Angel Bat Dawid was one of the highlights – along with Ben Lamar Gay – of Chicago label International Anthem's night at the 2022 EFG London Jazz Festival. Far more than a vocalist and multi-instrumentalist, Dawid brought a boldly striking element of ritual theatre to the stage, fuelled by positivist messages on African-American and Black Diasporan culture. If her 2019 debut The Oracle announced an important original talent, then this new live album (recorded at the Reva and David Logan Center For The Arts, Chicago) consolidates that impression. Dawid spreads her creative wings and soars into adventurous orchestral and choral territory that builds on what was imaginatively implied on previous sessions, both live and in the studio.

She has arranged and conducted a choir and ensemble that pull off the not inconsiderable feat of blending quite heavenly melodies with the thorniest harmonic and textural accompaniment, so that the previous mission statement to create celestial poems, spiritual jazz experiments and homemade hymns is taken into a more layered, engrossigly dense sound world. At times there are echoes of some of the glorious gospel projects that the legendary Max Roach did throughout his career, but as Dawid has shown repeatedly she is on her way to crafting a musical signature that sets great store by the uplifting and defiant nature of her singing voice, which is at the heart of the way she scores and conducts.

Uncompromising, often compelling music from an artist who is steeped in history but not shackled to its standardized narratives.