpet work is genuinely beautiful throughout. His tone is clear and warm, the kind that cuts through without harshness, and his melodic ideas are inventive without being showy. The problem, if you want to call it that, is the sheer ambition. Over two discs, the music sprawls. There are moments of real restraint and elegance where the band sits inside the groove and lets things breathe. But there are also stretches where Akinmusire leans into the abstract, chasing ideas that feel more about proving something to himself than connecting with the room. Matt Collar of AllMusic praised it as sophisticated and on par with his studio work, which is fair—the recording quality is clean and the band is tight. But tight isn't the same as focused, and this album sometimes confuses width with depth. Early in his career, Akinmusire had a gift for balancing accessibility with ambition. Here, the balance tips. If you're already into his music and want to hear him take risks in a live setting, this is worth the time investment. Just know that you'll need patience for the stretches where his worst instincts run ahead of his best ones. The high points really are excellent—crystalline trumpet passages that justify the whole enterprise. It's just that you have to dig for them across 120 minutes.
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