Chris Hoffman ( Henry Threadgill, Morris), Lewis presents his ideas as a jazz suite, incorporating ideas from across the jazz spectrum to convey the power of Carver’s ideas. The opening title track puts a bluesy melody atop a New Orleans second line rhythm, connecting the dots between the development of early jazz and the way Carver took his mobile laboratory – named after its funder, Morris K. Jesup – to poor Southern farmers to advance his ideas on better ways to work the land. “Experiment Station” touches on more avant-garde territory, with Hoffman, Knuffle and the bandleader trading lines that seem to ignore standard meter and harmony in their quest to emulate Carver’s trailblazing work in the titular section of the Tuskegee Institute’s agricultural department. “Seer,” by contrast, fields a (slightly) more conventional melody, with the horns harmonizing over Parker’s strict bass groove, emphasizing Carver’s dignity and truth. “Fallen Flowers,” an acknowledgement of the pain Carver felt whenever he had to destroy one of his plants in order to study it, moves from mournful balladry to jittery dance music to painterly free jazz, with the cello and cornet weaving around the rhythm and a recording of Carver reciting some of his own poetry.