At a time when raw examples of racial injustice burn through our consciousness, requiring us to reexamine the promise of our country and how we have failed that promise, bassist/composer Gregg August’s timely new recording, Dialogues on Race, speaks directly to our condition. August premiered the piece in 2009 after the election of Barack Obama and then put it in the rearview mirror, but in light of the current upheaval and encouraged by many of the musicians who had premiered it, he decided to revive the piece, with this explanation: “My hope is that Dialogues on Race can in some small way serve as an integrated musical bridge to awareness, and maybe even stand as an affirmation against racism and injustice. Admittedly, these are lofty goals. However, through conversation, community, and art, I know we can work together toward furthering understanding.”

Dialogues on Race, whose music is inspired and in some cases accompanied by powerful poetry that focuses on our racial fault lines, offers an opportunity for sincere reflection on these things, opening the door to a deeper understanding through exceptionally expressive music and stellar performances.

Gregg August
Dialogues on Race (Iacuessa Records)
A review
Dialogues on Race, a 12-track suite on CD and double-LP from bassist/composer Gregg August, opens the windows to the winds of conscience, stirring up the horrors and disquietudes of our racial history, with the hope that we can clear them from the house and move from a fragmented past into a future of wholeness. Assisting August are musicians of the first water:

John Ellis, soprano sax
Bruce Williams, alto sax
JD Allen, tenor sax
Ken Thomson, bass clarinet
John Bailey, trumpet/flugelhorn
Rafi Malkiel, trombone/euphonium
Marcus Rojas, tuba
Luis Perdomo, piano
Donald Edwards, drums

With guest appearances from
Mauricio Herrera, congas/shekeré/castanets
Frank Lacy, vocals
Shelley Washington, vocals
Forest VanDyke, vocals
Leah Asher, violin
Lena Vidulich, violin
Yuri Namkung, violin
Johnna Wu, violin
Wendy Richman, viola
Brian Zenone, viola
Madeline Lafayette, cello
Wayne Smith, narrator

The album opens with “Sherbet,” taking its inspiration from Cornelius Eady’s poem of the same title, which investigates the “horror story” of a mixed-race couple waiting for service in the dining room of a Richmond, Virginia, hotel. The track vividly presents the muted drama, the anxious uncertainty, the indigestion of racism.

There are, among the despair and horror, sunlit flashes of hope, pride, and optimism, such as “I Rise,” inspired by Maya Angelou’s poem “Still I Rise.” The piece opens with a taunting conversation between Bailey, Thomson, and Williams, followed by a smear of emotion that resolves into a slow, sure swing, a relaxation into self, with a fine trumpet solo. Another smear of emotion jumps into a proud uptempo swing, with solos from the opening trio. The final smear of emotion swings upward into confident elation, tracking the poem’s movement.

At the center of the suite is the haunting figure of Emmett Till, the black teenager viciously tortured and murdered in Mississippi for the crime of allegedly flirting with a white woman. Marilyn Nelson’s poem “Your Only Child” is cast in three statements: The first features vocalist Frank Lacy with the band. The second offers a short and affecting arco bass solo, without words. The third, featuring the vocals of Shelley Washington and the tenor of JD Allen, sets the band against a string septet, with a closing bass solo that riffs dolefully on “God Bless the Child.”

Preceding the third statement is “Mother Mamie’s Reflection,” which includes the voice of Till’s mother and a dark and moving collective improvisation among Thomson, Rojas, and August.

Among the other highlights are “Sweet Words on Race,” from the Langston Hughes poem, which puts a finger in the chest of false white promises. “The Bird Leaps,” inspired by Angelou’s “Caged Bird,” offers a steam-powered upbeat swing with fine solos from the three saxophonists.

The suite closes appropriately with a jaunty “Blues Finale,” on which vocalist Frank Lacy and every member of the band solos. It’s an upbeat statement of confidence and certainty, delivered in a musical language that is certainly one of the greatest gifts delivered to these shores, hidden in the hearts of a captive people.

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© 2020 Mel Minter