Shabaka Hutchings’ tenor saxophone shows up exactly once on this album. Around 10 minutes before the LP ends, he summons the fierce momentum and sandpapery grit that have powered beloved bands like Sons of Kemet, the Comet Is Coming, and Shabaka and the Ancestors, and helped to make him one of the most celebrated jazz musicians of the past decade. As is usually the case when Shabaka—now billed by first name only—picks up what he has called the “big, loud, shiny horn,” the solo is thrilling. But this brief, incendiary statement carries a special weight in the wake of Shabaka’s announcement—made on New Year’s Day 2023 and clarified that summer—that he would be taking an indefinite hiatus from the tenor and his groups that feature that instrument.

It’s easy to admire Shabaka’s stated reasons for putting down the horn: a feeling of burnout stemming from a heavy touring schedule that has kept him “on the road consistently treating the performance of a spiritual practice as a commodity to be sold repeatedly”; a quest to generate “energy without tension,” which has led him instead toward various flutes, including the Japanese shakuhachi and the clarinet, his original and, in his eyes, principle instrument. But could a Shabaka album with almost no tenor really have the same impact as his prior output? The answer is yes, absolutely, and that’s primarily because on Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace—the artist’s first full-length statement in this vein, following a 2022 EP, Afrikan Culture—Shabaka hasn’t just subbed out one signature instrument for another; instead, he’s remade his music from the ground up.

Shabaka’s prior work was as much dance music as jazz. You couldn’t help but move to the heady electro-funk of the Comet Is Coming, the mighty Afro-Caribbean grooves of Sons of Kemet, or the richly layered intercontinental exchange of Shabaka and the Ancestors. Perceive Its Beauty, on the other hand, focuses on tranquility, a sense of meditative communion with a variety of guest vocalists and instrumentalists. Of course, Shabaka is hardly the only musician thinking along these lines lately. New Blue Sun, André 3000’s own flute-pivot LP, which featured a Shabaka cameo on shakuhachi, signaled the mainstream arrival of a wave that’s been building steadily across the past decade or so wherein various questing sounds of the 1970s—from Alice Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders to Steve Reich, Brian Eno and private-press New Agers like Iasos— have swirled together in a plume of incense, wafting across the decades to inform artists working in and around jazz, electronic music, and more.

But, despite a significant overlap in personnel between Perceive Its Beauty and New Blue Sun—André himself appears on one track here, as does his New Blue Sun collaborator Surya Botofasina, while that project’s creative catalyst Carlos Niño turns up throughout—the two albums have little in common. Whereas New Blue Sun offered sprawling sonic environments, Perceive Its Beauty presents more focused episodes, thoughtfully sequenced to move from abstract and spacious to pulsing and upbeat and back again. (Also, it must be said: As an instrumentalist, André 3000 is a proud novice, while Shabaka is a classically trained practitioner with years of professional experience and a deep dedication to craft.)

The album’s parade of guest stars might feel like a distraction if each of these artists weren’t so well integrated into Shabaka’s overall vision. Opener “End of Innocence” and fifth track “The Wounded Need to Be Replenished” feature different piano luminaries (respectively, Jason Moran, known for his brilliant reimaginings of jazz history, and Nduduzo Makhathini, the South African bandleader and sometime member of the Ancestors), but each achieves a similar kind of pensive beauty. On the former, Shabaka’s clarinet traces liquid arcs over Moran and drummer Nasheet Waits’ somber, abstract textures, while on the latter, the leader’s flute floats wisp-like among Makhathini’s spare phrases, with Niño’s percussion and Botofasina’s synth heightening the feeling of aqueous suspension. In both cases, as much as Shabaka’s tone on these instruments differs from his steely projections on tenor, the artful poise of his phrasing remains fully intact.

Of the album’s many vocal tracks, the most transporting are those that treat guest singers more like fellow instrumentalists. On “Insecurities,” Moses Sumney seems to channel the timbre of Shabaka’s flute as he joins the leader and harpist Charles Overton with wordless lines. On “Kiss Me Before I Forget,” Lianne La Havas melds her voice with Shabaka’s clarinet, creating a lovely braiding of tones, and on “Living,” Eska Mtungwazi’s multi-tracked singing unites with the strings of Miguel Atwood-Ferguson to create a lush, orchestral feel.

Tracks featuring the poets Saul Williams (who contributes a serene monologue to “Managing My Breath, What Fear Had Become”) and Anum Iyapo (Shabaka’s father, who declaims tenderly on album closer “Song of the Motherland,” referencing the title track of his own 1985 album), and rapper Elucid (who brings incisive verses to “Body to Inhabit”) feel a bit less interactive, with vocals sitting out in front of the ensemble. But each piece makes room for compelling interplay between Shabaka’s flute and Charles Overton’s harp, with Brandee Younger, a fellow harpist who has brought the instrument a fresh wave of attention in jazz in recent years, adding to the richness of “Body to Inhabit,” along with Esperanza Spalding, who contributes an insistent bassline. On “I’ll Do Whatever You Want,” André 3000’s flute ends up making less of a discernible impact than producer Floating Points, who gives the track its psychedelic synth pulse, and ambient trailblazer Laraaji, who adds droll vocal excursions and a signature laugh at the end.

Amid the ever-shifting personnel, it’s the confidence of Shabaka’s vision and the potency of his playing that leave the strongest impression. Throughout Perceive Its Beauty, we hear him confidently stepping outside the boundaries not just of jazz but of any easily defined genre and finding a firm footing. Taking in a category-defying track like “As the Planets and the Stars Collapse”—another standout instrumental, with its lush bed of harps and strings, and Shabaka blowing his flute over top with as much muscle as grace—you don’t miss the big, loud, shiny horn, or the in-your-face ensemble sound of a band like Sons of Kemet, in the slightest. The incarnation may be new, but the music’s underlying spirit, its animating force, is very much the same.