Music talks to me. It may offer visions of hope, renewal, peace or comfort. It may point me to new ways of thinking, living, feeling or being.
And I talk back. I share my own visions. I check if I’ve grasped the message, and try to say it back again. A conversation starts.
My current conversation is with African American spirituals. Whether rooted in song, dance and drumming of West Africa, the experience of oppression by an uprooted people, or the teachings of a transformative faith, they are a voice of human truth. Songs of black American slaves spoke that truth around the world.
Responses emerged: an array of arrangements, whole new genres of music, and work for a more just world.
Part of my response comes at the piano. Through new sonorities and textures, I express truths from my own background. I also present melodies, harmonies, rhythms and themes from spirituals, sometimes exploring traditional contexts, and sometimes trying out new ones. My response is as much question as answer, and I invite new responses — musical, visual, verbal, — from the audience and anyone whose experience spirituals can voice.
Heard the Voice captures these dialogues in solo arrangements, published by Edgetone Records. Copies will also be for sale at all upcoming concerts.
Trouble Ensemble expands the sense of dialogue into a jazz-combo-style collective of musicians.
More information in my interview by Diego Villaseñor.
Samples
O Freedom
O Freedom, O Freedom, O Freedom over me. And before I’d be a slave, I’d be buried in my grave, and go home to my Lord and be free.
Group sound/meditation on the meaning and experience of freedom, on the eve of Juneteenth, 2016.
Ezekiel Saw the Wheel
(Words Published in GIA’s African American Heritage Hymnal)
Ezek’el saw the wheel ‘way up in de middle o’ de air,
Ezek’el saw the wheel ‘way in de middle o’ the air.
De big wheel run by faith, de little wheel run by de grace o’ God,
A wheel in a wheel — ‘way in the middle o’ the air.
1. Better mind, my sister, how you walk on the cross,
‘Way in de middle o’ de air,
Your foot might slip an’ your soul be lost.
‘Way in de middle o’ de air.
Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child
(lyrics published at negrospirituals.com)
Sometimes I feel like a motherless child. Sometimes I feel like a motherless child.
Sometimes I feel like a motherless child. A long ways from home. A long ways from home.
Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
(Words Published in GIA’s African American Heritage Hymnal)
Swing low, sweet chariot
As a tangential project, I also recorded two arrangements from 24 Negro Melodies by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor:
Deep River
(Words provided by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor in his score) Deep river, my home is over Jordan, deep river, Lord I want to cross over into camp ground.
The Angels Changed My Name
(Words provided by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor in his score)
I went to the hillside, I went to pray, I know the angles done changed my name,
Done changed my name for the coming day, thank God the angels done changed my name.