The Movement Revisited: A Musical Portrait of Four Icons＜Colored Vinyl＞

Drawing upon the words of legendary civil rights leaders Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Rosa Parks, and Muhammad Ali, Christian McBride offers a heartfelt large-ensemble tribute to the civil rights movement of the 1960s with 2020s The Movement Revisited: A Musical Portrait of Four Icons. The album is his third big-band recording, following his two Grammy-winning albums, 2011s The Good Feeling and 2017s Bringin It. However, where those albums were robust and lively productions of post-bop jazz, The Movement Revisited is a more reverent and theatrical recording. Which isnt to say its not harmonically rich with plenty of swinging improvisational intensity. The five-part work, which he first began performing in 1998 and has subsequently updated, spotlights McBrides multifaceted skills as a composer, arranger, and lyricist as he frames the uplifting words of these four heroes with his soulful arrangements. The recording culminates in the final movement Apotheosis, celebrating the 2008 election of Barack Obama as the first African-American President of the United States; an historic event that McBride beautifully ties directly to the civil rights and black power movements of the preceding decades. Helping bring the words of the civil rights leaders to life are narrators Wendell Pierce as Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Vondie Curtis-Hall as Malcolm X, Sonia Sanchez as Rosa Parks, and Dion Graham as Muhammad Ali. Also showcased throughout are McBrides bandmates, including vibraphonist Warren Wolf, pianist Geoffrey Keezer, and drummer Terreon Gully, among others. While the album is orchestral in nature, all of the introductory prologues are stripped down, with McBride underlining the speakers words with his dusky, bluesy basslines. Sister Rosa - Prologue also features Steve Wilsons wry flute accents. Conversely, on Ali Speaks, McBride smartly hands the musical accompaniment over to drummer Gully, who offers a pugnacious counterpoint to Alis swaggering vocal wit. Many of the tracks feature bright choral and gospel sections arranged with a modernist bent by J.D. Steele, a dynamic approach that evokes the edgy tonalities of 60s jazz and chamber albums like Andrew Hills Lift Every Voice and Max Roachs Its Time. As McBride points out in his liner notes, this is a personal work filtered through the prism of his own life and his feelings about these four individuals. In that sense, its not meant to be taken as a complete representation of the civil rights movement as a whole. It is however, a powerful and deeply considered work that invokes not just the words, but also the ebullient spirit of the civil rights movement. ~ Matt Collar

クリスチャン・マクブライドの新作は公民権運動を主題とした、4人(ローザ・パークス、マルコムX、モハメド・アリ、キング牧師)の「アイコンへの、そしてアメリカの象徴的な出来事への音楽トリビュートだ」。4人のメッセージの朗読、ローザ・パークスが語るマルコムXとキング牧師、マルコムXが語るモハメド・アリ、それぞれに捧げられた楽曲という構成で、壮大な内容とその熱量は圧巻だ。1998年に作曲依頼され、数回の公演を経て制作を継続し20年の時を費やして本作を完成させた苦労は並々ならぬものであったろう。社会の分断化が進むなかで、本作の試みは素晴らしいものだ。
intoxicate (C)荻原慎介