Two recent releases update a longstanding combo and an often overlooked composition, respectively: Speakers in the House from The Headhunters and Zodiac Suite: Reassured from Jeong Lim Yang. Then, a swinging lagniappe: a holiday offering from Emmet Cohen and friends.
Todd Marcus
Todd Marcus
On These Streets (Stricker Street Records)
A review
For the past 20 years, bass clarinetist Todd Marcus, voted a Rising Star in Downbeat magazine’s Annual Critics Poll, has lived and worked in west Baltimore’s Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood at the community-based nonprofit Intersections of Change, alongside Reverends Elder C.W. and Amelia Harris. Together, through a variety of “programs that enrich the economic, social, and spiritual lives of those dealing with poverty-related issues,” they’ve helped transform blighted inner-city streets, abandoned buildings, and vacant lots into a once-again vibrant neighborhood.
Galvanized by the unrest following the death of neighborhood resident Freddie Gray while in police custody in 2015, Marcus undertook a musical portrait of Sandtown-Winchester. On These Streets (a Baltimore story)* offers a look at the neighborhood’s gilded past, its recent challenges, and its determined hope for the future. Five of the eight related tracks are preceded by commentary from neighborhood residents, and one is introduced by the sounds of police helicopters and radio. (A ninth track celebrates Marcus’s native New Jersey.) Continue reading
