Black Music Sunday is a weekly collection highlighting all issues Black music, with over 245 tales masking performers, genres, historical past, and extra, every that includes its personal vibrant soundtrack. I hope you’ll discover some acquainted tunes and maybe an introduction to one thing new.
Throughout the nation on Monday, Individuals will rejoice the federal and state vacation held in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.—and folks will collect to place his rules into apply. As The King Heart introduced:
Our strategic theme for 2025 is ‘Mission Attainable: Defending Freedom, Justice, and Democracy within the Spirit of Nonviolence365′. This theme defines the 2025 King Vacation Observance occasions and programming whereas serving as a compass for all of the work we are going to do that upcoming calendar 12 months and past. The pioneering work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. demonstrated that Kingian Nonviolence (Nonviolence365™) is the sustainable resolution to injustice and violence in our world, in the end resulting in the creation of the Beloved Neighborhood, the place injustice ceases, and love prevails.
In that spirit, allow us to raise our voices in tune and reward, and revel in a musical soundtrack honoring King, the struggles we face, and the spirit of resistance he embodied.
One among my favourite vocal teams who embody activism is Candy Honey In The Rock. At Carnegie Corridor on in November 1987, the group carried out their interpretation of “Letter To Doctor Martin Luther King,” which was written by poet Sonia Sanchez. Sanchez initially printed it in her assortment “Homegirls & Hand Grenades” in 1984.
A Letter to Dr. Martin Luther King
As I level my face towards a brand new decade, Martin, I would like you to know that the nation nonetheless crowds the spirit. I would like you to know that we nonetheless hear your footsteps setting out on a highway cemented with black bones. I would like you to know that the stuttering of weapons couldn’t cease your mild from crashing towards cathedrals chanting piety whereas hustling the world.
Nice God, what a rustic, Martin!
[…]
Sitting on our previous, we watch the brand new decade dawning. These are unusual days, Martin, when the colour of freedom turns into disco fever; when cleaning soap operas populate our Zulu braids; because the world turns to the conservative proper and basic hospitals are closing in Black neighborhoods and the younger and the stressed are drugged by early morning reefer butts. And homes tremble.
These are harmful days, Martin, when cowboy-riding presidents corral Blacks (and others) in a typical crown of thorns; when nuclear-toting generals recite an alphabet of blood; when multinational companies assassinate historic cultures whereas inaugurating new civilizations. Come out come out, wherever you might be. Black nation. Ready to be born . .
[…]
Martin. I’ve discovered too that worry will not be a Black man or lady. Concern can’t disturb the size of those that battle towards materials positive aspects for self-aggrandizement. Concern can’t disturb the great of people that have moved to a gathering place the place the heart beat kilos out freedom and justice for the universe.
Right here’s that 1987 efficiency:
Born out of Bernice Johnson-Reagon’s tenure within the SNCC Freedom Singers, Candy Honey In The Rock has no scarcity of songs to encourage us to maintain preventing again—it doesn’t matter what. And we want that struggle again music greater than ever on this perilous time of Donald Trump and his racist minions.
We can’t and won’t let anybody flip us round.
Meet the Resistance Revival Refrain, a collective of greater than 60 ladies, and non-binary singers, who be a part of collectively to breathe pleasure and tune into the resistance, and to uplift and heart ladies’s voices.”
I’m positive you’ll be able to agree with the ladies of the RCC once they sing that “Everybody Deserves to Be Free.” Deva Mahal, (who occurs to be the daughter of blues icon Taj Mahal) takes the lead.
It may be tough to search out pleasure lately. I hope this tune, from one other tough time, helps.
From the Resistance Revival Refrain’ YouTube video notes:
This tune is close to and pricey to our hearts and our mission. It involves us by means of the Black church from gospel music legend Shirley Caesar and we’re proud to supply our model at a time when pleasure and therapeutic are so wanted.Self-filmed throughout quarantine on the peak of the pandemic, this video — directed by Geneva Peschka and edited by Maximilla Lukacs with animation by Jenny Scales — illustrates how our intrinsic particular person and collective pleasure can by no means be locked up, shut down or taken away, even throughout our darkest struggles.
Lots of our biggest jazz instrumentalists and composers have been impressed by King and the Civil Rights Motion.
Duke Ellington’s “King Fit The Battle of Alabam” is an instance. As Paul Devlin wrote for Slate in 2013:
Duke Ellington’s Tribute to Martin Luther King, 50 Years Later
In 1963, Duke Ellington directed and narrated My Folks, a song-and-dance revue he wrote about African-American historical past, which was introduced in Chicago as a part of the Century of Negro Progress Exposition. The album lastly turned obtainable as soon as once more this previous September, 20 years after its final re-release. (The brand new model additionally has 15 extra tracks than earlier releases.)
