A Supreme Blue
Nicholas Payton & Butcher Brown
Released digitally on July 24, 2026, with a 2-LP vinyl edition following on August 14 through Concord Jazz, A Supreme Blue brings together New Orleans trumpeter Nicholas Payton and Richmond, Virginia collective Butcher Brown for a modern tribute to two foundational jazz albums: Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue and John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme. Created during the centennial year of both Davis and Coltrane, the nine-track project performs all five pieces from Kind of Blue followed by all four movements of A Love Supreme. Rather than faithfully reproducing the originals, Payton and Butcher Brown use them as open frameworks for contemporary improvisation, drawing the two canonical works together into a single, newly imagined suite.
Recorded at Richmond’s Spacebomb Studios with minimal preparation, the album retains the alert, live-wire feeling of musicians discovering directions in real time. Payton’s trumpet and keyboards meet Butcher Brown’s characteristic mix of jazz, funk, soul, hip-hop, and psychedelic groove, with saxophonist Marcus Tenney also contributing vocals on “So What.” The first half reworks Davis compositions—“So What,” “Freddie Freeloader,” “Blue in Green,” “All Blues,” and “Flamenco Sketches”—before turning to Coltrane’s spiritual four-part sequence: “Acknowledgement,” “Resolution,” “Pursuance,” and “Psalm.” The title neatly states the album’s purpose: honoring the “blue” modal spaciousness of Davis while engaging the searching spiritual force of Coltrane, all through a contemporary ensemble sound that treats jazz history as an active conversation rather than a museum piece.
A Supreme Blue
Nicholas Payton & Butcher Brown
Released digitally on July 24, 2026, with a 2-LP vinyl edition following on August 14 through Concord Jazz, A Supreme Blue brings together New Orleans trumpeter Nicholas Payton and Richmond, Virginia collective Butcher Brown for a modern tribute to two foundational jazz albums: Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue and John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme. Created during the centennial year of both Davis and Coltrane, the nine-track project performs all five pieces from Kind of Blue followed by all four movements of A Love Supreme. Rather than faithfully reproducing the originals, Payton and Butcher Brown use them as open frameworks for contemporary improvisation, drawing the two canonical works together into a single, newly imagined suite.
Recorded at Richmond’s Spacebomb Studios with minimal preparation, the album retains the alert, live-wire feeling of musicians discovering directions in real time. Payton’s trumpet and keyboards meet Butcher Brown’s characteristic mix of jazz, funk, soul, hip-hop, and psychedelic groove, with saxophonist Marcus Tenney also contributing vocals on “So What.” The first half reworks Davis compositions—“So What,” “Freddie Freeloader,” “Blue in Green,” “All Blues,” and “Flamenco Sketches”—before turning to Coltrane’s spiritual four-part sequence: “Acknowledgement,” “Resolution,” “Pursuance,” and “Psalm.” The title neatly states the album’s purpose: honoring the “blue” modal spaciousness of Davis while engaging the searching spiritual force of Coltrane, all through a contemporary ensemble sound that treats jazz history as an active conversation rather than a museum piece.