Composer, clarinetist, singer and educator Angel Bat Dawid announces the release of a new work, Requiem For Jazz, out March 24th on International Anthem. A 12-movement suite composed, arranged, and inspired in part by dialogue from Edward O. Bland’s 1959 film The Cry of Jazz, the album is a wide-ranging treatise on the African American story from one of its most astute narrators.
Itself an incisive critique of racial politics in the USA, The Cry of Jazz draws formal comparisons between the structure of jazz music and the African American experience – as one of freedom and restraint, of joy and suffering – that manifests in the triumph of spirit over the crushing prejudice of daily life.
Cutting together archive reel from Black neighborhoods in Chicago with live performance footage from Sun Ra and his Arkestra among others, the film remains a radical and prescient evocation of Black pride and its roots in the history of jazz, from spirituals to blues and beyond. Drawing a through line to today’s vibrant avant-garde, Angel Bat Dawid’s… International Anthem
Angel Bat Dawid: Requiem for Jazz
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Vinyl:
…Requiem For Jazz picks up the liberation work laid out by Bland’s film, taking the message of joy and suffering within the Black classical tradition into a contemporary setting.
Music from the project was originally premiered at the Hyde Park Jazz Festival in Chicago in 2019, where Angel conducted a multigenerational fifteen-piece instrumental ensemble of Black musicians from across Chicago’s creative community, alongside a four-person choir (featuring singers from Black Monument Ensemble) as well as dancers and visual artists.
Recordings from the performance were then mixed and post-produced by Angel, who added interludes, vocals and additional sounds. As well as transcribing a piece from the film, Requiem For Jazz also alludes to The Cry of Jazz through contributions from the Sun Ra Arkestra’s Marshall Allen and Knoel Scott on the album’s final movement, which were recorded remotely at the historic Arkestral Institute of Sun Ra in Philadelphia in late 2020.
Featuring artwork by frequent collaborator (and Black Monument Ensemble lead) Damon Locks, Requiem For Jazz is presented as a deluxe, heavyweight gatefold 2xLP, that also includes a fold-out poster designed by Jeremiah Chiu and poetry written by Angel Bat Dawid in dedication to all of her collaborators on the project. International Anthem
- Jazz is merely the Negroes cry of Joy & Suffering (1:06)
- INTROIT- Joy n’ Suff’rin (3:33)
- Jazz is the musical expression of the triumph of the Negroes Spirit (1:14)
- KYRIE ELEISON- Lawd Hav’ Merci (4:59)
- This endless repetition is like a Chain around the Spirit. And is a reflection of the denial of a future to the Negro in the American way of life (1:13)
- DIAS IRE- Chain Around the Spirit (3:51)
- Another restraining factor in Jazz are the changes (0:44)
- TUBA MIRUM- The Changes (3:07)
- The Negro experiences the endless daily humiliation of American life which bequeaths him a Futureless Future (1:22)
- REX TREMENDAE –Futureless Future (2:39)
- The Negro transforms America’s image of him into a transport of Joy! (1:34)
- RECORDARE-Recall the Joy (2:06)
- Jazz reflects the improvised life thrust upon the Negro (1:40)
- CONFUTATIS-Repression (3:47)
- Through Spirituals, through the Blues, then through Jazz we made a memory of our past and a promise of all to come (2:14)
- LACRIMOSA- Weeping our Lady of Sorrow (2:44)
- Because Jazz is the one element in American life where whites must be humble to the Negro (1:30)
- OFFERTURIUM-HOSTIAS-Humility (3:42)
- Only when whites have paid the price in suffering to be the Negroes equal (0:40)
- SANCTUS- Holy, Holy, Holy (2:11)
- The Jazz body is dead but the Spirit of Jazz is Alive (0:38)
- AGNUS DEI-Jazz is Dead! (2:06)
- LUX AETERNA – Eternal Light (Angel Bat Dawid) / My Rhapsody (Severson-Leist) feat. Marshall Allen & Knoel Scott (5:50)
- Long Tone for Rayna Golding (A Binti Zawadi our Future) (2:35)
Product Dimensions : 0.31 x 5.59 x 4.88 inches; 2.47 Ounces
Manufacturer : International Anthem Recording Co.
Original Release Date : 2023
Label : International Anthem Recording Co.
ASIN : B0BPYYTVVN
Country of Origin : USA
Number of discs : 1