Freedom, Justice And Hope (Blue Engine)
Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis
Released June 14, 2024
DownBeat Four-and-a-Half-Star Review
YouTube:
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_lzR-Pn65xLlre6GjhnlSsJN8fyrz86Ge8
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About:
Featuring the Jazz at Lincoln Center with Wynton Marsalis alongside social justice activist and founder of The Equal Justice Initiative Bryan Stevenson, Freedom, Justice, and Hope is a stirring experience that explores Black Americans’ pursuit of equality through music and spoken word. Originally performed in front of an empty house and then webcast globally during the Covid pandemic, this special event is now an album, just in time for Juneteenth 2024.
Freedom, Justice, and Hope pairs Stevenson’s moving monologues on race in America with classics like John Coltrane’s “Alabama” and “We Shall Overcome” performed by the world-renowned JLCO. Stevenson also contributes his considerable piano chops to two tracks, joining special guests Endea Owens (bass) and Josh Evans (trumpet) who also each wrote monumental new compositions for the occasion. Freedom, Justice, and Hope illuminates how Black jazz artists have been inspired by—and have, in turn, inspired—the struggle for freedom for decades, and it adds an important chapter to the music’s growing legacy of activism.
Track Listing:
1. Introduction: A Less Glorious Story (Bryan Stevenson) 4:47
2. Freedom Suite Movement I (composed by Sonny Rollins and arranged by Walter Blanding) 6:23
3. Interlude: Exiles and Refugees (Bryan Stevenson) 1:56
4. Honeysuckle Rose (composed by Fats Waller and arranged by Sherman Irby) 5:24
5. Interlude: Freedom Doesn’t Work Without Justice (Bryan Stevenson) 4:24
6. Elaine (composed and arranged by Josh Evans) 14:13
7. Interlude: Four Precious Little Girls (Bryan Stevenson) 2:13
8. Alabama (composed by John Coltrane and arranged by Wynton Marsalis) 5:25
9. Interlude: A Life of Truth-telling (Bryan Stevenson) 3:00
10. Ida’s Crusade (composed and arranged by Endea Owens) 8:01
11. Interlude: Change (Bryan Stevenson) 3:13
12. Meditations on Integration (composed by Charles Mingus and arranged by Ronald Westray) 9:06
13. Conclusion: Something Better Waiting for Us (Bryan Stevenson) 3:19
14. We Shall Overcome (traditional arranged by Sherman Irby) 5:12
Personnel:
The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis
Sherman Irby: alto and soprano saxophone
Ted Nash: alto and soprano saxophone, flute
Victor Goines: tenor saxophone, clarinet
Walter Blanding: tenor saxophone, clarinet
Paul Nedzela: baritone saxophone
Ryan Kisor: trumpet
Kenny Rampton: trumpet
Marcus Printup: trumpet
Wynton Marsalis: trumpet
Vincent Gardner: trombone
Chris Crenshaw: trombone
Elliot Mason. trombone
Dan Nimmer: piano
Carlos Henriquez: bass
Obed Calvaire: drums
With Special Guests
Josh Evans: trumpet (track 3)
Endea Owens: bass (track 5)
Bryan Stevenson: narration, piano (tracks 2 & 6)
Recorded March 31st-April 1st, 2021, at Jazz at Lincoln Center, NY
Executive Producer: Wynton Marsalis
Recording, Mixing, and Mastering Engineer: Todd Whitelock
Label Head and A&R: Gabrielle Armand
Label Manager: Jake Cohen
Product & Marketing Associate: Alexa Ford
Director of Public Relations and External Communications: Zooey T. Jones
Assistant Director of Public Relations: Madelyn Gardner
Art Direction: Brian Welesko
Review:
The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis burnishes its lustrous catalog with Freedom, Justice And Hope. Recorded in an empty Rose Theater in 2021, the suite transpires in conjunction with interludes written and intoned by Brian Stevenson, the founder of Equal Justice Initiative, who also plays piano on Sherman Irby’s arrangements of “Honeysuckle Rose” and “We Shall Overcome.” In addition to older versions of Sonny Rollins’ “The Freedom Suite, Movement 1” (Walter Blanding), John Coltrane’s “Alabama” (Marsalis) and Charles Mingus’ “Meditations On Integration” (Ronald Westray), the orchestra addresses two commissioned works: Josh Evans puts his fellow trumpet practitioners through their paces on an outstanding extended work titled “Elaine,” while bassist Endea Owens channels her inner Reginald Veal as she swings JLCO through the gospel-Mingusian “Ida’s Crusade” (for Ida B. Wells).
Ted Panken (DownBeat)
