Those grainy black and white news shots of the Civil Rights struggles in 1950s and 1960s America make uncomfortable viewing. They seem like a nation taking a good, long, hard look at itself, not liking what it saw, and moving on - the land of the free becoming free.
During the 1980s and Nineties came very real fears those advances were being eroded through the social and economic policies of Presidents Reagan and Bush. In the dramatic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, it seemed as if a small-time President was going back to small-town American values.
That Dee Dee Bridgewater would concur with this school of thought is hardly surprising given her experiences. Born in Memphis in 1950, the singer, aged 57, had been living as an expat in France since 1974, but visiting the USA during Dubya's administration came as a shock. 'It brought back memories of the late 1950s and the level of racism I experienced then,' she recalls.
'When I was flying first class, the businessmen would not allow me to get out so I had to push the car button and have the flight attendant let me pass. I wouldn't be waited on in restaurants. So that kind of stuff made me think, "You know what? I've spent all my life trying to fit in with this country, the United States, trying to be accepted," so I finally decided I needed to acknowledge my African roots.'
The result is Red Earth, an inimitable fusion of Malian voices, music and traditional instruments, all interspersed with jazz singing.
This is not simply world music, but world music interpreted by one of jazz's leading vocalists who succeeds in creating a spiritual unity between two diverse styles of music without sacrificing the integrity of either, as her soaring power on 'Bad Spirits', 'Mama Don't Ever Go Away' and, especially, 'No More (Bambo)' reveal.
It's a profound change of direction for one of the leading interpreters of the American popular song and there's no going back: 'I knew I had to leave traditional and swinging jazz for good.'
Unpicking the racism woven into the fabric of American society has been a long and painful process and, as Bridgewater has discovered, it remains unfinished business. America is still ill at ease with itself. On Red Earth you feel Bridgewater's pain, but the power of redemption, too, especially on the album's centrepiece 'Compared to What'.
Dowload: 'Mama Don't Ever Go Away', 'No More (Bambo)'; 'Compared to What'
