Eternity

AZANYAH’s banner reads “Creative Spiritual Expression in the Improvisational Tradition” and aptly characterizes the "Eternity" CD, AZANYAH's most recent release. Featuring the passionate vocals of Julie Dexter, Donald Smith, Obie Jesse and VenuSeven (Dorothy Bell/Ingrid Sibley) and utilizing a powerhouse instrumental ensemble - Vance Taylor/piano, Jeremy Wilms/guitar, Jerome Crichton/drums, Atu/percussion, Kinah Botoh/percussion, Mamaniji Azanyah/bass, Immanuel Zechariah/saxophone - AZANYAH transports the listener through a kaleidoscopic soundscape of pan-African rooted, World Music, filled with prophetic rapture, meditative bliss and reflective wonder. The experience of this journey is reminiscent of the explorations in jazz during the early 1970's where a spiritually intentioned music, championed by such notables as Pharaoh Sanders, Doug & Jean Carn, Lonnie Liston Smith and Mahavishnu John McLaughlin, among others - all perhaps indebted to the earlier pursuits of one John W. Coltrane (particularly as represented on the seminal recording "A Love Supreme") - generated a sound that embraced the influences of other world musics, integrating them into a form as meditative as it could be energetic and as personally introspective as it could be universal appealing. That is the journey upon which AZANYAH's "Eternity" CD embarks.