Cat Toren's HUMAN KIND - Scintillating Beauty

Pianist/composer Cat Toren conjures music as healing force and hope for the future on the second album by her exploratory quintet HUMAN KIND. "Scintillating Beauty" evokes 60s spiritual jazz, sound healing techniques and positive activism.

At its core, the creative act of making art is grounded in generosity and hope; the gift of sharing one’s inspiration with others and the hope that in doing so, it will be transformative in some form for those who experience it. Inspired by two iconic quotes from the Reverend Martin Luther King, pianist/composer Cat Toren confronts the fraught contemporary moment in our collective history by searching for music that resonates with the ideals of redemption, metamorphosis, and spiritual evolution that are at the core of the civil rights movement. Enlisting the talents of her quintet HUMAN KIND on their sophomore release, Toren draws on her work as a sound healer and the influences of spiritual jazz practitioners such as Alice Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders to produce an album whose message is powerfully communicative.