A Supreme Blue is a collaboration between New Orleans trumpeter and composer Nicholas Payton and 21st century Virginia jazz-funk ensemble Butcher Brown. In celebration of the centennial birthdays of Miles Davis and John Coltrane, this 70-minute set offers complete performances of Kind of Blue and A Love Supreme. These aren’t straight renderings or re-creations; the album reflects the original recordings as guideposts for reinterpetation using a canny hybrid of jazz, hip-hop, dub, funk, house rhythms, electronics, layered production, and modern grooves.
On opener “So What,” the unmistakable call-and-response structure is replaced by a syncopated, soul-funk groove introduced by a heavily reverbed dubwise vamp from R4ND4ZZO’s…