Gregg August - Dialogues on Race (2020)

To be released on CD and double-vinyl LP as well as digitally via Iacuessa Records on March 27, 2020, Dialogues on Race is an album a decade in the making, the original evening-length suite having been commissioned by the Jerome Foundation and New York’s Jazz Gallery for a powerful 2009 premiere. August gradually refined the dozen pieces of Dialogues on Race for the subsequent recording sessions and assembled an ideal cast of voices: singers Frank Lacy, Shelley Washington and Forest Van Dyke, along with narrator Wayne Smith. The main poetic inspiration for Dialogues on Race was Marilyn Nelson’s “Your Only Child,” in which she compares the suffering of Mamie Till to Mary, Mother of Christ. August’s melody for that poem winds through the entire suite, including three different versions of that song: one sung by Lacy in a jazz style, another voiced by Washington in a reverential context and a third in a rendition with August on solo arco bass.

Throughout the album, there are thrilling solos not only by Allen and August (pizzicato as well as arco), but also by John Bailey (trumpet), John Ellis (soprano saxophone), Ken Thomson (bass clarinet) and Luis Perdomo (piano), among others, with the Latin percussion of Mauricio Herrera and hard-grooving drums of Donald Edwards adding to the rich tapestry of August’s arrangements. You can see beautifully filmed live performances on YouTube of opening instrumental “Sherbet” here and the vocal “Your Only Child,” with Shelley Washington, here.