Jamael Dean - Primordial Waters (2LP)

Jamael Dean’s Primordial Waters arrives in 2024 on Stones Throw Records, and it feels like the moment the Los Angeles pianist, producer, and composer fully opens the valves on everything he’s been sketching since Black Space Tapes. If you’ve followed him from those early beat-science excursions into spiritual jazz, this record lands like a full-length statement, a patient, swirling river of piano, Rhodes, and synth currents that keep revealing new life beneath the surface.

Dean has a deep lineage and it shows. He is the grandson of drummer Donald Dean, whose work with Les McCann and Eddie Harris helped etch a key chapter in late 60s jazz. You can hear that sense of history in the touch of the keys, the unhurried phrasing, the way a groove will settle into itself and then open outward. But he’s also a child of the Leimert Park scene and the wider Los Angeles beat continuum, so the harmonies tilt cosmic and the production detail is meticulous. Primordial Waters doesn’t treat jazz and hip hop as opposing shores. It builds a bridge and invites both tides to move at once.

The sound of the record favors atmosphere without sacrificing clarity. Piano lines bloom into Rhodes fog, then give way to synthesizer ripples that feel more like weather than melody. Percussion nudges the music forward, often with a light touch that still manages to deepen the pocket. Dean’s writing prefers arcs over hooks. A theme will surface, circle around, and then drift back into the flow, which makes the album play beautifully front to back on vinyl. If you’re crate digging or looking to buy Jamael Dean records online, the Primordial Waters vinyl cut is the way to take in the gradients in his mixes. Side breaks feel intentional, almost like chapters.

What sticks after a few listens is how human the record feels, even at its most astral. Dean’s chord choices seem to carry memory. There are passages that call back to the devotional zone Alice Coltrane mapped in the 70s, yet the rhythm language belongs to contemporary Los Angeles. Little production details reward headphones. A rustle of room tone before the piano enters, the hush of a pad tucked under a bass figure, a handclap that feels like it was picked up in the corner of a rehearsal room. He’s painting with instruments, but he’s also painting with air.

Dean’s earlier releases hinted at a producer’s brain and a bandleader’s patience. Primordial Waters confirms both. He stretches time without making things feel static, and he lets motifs breathe. When the drums step forward, the music lifts. When they fall back, the piano takes its time. It’s the kind of pacing that comes from someone who has absorbed the live feel of the LA scene and put in real hours refining what to leave out. You can imagine these pieces opening up at a late night set in Leimert Park, the room leaning in as a figure repeats and begins to glow.

If you collect modern spiritual jazz, this sits comfortably next to recent Stones Throw statements and feels like a record fans will hunt down for years. The pressing circles already seem to know it. I’ve seen Primordial Waters vinyl move quickly at the counter, the kind of LP that turns casual browsers into people asking for a listening station. For those searching out Jamael Dean albums on vinyl, this is a keeper, and it stands on its own even if you missed Black Space Tapes. And if you happen to be flipping through bins in a Melbourne record store, or browsing vinyl records Australia listings, keep an eye out. This one belongs in the bag.

There’s also a sense of purpose that anchors the whole thing. Dean doesn’t rely on novelty or guest firepower to make an impact. He trusts tone, pacing, and harmonic depth, and he trusts the listener to meet him there. The result is music that feels generous. It invites you back, and each visit reveals a pocket you didn’t notice or a voicing that hits different. Spiritual jazz can get heavy with signifiers. Primordial Waters just flows, and by the time the final notes fade, you realize how much ground it covered without raising its voice.

For anyone who has been waiting on a contemporary album that treats jazz tradition as a living stream, not a museum piece, this is it. Quietly bold, beautifully recorded, and built to reward deep listening, Jamael Dean vinyl doesn’t get more essential than Primordial Waters.