Afro-Caribbean Mixtape

New Orleanean trumpeter Nicholas Payton has built a dazzlingly eclectic body of work over the past 20 years, exploring everything from Dixieland standards to warped, Prince-inflected soul. Maybe his most ambitious project yet, *Afro-Caribbean Mixtape* juxtaposes spoken-word collage (“Jazz Is a Four-Letter Word”) with riffs on South American music (“La Guajira”), and pre-electric Miles Davis ballads (“Othello”) with trip-hop abstractions (“Kimathi”). The result is a compelling musical essay on tradition and innovation.

On Afro-Caribbean Mixtape, propelled by keyboardist Kevin Hays, bassist Vicente Archer, drummer Joe Dyson, percussionist Daniel Sadownick, and turntablist DJ Lady Fingaz, Payton seamlessly coalesces his interests, drawing on a global array of beats, melodies and harmonic consciousness to serve his lifelong conviction that music is a process by which the practitioner uses notes and tones to map identity and tell a story.