Shabaka & the Ancestors - We Are Sent Here By History

[GA Russell]

 

US TOUR DATES INCLUDING TREEFORT MUSIC FESTIVAL, BIG EARS FESTIVAL, NYC'S BOWERY BALLROOM, LA'S LODGE ROOM   Friday, February 21 (New York, NY) - Ahead of their album release on March 13, Shabaka & The Ancestors release their second single “The Coming of the Strange Ones” with an accompanying hypnotic visualizer. Listen to the single here and watch the visualizer here.   “The Coming of the Strange Ones” is one of the few instrumental tracks on the record, with a pacing groove reminiscent of Shabaka Hutchings’ soca-driven outfit Sons Of Kemet.  Shabaka & the Ancestors stretches out the space for Mthunzi Mvubu to wail on the alto sax, weaving in harmony and rhythm with Shabaka’s tenor sax.   Shabaka wrote poems for each song on this record, and for this song he writes:   The Coming of the strange ones They who had seen war and the darkness They who visioned the future Speaking in tongues Dancing in praise     “Shabaka And the Ancestors [...] is Hutchings’ most overt attempt to express the spiritual concerns of improvisational music of the African Diaspora — specifically, SA’s rich traditional of gospel melody, community outspokenness, and jazz power — in the context of today’s world.” - AFROPUNK   We Are Sent Here By History is a record mixing African and Afro-Caribbean traditions. Recorded in Cape Town and Johannesburg, South Africa over two years, the LP explores the function of the griot in West African culture. The griot holds the town’s stories and is the living archive of local history. Meanwhile, in Afro-Caribbean culture, the calypsonian is a different sort of griot: They weave socially conscious lyrics within upbeat party songs, reaching more people due to the music’s festive nature.   In turn, We Are Sent Here By History is a jazz-centered trip equally suited for open-air festivals and nightclubs. “This album is an attempt to further this griot tradition within a transatlantic modern-day context,” Shabaka writes in the band’s manifesto.     Watch the video for Shabaka & the Ancestors first single “Go My Heart, Go To Heaven,” directed by Akinola Davies, Jr.   South African performing artist/vocalist Siyabonga wrote the album’s lyrics based on how the instrumentals made him feel; Shabaka formed a narrative and wrote poems based on lines from his lyrics. The poems are meant to be a gateway for listeners to develop their own narrative, or to think deeper about the themes presented to them by the album.   The lyrics and poems are accessible here   “Ideally, everyone has a different experience according to how they respond to the poetry,” Shabaka says. “In times like these, where we’re seeing the collapse of a lot of institutions that we thought would continue for a very long time, we need to start rethinking what it means to be alive, what it means to support, what the idea of progress means.”   Lineup Shabaka Hutchings - Tenor Sax and clarinet Mthunzi Mvubu - Alto Sax Siyabonga Mthembu - Vocals Ariel Zamonsky – Double bass Gontse Makhene - Percussion Tumi Mogorosi – Drums Nduduzo Makhathini (Fender Rhodes), Thandi Ntuli (piano),Mandla Mlangeni (trumpet) on select tracks     Tracklist They Who Must Die You’ve Been Called Go My Heart, Go To Heaven Behold, The Deceiver Run, The Darkness Will Pass The Coming Of The Strange Ones Beasts Too Spoke of Suffering We Will Work (On Redefining Manhood) ‘Til The Freedom Comes Home Finally, The Man Cried Teach me How To Be Vulnerable     U.S. TOUR DATES 03/25 – Treefort Music Festival – Boise, ID 03/26 Treefort Music Festival – Boise, ID 03/27 – The Momentary – Bentonville, AR 03/28 – Big Ears Festival – Knoxville, TN 03/30 – Bowery Ballroom – New York, NY 04/02 – Fine Line – Minneapolis, MN 04/03 – Mission Creek Festival – Iowa City, IA 04/04 – Constellation Room – Chicago, IL 04/05 – Constellation Room – Chicago, IL 06/15 – Lodge Room (Jazz is Dead) – Los Angeles, CA 06/18 – Neumos – Seattle, WA 06/19 – Star Theatre – Portland, OR 06/21 – DC Jazz Festival – Washington, DC   ____________________________________________________________________________________       Artist Title Time           Shabaka And The Ancestors The Coming Of The Strange Ones 06:28

[BFrank]

Hoping to catch them at Big Ears next month.

[medjuck]

I've been working out to them recently.  

[GA Russell]

 

Shabaka and the Ancestors We Are Sent Here By History out today on Impulse! Listen here   “if jazz is looking to reinvent itself…Shabaka and the Ancestors might be a good place to start.” The New York Times     “restlessly energetic communal expression” Downbeat   “Hutchings’ most overt attempt to express the spiritual concerns of improvisational music of the African Diaspora” Afropunk     March 13, 2020 – Shabaka & the Ancestors’ “haunting and brightly energetic” (Glide Magazine) sophomore album We Are Sent Here By History is out today on Impulse! Records.   LISTEN HERE   Watch video for “Go My Heart, Go To Heaven” directed by Akinola Davies, Jr.   The group’s breakout 2016 album, Wisdom of Elders, established Shabaka & the Ancestors as a sudden force. But where that record warned of impending societal collapse, this one unfolds within it. Conceptualized as an album-long sonic poem, We Are Sent Here By History mixes African and Afro-Caribbean traditions, spiritual jazz, pacing drums and bass, weaving saxophone lines, and lyrical urgency. Shabaka & the Ancestors are the modern-day griot, urgently calling attention to a society in deep crisis and insisting upon a thoughtful reconstruction of our world.   In a recent profile in The New York Times, saxophonist, bandleader and composer Shabaka Hutchings emphasized the importance of having to “start articulating our utopias, articulating what needs to be burned and what needs to be saved.”   The album originated with the melodies and compositions of Hutchings, which naturally evolved in the studio with his South African bandmembers including Mthunzi Mvubu, Ariel Zamonsky, Gontse Makhene, Tumi Mogorosi, and vocalist Siyabonga Mthembu, who wrote lyrics based on the music. Shabaka then took the song titles from Siyabonga’s lyrics, and in turn created poems for each track. These texts are accessible here.   Shabaka Hutchings: “We Are Sent Here by History is a meditation on the fact of our coming extinction as a species. It is a reflection from the ruins, from the burning. a questioning of the steps to be taken in preparation for our transition individually and societally if the end is to be seen as anything but a tragic defeat. For those lives lost and cultures dismantled by centuries of western expansionism, capitalist thought and white supremist structural hegemony the end days have long been heralded as present with this world experienced as an embodiment of a living purgatory.”

[jlhoots]

My CD copy is on the way. Looking forward to it.

[jazzbo]

Mine arrived far earlier than amazon had warned me of. It's a fantastic release. 

[jlhoots]

4 hours ago, jazzbo said:

Mine arrived far earlier than amazon had warned me of. It's a fantastic release. 

Out for delivery.