The Nujazz New Millennium Soul of Maxwell's BLACKsummers'night

Maxwell in dressed down chill mode. (pr photo release)

After an eight-year hiatus from his professional life as a high-profile musical artist, and with the recent release of his much anticipated BLACKsummers’night CD, the first in a trilogy, it’s no major surprise that singer Maxwell enjoyed a sell-out performance at the Savannah Civic Center’s Johnny Mercer Theatre July 28, 2009.

The singer posted on his Twitter page two words to describe the performance and the audience’s response to it: “wow..... SAVANNAH!!”

With some opening act help from two-time Grammy Award winner Chrisette Michele, Maxwell is currently on a twelve-city tour that kicked off in Nashville, Tenn., and is now heading for stops in Tampa, Fla., July 30; Miami, July 31; Jacksonville, August 2; Charleston, SC, August 3; and Durham, NC, August 5.

The First of the Trilogy
 

Upon its release the first week of July, BLACKsummers’night matched the success of Maxwell’s 2001 CD, Now, by debuting at number one on the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart. (Reportedly, only Michael Jackson’s Number Ones CD had more sales for the week but was not eligible for the chart.) This is possibly Maxwell’s most ambitiously creative album since 1998’s Embrya. Many found that particular set of music too abstract in comparison to his mega-hit 1996 debut, Maxwell’s Urban Hang Suite, which established the artist as one of the pioneers of New Millennium Soul. BLACKsummers’night, on CD as in concert, has drawn and likely will continue to draw strong approval from the singer’s fans and critics worldwide. Those critics who feel obligated to lean in the opposite direction may wonder out loud what the results might be if Maxwell chose one day to channel some of the intensity of his romantic compositions into a collection of songs dealing with serious social and political issues? Such an effort, some critics might wager, could produce a modern version of Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On, or Club Nouveau’s undervalued classic, Listen to the Message.

Speculations to the side, the nine songs on BLACKsummers’night stand better than well enough in their own right. The set opens with the trip-hoppish and uniquely Maxwellian groove titled “Bad Habits,” a song that seems to place listeners at the brink of a break-up that moves back and forth between barely controllable ecstasy and overwhelming regrettable sorrow: “This is the highest cost, take you and make you off/ Love you and leave you lost, will you forgive me…” The erotic angst grows even deeper in the second song, “Cold,” in which we hear the first overt hint to the meaning of the album’s title: “As God as my witness, my summer’s gone frigid, my summer’s gone frigid/ I know you can hear this.”

The third track is the immensely popular Pretty Wings  which spent a month at the top of the singles’ chart, and a snippet of which Maxwell first introduced on the web in 2008. “Pretty Wings” lends strong support to the singer’s statements in recent interviews where he asserts that he matured a great deal while out of the public spotlight for the past eight years. At a time when too many people resort to violence or stalkerish behavior at the end of a difficult relationship, the singer croons with altruistic serenity: “If I can’t have you let love set you free/ To fly yo’ pretty wings around…”

Each of the first eight songs is a stand-out with vocals that are more powerful than ever. They take listeners through an odyssey of love lost, love discovered anew, and then explored straight through to the burning screaming hilt. The ninth track is a jaunty instrumental appropriately titled "Phoenix Rise" courtesy of Maxwell’s creative alter ego Musze, that provides the perfect punctuation to the entire set.

A major component of the Maxwell’s success from the beginning has been a spiritual quality within his music that enhanced its appeal to no small degree. It was easily evident throughout the Embrya CD, and in his cover of Kate Bush’s “This Woman’s Work.” On BLACKsummers’night, the spirituality comes through most dynamically in “Help Somebody” and “Playing Possum.” The former drives its point home with the echoing plea, “Give a little mo-o-o-o-o-o-orrrrrrrre!” and this chilling request: “If you see the future, ask it if I’m there,/ Ask him if I’m there/ Ask it to tell you, did I ever make a stand…” Moreover, while the title of “Playing Possum” may sound lighthearted, it is performed as a tearful elegy that calls for a loved one to “Come back from the dead” and ends with the final weeping sob of “Yeeeeeeaaaahhhhhh…”

The CD throughout is flavored heavily tastes of nujazz, the distinct smooth sounds of what the world embraces as neosoul, and elements of world music. For this, in an interview on Singersroom.com, Maxwell acknowledged his band members: “I made this album and these albums with the assistance of so many great people. Musicians on this album are at the top of their game. To be in that zone or that place where you’re just making music because you really love it… you can tell the difference I think.”

Maxwell performs "Fistful of Tears" on Oprah Winfrey special Hope for Haiti Now broadcast. (YouTube video added 31 March, 2010. Courtesy of 1104Vids)

Considering that they’re at the top of their game, this article will close as club shows often do, by introducing the band and lowering the curtain, so here they are: Chris “Daddy” Dave on drums; Derrick Hodge on bass; Shedrick Mitchell on organ; Federico Pena on keyboards; Keyon Harrold on trumpet; Kenneth Whalum III, saxophone; Saunders Sermon II, trombone; Hod David, guitar; and the ever present muse known as Musze.

by Aberjhani

• Video for Maxwell's Pretty Wings
• Maxwell in the Billboard Newsroom
• Maxwell on Twitter
• More Music Profiles in Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance
• Interview with Maxwell on Singersroom