In the ontological systems of both Africa and Europe, creation begins with the word in its various oral and gestural manifestations. Music, as an expressive modality, is clearly an extension of word exemplified by ancient African griots, the communal historians whose rhythmic chants opened the path to jazz improvisation, where we witness the alchemical effect of speaking in tongues that leads to a process of creative invention.
Changing With the Times is a conversation piece, for which George Lewis has assembled a diverse collection of musicians, poets, and storytellers into an organic narrative mode to signify, in style and content, on his personal odyssey through the contradictions and ambiguities of being black in a noncontradictory social universe, America.
The story is told through the orchestrated riffs of signifiers who comment from their particular point of narrative reference: George E. Lewis on trombone; his longtime AACM associate, Douglas Ewart, performing on a variety of instruments including reeds, percussion, shakuhachi, and didjeridu; tokamak, the new-music piano duo of Dan Koppelman and Ruth Neville; the vernacular voice of the blues articulated on piano and organ by the highly certified blues artist, Jeannie Cheatham; Mary Oliver on violin and viola; and Peter Gonzales III on percussion.
Enjoined in the conversation are the voices of poets Quincy Troupe and Jerome Rothenberg; and Bernard Mixon, who renders the epic tale "Changing With The Times," a text written by George T. Lewis, the father of George E. Lewis. Throughout the mostly improvised narrative odyssey, the music supports and enhances the text, offering counter-licks, antiphonal riffs, and parodic groans to amplify the rhetorical persuasion of the oral renderings.
George Lewis: Changing With the Times
| MP3/320 | $16.00 | |
| FLAC | $16.00 | |
| WAV | $16.00 | |
| CD | $25.00 |
Track Listing
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Chicago Dadagram: I.
George E. Lewis
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Chicago Dadagram: II.
George E. Lewis
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Chicago Dadagram: III.
George E. Lewis
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So You Say
George E. Lewis
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The View from Skates in Berkeley
George E. Lewis
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Changing with The Times: I.
George E. Lewis
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Changing with The Times: II.
George E. Lewis
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Changing with The Times: III.
George E. Lewis
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Changing with The Times: IV.
George E. Lewis
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Changing with The Times: V.
George E. Lewis
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Changing with The Times: VI.
George E. Lewis
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Changing with The Times: VII.
George E. Lewis
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Changing with The Times: VIII.
George E. Lewis
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Airplane
George E. Lewis
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Epilogue
George E. Lewis
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