#4711, Ballad For The Black Man
Hear works considering the plight of young Black men, in music for Michael Brown by trumpeter Keyon Harrold, in tribute to Emmett Till by Wadada Leo Smith, and by Joseph C. Phillips Jr.
Listen to work by trumpeter, composer, & collaborator Keyon Harrold from his 2017 album The Mugician, called “MB Lament”, which pays tribute to Michael Brown and the rest of the youth in Ferguson, MO, especially those affected by inequality and injustice (Legacy Recordings Press Release.) Then hear music in tribute to Emmett Till from trumpeter/composer Wadada Leo Smith, from his “spiritually charged opus inspired by the struggle for African-American freedom and equality before the law”, called Ten Freedom Summers, (Bandcamp liner notes.)
There’s music by Joseph C. Phillips Jr. and his ensemble Numinous from his mono-opera 'The Grey Land', which chronicles a single Black mother and her son. Phillips wrote the libretto an uses additional text from Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, author Isaac Butler, Abolitionist Frederick Douglas, and from Mothers of the Movement, founded in 2013 by Black mothers. Hear the choral lament, “The People Get Tired of Dying” as well as ‘the talk’ set as a work called “Don’t”.
Listen to songwriter, bandleader, multi-instrumentalist, and scholar Rhiannon Giddens with percussionist Francesco Turrisi in a version of songwriter Oscar Brown, Jr.'s black pride lullaby "Brown Baby” first interpreted by Nina Simone. There’s also music from collaborative supergroup, Our Native Daughters, who are Rhiannon Giddens, Amythyst Kiah, Allison Russell and Leyla McCalla, banjo-players all, who tell the stories of the dark American institution of slavery and its legacy. Plus, hear a work from the Art Ensemble of Chicago, specifically about the first Black officer to have served and died in the Revolutionary War for the Crown of England in a colonial expansion war. And more. - Caryn Havlik
Program #4711, Ballad For The Black Man (First aired 2/3/23)
ARTIST: Keyon Harrold
WORK: MB Lament [1:07]
RECORDING: The Mugician
SOURCE: Legacy Recordings
INFO: Available at AppleMusic, Amazon.com, Spotify, YouTube Music
ARTIST: World Saxophone Quartet
WORK: David Murray: Ballad for the Black Man [5:32]
RECORDING: New Sounds Liv, 3/8/90
SOURCE: The work appears on 'Metamophosis', released on Nonesuch Records
INFO: nonesuch.com
ARTIST: Keyon Harrold
WORK: MB Lament [5:04]
RECORDING: The Mugician
SOURCE: Legacy Recordings
INFO: Available at AppleMusic, Amazon.com, Spotify, YouTube Music
ARTIST: Rebecca L Hargrove, soprano; Joseph C. Phillips Jr. and Numinous
WORK: Joseph C. Phillips Jr.: The People Get Tired of Dying [3:37]
RECORDING: The Grey Land
SOURCE: New Amsterdam Records
INFO: numinous.bandcamp.com | newamrecords.com
ARTIST: Rebecca L Hargrove, soprano; Joseph C. Phillips Jr. and Numinous
WORK: Joseph C. Phillips Jr.: Don't [3:44]
RECORDING: The Grey Land
SOURCE: New Amsterdam Records
INFO: numinous.bandcamp.com | newamrecords.com
ARTIST: Art Ensemble of Chicago
WORK: Prayer For Jimbo Kwesi [9:47]
RECORDING: The Third Decade
SOURCE: ECM Records
INFO: https://ecmrecords.com
ARTIST: Rhiannon Giddens and Francesco Turrisi
WORK: Brown Baby [5:08]
RECORDING: there is no Other
SOURCE: Nonesuch Records
INFO: nonesuch.com
ARTIST: Our Native Daughters
WORK: Mama's Cryin' Long [2:11]
RECORDING: Songs of Our Native Daughters
SOURCE: Smithsonian Folkways SFW40232
INFO: folkways.si.edu
ARTIST: Wadada Leo Smith
WORK: Emmett Till- Defiant, Fearless [6:27]
RECORDING: Ten Freedom Summers
SOURCE: Cuneiform Records
INFO: cuneiformrecords.bandcamp.com
