Dinner Party’s self-titled album is effortless, weightless, and stunning

The next time your annoying friend tells you “jazz is dead,” queue up Dinner Party. The new album from the eponymous supergroup composed of Terrace Martin, Robert Glasper, and 9th Wonder (with Kamasi Washington playing sax on every track), Dinner Party doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it doesn’t need to. The low-key grooves and riffs presented here feel effortless, weightless, and stunning. 9th Wonder’s beats carry a subdued, smokey sort of swagger, and the instrumental contributions from the other artists only strengthen this. This is a jazz record grounded in soulful melodies rather than virtuosic riffs, where pre-arranged melodies are just important as improvised solos.

Unlike bebop records, where musicians essentially compete to play the fastest and most intricately, Dinner Party is refreshingly egalitarian. Washington’s buttery sax playing is just as important as the work from the rhythm section, which is just as important as the electronic contributions, which is just as important as Phoelix’s vocals (he shows up on four of the tracks). “Dinner Party is a metaphor — a group, a project, a spirit, an imprint of time — and also the name of the album… Dinner Party is invite only, but it’s for everyone,” the group wrote. This approach to jazz certainly carries a similarity to Glasper’s other supergroup (R+R=NOW), but the proof of concept is obvious. Each member of Dinner Party is vital to gestalt of the album.

They also wrote that “Dinner Party is years of friendship, shows, dinners, conversations, laughs and life experience, all converging into one moment.” Everything fits together in a remarkable way, from the instrumental arrangement, to the vocals, to even the mixing (which is stunning). There’s this one moment on “Freeze Tag,” toward the very end, where the sax duet countermelody slides directly into keys riffing on the same motif as a cadence. It’s beautiful, and though the theory behind it is complex, it sounds effortless. Everything on this record sounds effortless, like a group of friends meeting up for a late-night jam sesh at the coolest, smokiest bar in town. The production on “Freeze Tag” provides a somber, meditative backdrop to Phoelix’s vocals, where he laments police brutality: “They told me put my hands up behind my head / I think they got the wrong one / I’m sick and tired of runnin’.” Dinner Party‘s instrumentals and production aren’t the only noteworthy aspects: the lyricism is marked by a deep complexity, too.

“LUV U,” the final track on the record, is a brilliant summation of the vibes of Dinner Party. Martin’s vocoder performance is simultaneously robotic and deeply emotive, while the looping, vinyl-crackling beats offer a meditative, somber chord progression. “I can love you,” Martin sings, sounding remarkably like Stevie Wonder, before gentle synths patter in and out of existence. Dinner Party is an intimate, complex example of art with no ego, where the vibes of the music take precedent over any one person or any one instrument.