Aug. 20--More than half a century ago, two great jazz musicians penned a volcanic statement against racism that rattles sensibilities to this day.
In 1960, drummer Max Roach and Chicago lyricist Oscar Brown, Jr. raised a fist with "We Insist! Freedom Now Suite," vocalist Abbey Lincoln sometimes screaming, sometimes softly floating notes in the landmark recording. Powered by a volatile band that included saxophonist Coleman Hawkins, trombonist Julian Priester, trumpeter Booker Little and percussionist Ray Mantilla, "Freedom Now Suite" viscerally expressed the pain, sorrow and righteous anger behind the civil rights battles of the day.
The work has captivated listeners ever since, particularly in Chicago. Singer Dee Dee Bridgewater revived the piece in Orchestra Hall in 2009, with Priester and Mantilla reprising their original roles. And Chicago vocalists Dee Alexander and Oscar Brown's daughter, Maggie Brown, performed the "Freedom Now Suite" at the long-gone Velvet Lounge in 2007.
Next Thursday, several formidable jazz musicians will re-conceive the work for contemporary times, performing "We REInsist! Max Roach and Oscar Brown, Jr.'s 'Freedom Now Suite,' Reimagined" during the "Made in Chicago" jazz series at the Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park.
Maggie Brown and saxophonists Juli Wood and Caroline Davis, who are spearheading the project, aim to maintain the power of the original while unflinchingly linking it to current woes.
"Besides just trying to re-create it, we're planning to add some lyrics," says Brown, who has been crafting the additional text with Davis.
The idea is to "address some of the things we have to deal with in today's world, in these times," adds Brown. "The whole Black Lives Matter (movement), the instances that are going on now.
"What is my role? Hopefully to be a bridge from what was a very early expression of protest and Afro-centrism and to bring it to today. ... There are particular problems, particular oppression, that still face black people, simply because they are of color."
You don't have to look very far into recent news events to cite instances that have inspired Black Lives Matter, and the creators of "We REInsist!" say they will reference them explicitly.
"We're including some new perspectives on the political arena that (are) happening in our present-day United States," says Davis, whose textual additions with singer Brown will include the recitation of the names of unarmed African-Americans "who have been murdered and killed recently" by police.
At the same time, though, "We REInsist!" will offer a broad, multi-racial view of the original. Some may wag fingers at the black-and-white cast, just as some did last year when Chicago pianist Stu Mindeman released "In Your Waking Eyes," his jazz-based settings of poems by Langston Hughes.
Mindeman was quick to acknowledge that he's an outsider reflecting on African-American cultural traditions, but he still saw value in paying homage to Hughes' achievements.
"I'm a Caucasian American; my life experience is inherently different than Langston Hughes' was," he told me at the time. "One thing I learned from (him), and it's in his poetry: He has profound faith in his own heritage and a devotion to his heritage, and I wanted to respect that."
Maggie Brown similarly believes that the multi-racial nature of "We REInsist" adds meaning to the message.
"It is also about moving beyond the whole color thing," says Brown, who will appear alongside trumpeter Marquis Hill, saxophonist Ari Brown, trombonist Tom Garling, pianist Ron Perrillo, drummer Greg Artry and the Najwa Drum Corps.
"It's about the different people that will be involved. ... Everyone can raise a voice toward justice, wherever it's out of whack in the world."
As for the music, it has been rearranged by one of the best writers in the business, Chicago trombonist Garling, who has given the music "a lot of very rhythmic punches for the horns," says saxophonist Wood. "The horns are going to scream and have outbursts, a lot of wild moments in that."
All of which makes one wish that Oscar Brown could have heard this. He died in 2005, at age 78, apparently ambivalent about aspects of the "Freedom Now Suite" and about his interactions with Roach in creating it.
"Daddy always said that they fell out over the ending of this piece," recalls Maggie Brown. "One wanted it to be more Malcolm X, and one wanted it to be more Martin Luther King Jr., and I don't know which side daddy was on.
"He didn't want to sue Max over the 'Freedom Now Suite.' Max put it out, and dad sort of just heard it on the radio."
Like much of Oscar Brown's work, however, "Freedom Now Suite" has proven timely -- tragically so, considering the tenor of our times. But Brown's songs, stage works, poetry and other creations were designed not merely to lament circumstances but to argue for change.
By reconceiving the "Freedom Now Suite," Maggie Brown and her collaborators are doing exactly that.
'We REInsist!'
When: 6:30 p.m. Thursday
Where: Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park, near Randolph Street and Michigan Avenue
Tickets: Free; 312-742-1168 or www.milllenniumpark.org
"Portraits in Jazz": Howard Reich's e-book collects his exclusive interviews with Frank Sinatra, Tony, Bennett, Lena Horne, Ella Fitzgerald and others, plus profiles of early masters such as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Billie Holiday. Get "Portraits in Jazz" at chicagotribune.com/ebooks.
hreich@tribpub.com
