Requiem For Jazz is a Soul & Funk album by Angel Bat Dawid, originally released in 2023. On Gatefold: 3 pressings tracked.
About
The irony of Chicago composer/clarinetist Angel Bat Dawid’s vastly ambitious song-suite is that it’s as much a requiem for the rustic character of traditional jazz as it is a celebration of how that rusticism might still apply to modern life. Or as Dawid incants near the end of the suite itself, “The death of jazz is the first fake cry of the salvation of the Negro through the birth of a new way of life.” And yet through this heady idea comes a sound whose mix of ragtime (“OFFERTURIUM-HOSTIAS-Humility”), Black spirituals (“KYRIE ELEISON- Lawd Hav’ Merci”), free jazz (“LUX AETERNA – Eternal Light,” which features the Sun Ra Arkestra’s Marshall Allen and Knoel Scott), and quasi-Baroque liturgical music (“INTROIT- Joy n’ Suff’rin”) feels both radical and deferential, primitive and conceptual—roots not as a settled concept but something alive and ever-changing.
via Apple Music
The Clerk says
The Clerk knows this whole record — the pressing quirks, the credits, the take.
Tracklist
- 1Jazz is merely the Negroes cry of Joy & Suffering1:05
- 2INTROIT- Joy n’ Suff’rin3:33
- 3Jazz is the musical expression of the triumph of the Negroes Spirit1:14
- 4KYRIE ELEISON- Lawd Hav’ Merci4:59
- 5This 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 life1:13
- 6DIAS IRE- Chain Around the Spirit3:51
- 7Another restraining factor in Jazz are the changes0:43
- 8TUBA MIRUM- The Changes3:06
- 9The Negro experiences the endless daily humiliation of American life which bequeaths him a Futureless Future1:21
- 10REX TREMENDAE –Futureless Future2:38
- 11The Negro transforms America’s image of him into a transport of Joy!1:33
- 12RECORDARE-Recall the Joy2:06
- 13Jazz reflects the improvised life thrust upon the Negro1:40
- 14CONFUTATIS-Repression3:46
- 15Through Spirituals, through the Blues, then through Jazz we made a memory of our past and a promise of all to come2:14
- 16LACRIMOSA- Weeping our Lady of Sorrow2:44
- 17Because Jazz is the one element in American life where whites must be humble to the Negro1:30
- 18OFFERTURIUM-HOSTIAS-Humility3:42
- 19Only when whites have paid the price in suffering to be the Negroes equal0:40
- 20SANCTUS- Holy, Holy, Holy2:10
- 21The Jazz body is dead but the Spirit of Jazz is Alive0:38
- 22AGNUS DEI-Jazz is Dead!2:06
- 23LUX AETERNA – Eternal Light (Angel Bat Dawid) / My Rhapsody (Severson-Leist) [feat. Marshall Allen & Knoel Scott]5:49
- 24Long Tone for Rayna Golding (A Binti Zawadi our Future)2:35
Sound DNA
- Soul & Funk
- Gospel
- warm
- uplifting
- spiritual
Credits
The people behind it.
Performers
- Adam ZanoliniFLUTE
- Aquarius
- Charles Joseph SmithPIANO
- DaJour SmithVIOLIN
- Deacon Otis CookeTENOR VOCALS
- Fred JacksonALTO SAXOPHONE
- Hannah WashingtonCLARINET
- Isaiah CollierSOPRANO SAXOPHONE
- J’Niya BluntVIOLIN
- Jeremiah HuntCONTRABASS
- Knoel ScottFEATURING, PERCUSSION
- KwesaiahTENOR SAXOPHONE
- Marshall AllenFEATURING, ALTO SAXOPHONE, ELECTRONIC WIND INSTRUMENT ALTO SAXOPHONE
- Michelle MansonVIOLA
- Monique GoldingALTO VOCALS
- OlulaCELLO
- Phillip ArmstrongBARITONE VOCALS
- Sam ThousandTRUMPET
3 pressings tracked on Gatefold
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