The passing of Tony Allen in 2020 robbed contemporary music of one of its finest rhythm masters. His supreme control of pulse, which pulled off the feat of being laser-precise, all the while feeling effortlessly leisurely, made him a cornerstone of Afrobeat and modern dance genres. This Jazz Is Dead session rightly foregrounds his skill but the eight tracks on offer, recorded under the aegis of the label’s producers Adrian Younge and Al Shaheed-Muhamad and sundry musicians, do little to enhance Allen’s legacy. For the most part, the drummer is typically appealing but the material is too pedestrian, as there is not sufficient rhythmic variation or shift of dynamics around the steady backbeats, to the extent that the songs feel like loose jams that sadly lack a vital spark of spontaneity or an exchange of ideas that raises the energy to another level. Although well-engineered and embellished by some smart bursts of horns and keyboards, the music does not have a convincing sense of singularity. Things more or less lift off on ‘Oladipo’, with its passing Ethiopiques flavour, but it’s not the case elsewhere, meaning we can appreciate the sound of Tony Allen rather than his music.