Bayete

Bayeté Umbra Zindiko’s Seeking Other Beauty is a visionary statement from keyboardist and composer Bayeté, also known as Todd Cochran, newly available in a definitive all‑analog reissue that brings its futuristic spiritual jazz into sharp contemporary focus.

Recorded in 1973 for Prestige, Seeking Other Beauty channels the electricity of early‑70s Miles Davis while drawing on the cosmic funk of Parliament‑Funkadelic and the astral explorations of Lonnie Liston Smith—only with a fuzzed‑out clavinet in place of Fender Rhodes. The result is a mosaic of influences where spiritual jazz, psychedelic textures, Black rock energy, and raw funk coalesce into a sound that remains startlingly modern.

The band’s interplay hints at the ecstatic heights of spiritual jazz while never losing the physical pull of groove. From deeply dope fuzz‑soaked riffs to brooding, melancholic passages, the record moves like a ritual—each track a different portal into Bayeté’s search for “other” beauty beyond the familiar.