On Music for the New Millennium (Sacred Sound), Cindy Blackman comes out hitting hard in the tradition of her role model Tony Williams and barely lets up on her muscular attack throughout the course of this throbbing two-CD set. Maybe being out on tour with Lennie Kravitz for so long, holding her jazz chops in check, made Blackman so pent-up that she just had to record this material or explode. Whatever the case, she unleashes with cathartic abandon on “The One (for God),” “Seven,” the burning, bop-tinged “Insight (From My Father),” the audacious fuzoid vehicle “Insight (The Future),” “All I Want” and “The Drums and Me.” Elsewhere, she favors a provocative, open-ended electric Miles-ish edge with her quartet: J.D. Allen (tenor sax), Carlton Holmes (Fender Rhodes and synth) and George Mitchell (bass). Even her most thoughtfully subdued compositions here, such as “Insight (Past Wisdom),” “Black Town (For Harlem)” and “Stars in Eyes,” are punctuated with aggressive slamming on the kit.
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