Peter Somuah: Letter To The Universe (LP)

Ghana has been considered a land of storytellers for many centuries. But this great tradition does not necessarily have to be continued with words or the voice. Peter Somuah spins storytelling with his instrument: as a young trumpet player, he embarks on a fascinating search for identity between the highlife of his homeland, his idol Miles Davis and the cosmopolitan musical language of his new home Holland. This journey is his "Letter To The Universe". When Somuah and his band leave the stage to acclaim at the North Sea Festival in July 2022, it is clear to the audience: here is an extraordinary new artist at the start. It's his first big festival appearance, up to now he had only played in clubs. And the question arises: Who is this Ghanaian twenty-something who has so amazed the auditorium? In Ghana's capital Accra, Peter Somuah grew up with the highlife, that swinging mix of sweet palm wine music and the big band influences of the colonial era. "I got into trumpet when I was 14," he recalls. "I played highlife and Afrobeat in a marching band, listening to the records of musicians like E. T. Mensah and transcribing their solos." But Somuah turns to another jazz era through a key experience: when the name Miles Davis comes up, a glow crosses his face. He recalls how one day a buddy brought him a video of Miles. Somuah is flashed: "I really wanted to be able to play like that. I had no idea what he was doing or how he was doing it, I just tried to pick out the notes and imitate him. African Americans and we are connected through the history of slavery, and through that commonality I was able to make a spiritual connection with Miles." Somuah listens through all the phases of his idol, besides studying the playing of Freddy Hubbard and Roy Hargrove. From then on, his goal is to explore a connection between Ghana and modern jazz with his own music. After a stay in China with friends and several years in the ranks of a band touring France, Belgium and Spain, he follows his partner to Holland. At the Codarts Arts School of Rotterdam, his vision of a cosmopolitan jazz language takes shape... He forms a cosmopolitan sextet and records the disc "Outer Space" with them. A debut on which he models his own sound: "On "Outer Space" I went out of the box of regulations in which the purists want to keep you. It was about being myself, it was about the freedom to mix all the styles of music I like." "Outer Space," decorated with the Edison Jazz Award, has a lot of African smells, highlife and Afrobeat still shine through strongly With "Letter To The Universe," Peter Somuah has ventured further out into the musical cosmos as a traveling storyteller. His new compositions reflect the stations of his young life: the Ghanaian past, the work of his jazz idols and the lively Afro scene of his new Benelux home. In the pulsating, frenzied "Mission On Earth," one can pick out an unmistakable dedication to Miles Davis' "Bitches Brew" phase and the layered architecture of today's cosmic jazz of a Kamasi Washington. The piece puts a strong exclamation point on how compact and organic the interplay of his Dutch band around keyboardist and producer Anton de Bruin is throughout the rest of the album. Somuah's work, however, is by no means a male-only affair: right from the prologue of the opus, he assigns the Rwandan-rooted slam poet Lisette Ma Neza. Like a program for the disc, she formulates the great identity questions of traveling Africans who, in the year 2023, between continents, philosophies and lifestyles, address their questions to the universe. Peter Somuah's music also deals with this African existence in a keyed way, with a trumpet tone that rarely has to show off with virtuosity. Rather, in an eloquent narrative tone, he creates a flow that also depends on playfulness and danceability. Because Ghanaian colors are also to be found on this journey, for example in the loose six-eighth rhythms from the Ashanti region ("Green Path"), the fusion of the rough Fra music from the north of Ghana with jazz ("The Sky"), or in highlife borrowings in the performance of the Ghanaian old star Gyedu-Bley Ambolley ("Reincarnation"). To accompany Peter Somuah on his search between the continents is an experience also for European ears. The young Ghanaian adds unheard stories to the cosmopolitan jazz of the 21st century - still with an open, and just therefore so exciting outcome.