The revue’s most placing tune is a surprising tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “King Fit the Battle of Alabam.” Ellington, outraged by the actions of Bull Connor and the police in Birmingham, Ala., in April 1963, re-imagined King because the protagonist of “Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho,” writing a strong, forward-looking salute not solely to King however to Birmingham’s brave black residents as properly. In Ellington’s tune, considered one of Connor’s canines pulls “his Uncle Bull’s coat,” and says, “That baby acts like he don’t give a damn. Are you sure we’re still in Alabam?”
Right here’s “King Fit The Battle Of Alabam,” sung by The Irving Bunton Singers.
From Reminiscing In Tempo’s YouTube video notes:
Recorded at Common Studios in Chicago. August 20, 1963.Duke composed My Folks for Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation Centennial Celebration ‘A Century of Negro Progress Exposition’ and the frilly manufacturing ran from August 16 to September 2, 1963 within the Arie Crown Theater at Chicago’s McCormick Place.In 1963, Robert Morris was a younger undergraduate music main at DePaul College’s College of Music and a member of the Irving Bunton Singers. Duke appointed him arranger for the entire choral music for My Folks.
My Folks was being carried out in Chicago…when the historic March on Washington befell August 28, 1963 throughout which Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave the legendary “I Have a Dream” speech.
Jazz saxophonist and composer John Coltrane was deeply moved by King and the motion for civil rights, composing the highly effective piece “Alabama” within the wake of the lethal September 1963 bombing of Birmingham’s sixteenth Avenue Baptist Church—or extra precisely, King’s speech that adopted.
[Pianist McCoy] Tyner informed jazz historian Ashley Kahn for his 2002 guide A Love Supreme: The Story of John Coltrane’s Signature Album the piece’s melodic line was derived from the rhythms of a speech by Martin Luther King Jr. that Coltrane learn in a newspaper.
Right here is Coltrane’s full efficiency of “Alabama” on Ralph J. Gleason’s public tv collection, “Jazz Casual.”
For these unfamiliar with King’s eulogy for the 4 little Black women killed within the assault, right here’s the audio.
From King’s “Eulogy for the Martyred Children”:
These youngsters — unoffending, harmless, and delightful — have been the victims of one of the vicious and tragic crimes ever perpetrated towards humanity.
And but they died nobly. They’re the martyred heroines of a holy campaign for freedom and human dignity. And so this afternoon in an actual sense they’ve one thing to say to every of us of their loss of life. They’ve one thing to say to each minister of the gospel who has remained silent behind the secure safety of stained-glass home windows. They’ve one thing to say to each politician [Audience:] (Yeah) who has fed his constituents with the stale bread of hatred and the spoiled meat of racism. They’ve one thing to say to a federal authorities that has compromised with the undemocratic practices of southern Dixiecrats (Yeah) and the blatant hypocrisy of right-wing northern Republicans. (Converse) They’ve one thing to say to each Negro (Yeah) who has passively accepted the evil system of segregation and who has stood on the sidelines in a mighty battle for justice. They are saying to every of us, black and white alike, that we should substitute braveness for warning. They are saying to us that we should be involved not merely about who murdered them, however in regards to the system, the lifestyle, the philosophy which produced the murderers. Their loss of life says to us that we should work passionately and unrelentingly for the belief of the American dream.
Herbie Hancock’s “I Have A Dream” is the opening piece on his album “The Prisoner.” As music critic Derek Anderson wrote of the composition in 2020:
Dr. Martin Luther King’s well-known phrase I Have a Dream, lent its identify to the album opener. It’s an bold eleven minute epic, and was adopted by the title-track. Its composer, Herbie Hancock, defined that The Prisoner is about: “how black people have been imprisoned for a long time.” Firewater was meant to symbolise the duality of the oppressor and the oppressed. Hearth was meant to symbolise the warmth in violence in addition to the abuse of energy, whereas the sensation of water recollects Dr. Martin Luther King. He Who Lives In Concern refers to Dr King as he “had to live in an atmosphere charged with intimidation.” Herbie Hancock defined how Promise Of The Solar which closes the album symbolises: “how the sun promises life and freedom to all living things, and yet blacks are not yet free.”
Have a pay attention.
In the case of R&B, hip-hop, and rap, I by no means fail to be uplifted by John Legend and Frequent’s efficiency of their Oscar-winning tune “Glory,” from the film “Selma.”
They teamed up for a socially distanced efficiency on the 2020 Democratic Nationwide Conference, which was held just about on account of COVID-19.
Frequent additionally partnered with will i.am in 2006 to report “A Dream” for the movie “Freedom Writers.”
I’ve a very lengthy checklist of extra musical tributes to MLK and the motion, and no more room to incorporate them right here in as we speak’s story, so search for tons of bonus content material within the feedback.
Moreover, discover earlier tales about MLK and the Civil Rights Motion beneath.
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. cherished Black music and musicians cherished him again
Black Music Sunday: Celebrating and honoring the reminiscence of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From Nina Simone to Buffalo Springfield (and past): When music turns into an anthem for a motion
The battle continues, however how are you planning to rejoice Dr. King’s day?
