Asher Gamedze‘s “Constitution” is a sprawling, ambitious double album that thrusts the South African percussionist and his new 10-piece band The Black Lungs into the vanguard of exploratory large ensemble jazz. The centrepiece is the monumental 40-minute title track, a polyrhythmic odyssey that serves as a rallying cry for the “dispossessed” to lend their ears.

Gamedze, following up his acclaimed 2023 album “Turbulence and Pulse,” assembled The Black Lungs for a single-day recording session in Cape Town. The result is an immersive dive into the boundless possibilities of spontaneous group interplay. Eschewing traditional solo showcases, “Constitution” is a celebration of the collective, with the ensemble deconstructing tonal and atonal themes that merge “old and new dreams.”

The title track is a tour-de-force, its two parts unfolding like an epic, emotional narrative powered by interlocking rhythms and textures. Gamedze and his cohorts conjure an enveloping atmosphere, at times curious and melancholic, at others triumphantly emergent. Moments of sublime group intuition abound, as ideas ricochet and converge in an ecstatic communion of minds.

With “Constitution,” Gamedze has created a work of profound vision and scope that demands to be experienced as an immersive whole. It’s avant-garde jazz of the highest order – a call for inclusion and belonging through community.