Branford Marsalis: The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born

On this long, slow blues meditation, Branford and his cohorts paint a modern-day abstraction employing the Coltrane palette of colors. The searching and mournful introductory section is both prequel and extension of A Love Supreme. Mid-song, the tempo increases, egged on by Jeff Watts' stellar, almost Eastern work on the toms. Robert Hurst makes the connection back to the head by reconfiguring that main theme into a lower register. Throughout, though, we have Branford at his soulful best.