Black Thunder

Seattle-based pianist, singer, and songwriter Brittany Davis released Image Issues, their debut on Stone Gossards Loosegroove, in 2024. It earned national attention from NPR to World Cafe to Good Morning America for its emotional power in familiar musical forms. Black Thunder delivers different musical and production aesthetics. Davis is a fine pianist with a command of jazz, soul, gospel, and blues chops. With producer Josh Evans, bassist Evan Flory-Barnes, and drummer/percussionist D’Vonne Lewis, Davis improvised both lyrics and music in two days, emerging with Black Thunder, an album that exists somewhere between the styles of Nina Simone, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, and Roberta Flack. The set opens with the short, first part of an eight-movement thematic suite titled "Ancestors." A piano, bass, and snare vamp give way to "All You Get." Its pulsing bassline and polyrhythms frame Davis half-sung, half-spoken vocal, "Evolution black is what we have chosen to become/We readied ourself…To become more than we were never meant to be/We readied ourself to steal dominion from everything else/Just so we can live comfortably…." The nine-minute "Amid the Blackout of the Night" is the albums centerpiece. It commences with lush, shimmering cymbals, percussion, and a two-chord piano vamp borrowed from Alan Menkens and Stephen Schwartzs "Someday" from Disneys Hunchback of Notre Dame -- perhaps chosen as an extended musical metaphor for the harsh life circumstances the blind-from-birth, non-binary Davis endured growing up. The spoken title becomes mantric as percussion and piano begin changing shape in a dramatic dialogue; her vocal recalls the authority and dynamism of Abbey Lincoln. The sonically abstract, adventurous title cut is introduced as a poem. Its recited above a meaty bassline, skittering snare, and hi-hat. Davis growls, whispers, moans, and testifies the blues amid whoops and wails, revealing the enormity of Black experience from ancient to future while referencing rebirth as a superhero in a Nina Simone-esque theatrical blues. "Change Me" begins delicately, then erects a forceful hard bop blues frame before transforming into a gospelized, funky dancehall chant with rippling tension. Davis has a unique manner of addressing fear in the elegant, yet harrowing electronica-kissed ballad "Mirrors": "How am I supposed to grow/When I never knew who I was at the beginning ….I thought I was beautiful/Until I saw myself in their mirror …." "Sarahs Song" is a dissonant, rhythmically inventive accusatory poem framed by deep gospel, Delta blues, and modal jazz. "Sun and Moon" is introduced by minimal piano before funky upright bass meets the skittering martial drum kit in an elastic reggae rhythm as Davis chants and sings of liberation -- personal, spiritual, and cultural. Black Thunder is so fine, it should sit on the shelf next to Les McCanns improvised Invitation to Openness (1972), Harry Whitakers 1976 classic Black Renaissance, and Simones Baltimore. This is a towering achievement and a visionary musical statement offered with startling wisdom, inventive musicality, and searing poignancy. ~ Thom Jurek