| Jazz |
Curtis Nowosad’s Latest Album Offers a Sonic Time Machine—Rooted in the Future
There is something undeniably nostalgic about the latest album from drummer, composer, and visionary Curtis Nowosad. The music evokes the heady, electric charge of jazz fusion’s golden age—the late 1970s through the mid-1980s, a time when genre boundaries blurred and musical ambition knew no limits. Yet make no mistake: this is no mere act of retro revivalism. Nowosad’s work is firmly rooted in the 21st century, with a soundscape that is both reverent and forward-looking, timeless yet entirely of the moment.
One of the album’s most compelling elements is the seamless vocal presence of Zimbabwean-Canadian singer Joanna Majoko, whose expressive range and emotional intelligence elevate the compositions with striking clarity. Her voice does more than just accompany the music, it becomes a central narrative thread, weaving through each track with a balance of vulnerability and strength. Alongside Majoko’s contributions, the album surprises at every turn, offering a kaleidoscope of textures and moods that defy easy categorization.
That, perhaps, is the central paradox of this project. While it carries the aura of another era, its funk-inflected grooves and kaleidoscopic harmonies echoing the best of Weather Report, Herbie Hancock, or Return to Forever, its heart beats with a distinctly modern urgency. The compositions are resolutely original, each one a meticulous creation crafted with a clarity of intent that’s increasingly rare in the streaming age. With each track, Nowosad pulls listeners into parallel worlds of sound and spirit, delivering a kind of musical cartography for an increasingly complex world.
But this isn’t just an exercise in style. The album operates on a deeper, almost spiritual register. The music, layered with lyrical depth and rich instrumentation, feels like a balm for the modern soul—a kind of sonic medicine for the emotional dissonance of contemporary life. At the core of the album is a powerful belief: that the journey toward personal healing, however messy or nonlinear, is a necessary precursor to collective transformation. In Nowosad’s view, only by confronting our internal fractures can we begin to mend the world around us, our communities, our cultures, our shared future.
“There’s so much we all need to repair in ourselves,” the album seems to say. “Start there, and maybe—just maybe—we’ll build something gentler, more just, more compassionate for the next generation.”
This message carries a subtle but unmistakable political charge. Like many of his peers, Nowosad embeds social consciousness into his art, not in polemics, but in the quiet, persistent insistence on healing, hope, and collective responsibility. His optimism is not naïve but measured, earned through lived experience and informed by a generation’s worth of social reckoning.
The themes that emerge, co-written with Joanna Majoko and acclaimed Canadian singer-songwriter Joey Landreth, resonate deeply: radical self-compassion, caring for the inner child, honoring the person you needed when you were young, embracing change as life’s only constant, and choosing faith over doubt. There is a moral clarity to these reflections, not didactic but invitational. The album gently encourages the listener to take stock, to reconsider the narratives we’ve inherited and the ones we’re still writing.
It helps, of course, that Nowosad is no stranger to musical excellence. His artistic DNA has been shaped through collaborations with a dazzling roster of contemporary jazz greats, including Braxton Cook, Jazzmeia Horn, Jane Monheit, Brianna Thomas, Jocelyn Gould, Bria Skonberg, Philip Harper, Marc Cary, and Craig Harris. Many of these musicians are familiar voices on platforms like Bayou Blue Radio, where their work continues to receive well-deserved attention.
Perhaps the most striking aspect of this album, however, is its unwavering sense of authorship. Each track is an original composition, not only composed but inhabited by its creators. There is no filler here, no concession to commercial trends. This is music made with intent and integrity, art that dares to be both beautiful and meaningful.
In an era saturated with noise, Curtis Nowosad offers something else: a listening experience that invites stillness, reflection, and a sense of possibility. It is jazz as it once was—bold, boundary-pushing, alive, but also jazz as it must be: relevant, restorative, and rooted in something deeper than nostalgia.
Thierry De Clemensat
Member at Jazz Journalists Association
USA correspondent for Paris-Move and ABS magazine
Editor in chief – Bayou Blue Radio, Bayou Blue News
PARIS-MOVE, May 22nd 2025
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Tracklist :
We Do We
Choices (A Butterfly Breaks Free)
Mythologies (The Stories We Tell)
Carry You Home
Echo Delta
(I’m Learning to Be) Kind
No Such Place As Away
The Archer (I Am Doing My Best)