Gregg August, accomplished in both jazz and classical music circles, delivers an extraordinarily powerful historical perspective on the immoral deaths of young black people, and exemplifies a dialogue necessary for reform and collective healing. Pointed, poignant poetry adorns his pulsing orchestral canvas, from Maya Angelou, Langston Hughes, Francisco Alarcon, Carolyn Kizer, and others. The recording’s heart and backbone is the 1955 murder and immolation of Emmett Till, which sparked the Civil Rights Movement. Marilyn Nelson's poem “Your Only Child,” honoring Till, appears thrice: sung in jazz style, voiced in a reverential context, and concluding, with August’s solo arco bass interpretation.
But the album’s guts are heard in “Mother Mamie's Reflections” as the voice of Till’s mother recounts, with dramatic reverb enhancement, the experience of seeing her son's mangled and charred body. Few artistic documents have carried such searing power. August’s vivid scoring mirrors the poetry, and recalls one of Charles Mingus’s most ambitious recordings, which Mingus counted as his personal favorite, Let My Children Hear Music. That title’s eloquent generosity resounds through the two-CD Dialogues, with performances by August's bandmate saxophonist JD Allen, pianist Louis Perdomo, trumpeter John Bailey and others. All Americans remain children, waiting to grow into a truly equal and just society.
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