Shabaka: Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace (Impulse/digital outlets)

It doesn't seem that long ago that “jazz flute” was considered a joke.

Thank you, Ron Burgundy.

But there is a great tradition of jazz flute through daring players like Rahsaan Roland Kirk and Don Cherry to the quiet considerations of Paul Horn playing inside the Taj Mahal, Alice Coltrane's Indo-spiritualism and Tony Scott's Music for Zen Meditation.

Saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings has been one of the most influential figures in British jazz in the past decade in Sons of Kemet and The Comet is Coming, among other ensembles.

However he has apparently decided to put saxophone down for a while for this debut album under his own name where he plays various flutes and is backed by piano and harp with singers Moses Sumney and Laraaji among others.

This is music as a spiritual journey stopping just the right side of New Age but edging into different cultures through the sounds of Mayan, Native American and Japanese flutes.

Recorded and improvised at Rudy Van Gelder's famous New Jersey studio (where so many Blue Note albums were created), we can often hear Hutchings' breath which becomes part of the sonic palette on the quieter pieces.

But there also some more uptempo pieces here (the sprightly Body to Inhabit with spoken poetry by Elucid, the weave of flute and Indian drum on Breathing), Sumney provides soulful vocalisation on the delicate Insecurities and a key piece is I'll Do Whatever You Want with Laraaji, Andre 3000 (on Mayan flute) and electronica artist Floating Points (Sam Shepherd) on synthesizer and vibes.

It drifts purposefully for almost eight minutes and sounds beamed in from German or Cambridge prog artists in the Seventies.

This album doesn't offer the same immediacy as Hutchings' previous projects and not everything here is fully realised in terms of sounding discrete and complete.

But time taken with it is time well spent. And Kiss Me Before I Forget with singer Lianne La Havas is a beautifully weightless ballad before the final piece, Song of the Motherland which is musical setting for a poem by Hutchings' father Anum Iyapo.

.

You can hear this album at Spotify here