There is no existing compilation that even comes close to resembling
Black Lives: From Generation to Generation. It has over 20 tracks spread across two discs featuring over 60 musicians. Executive producer and
Jammin Colors label boss
Stefany Calembert and her husband, bassist
Reggie Washington, commissioned new work on the subjects of racism and Black realities. Everything here is original to this compilation and was recorded in the U.S., the Caribbean, Africa, and Europe. This music consciously connects African diasporic traditions to the sounds of contemporary Black music. These artists actively confront racism while celebrating history, family, and cultural connection.
The roster is impressive. Malian composer-singer
Cheick Tidiane Seck kicks off disc one with "Sanga Bo" accompanied by a girls choir and a rap group. Saxophonist
Immanuel Wilkins' "Praying" is a moving, minimal modal blues in duet with guitarist
Marvin Sewell. Siblings
David and
Marque Gilmore enlist poet
Sharriff Simmons for "We Are Here," setting the African diaspora's past as prelude to the jarring, struggle-laden present. Singer/composer
Stephanie McKay's Rhodes-driven neo-soul tune "Phenomenon" and
Washington's "Walk" (vanguard jazz-funk with mezzo soprano vocalist
Alicia Hall Moran) both take on the struggle of parenting Black children at this historical juncture. Guadeloupe drummer
Sonny Troupe's jazzy Afro-funk fusion trio deliver "Sa Nou Ye/Be Proud" with newsreel samples from
Muhammad Ali. Trumpeter
Jeremy Pelt's trio closes the disc with the spidery electric jazz of "Anthem for a Better Tomorrow."
Disc two commences with "Friendship," a polyrhythmic post-bop exercise by Martinique-born pianist
Gregory Privat, with Guadeloupe-born jazzmaster Gwoka saxophonist
Jacques Schwarz-Bart (
McKay's husband),
Washington, trumpeter
Franck Nicolas, and drummer
Arnaud Dolmen. That group, with
McKay on wordless vocals, assist the saxophonist on his gorgeous ballad "Dreaming of Freedom (For Tony)."
Oliver Lake's funky "Pre-Existing Conditions" is a poignant meditation on the death of George Floyd with
Washington and
DJ Grazzhoppa. Son
Gene Lake's Back & Forth" is a smoking exercise in contemporary jazz.
Marcus Strickland's "Matter" in collaboration with vocalist
Christie Dashiell, samples chants from the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, while weaving them into a meld of syncopated handclaps and hip-hop rhythms, buoyed by her soaring alto and layers of bass clarinet and saxophone.
E.J. Strickland follows with the gorgeous post-bop of "Language of the Unheard" with
Wilkins, vibist
Joel Ross, keyboardist
Michael King, vocalist
Lydia Harrell, and drummer
Ben Williams. Beninese-cum-Togo percussionist
Yul combined his Yoruba band with American jazzmen and
McKay on "Higher," invoking guidance and protection from the spirit world across the Atlantic.
Sewell's "Hero's Journey" is a mellifluous, blues-tinged, resonator guitar meditation, while six-string innovator
Jean-Paul Bourelly's canny, Afro-futurist closer "Masters of Mud" features poet/emcee
Terrence "Sub-Z" Nicholson and saxophonist
Vincent Henry. The music on
Black Lives: From Generation to Generation offers a sprawling yet consciously curated community mixtape of modern sounds that weds activism and spirituality to the ongoing legacy and pervasive influence of the African diaspora. ~ Thom Jurek
![Purple Rain [Deluxe Edition]](http://prodimage.images-bn.com/pimages/0093624930433_p0_v3_s90x140.jpg "Purple Rain [Deluxe Edition]")
