Music & Poetry
Romare Bearden wrote poetry and music. He published a number of songs with Fred Norman and Larry Douglas. Three of their songs were recorded by Leslie Uggams when she was about ten years old. A song called “Seabreeze” became a hit in the 1950s and was recorded by the likes of Billy Eckstine and Tito Puente.
It was recorded again in 2003 by Branford Marsalis, on a CD entitled Romare Bearden Revealed. The CD also contains a number of new compositions by Marsalis that were inspired by Bearden’s art.
Romare Bearden Revealed
On his first release for Marsalis Music, his signature label, Branford Marsalis deployed his quartet to present an homage to the legacy of jazz modernism, with extended investigations of John Coltrane's "Love Supreme" and Sonny Rollins's "Freedom Suite," as well as pithy romps through Ornette Coleman's "Giggin' " and John Lewis's "Concorde." With the relaxed follow-up, Romare Bearden Revealed, Marsalis tips his hat to the Harlem Renaissance with blues-drenched sonic analogs to nine paintings by the seminal midcentury African-American artist, and in so doing, broadens his scope in interesting ways. Marsalis explicitly refers to Bearden’s collagist techniques in the way he juxtaposes different ensembles and configurations for dynamic contrast. Trumpeter Wynton Marsalis joins the mix on his own "J Mood," a Milesian blues from the '80s; on drummer Jeff Watts's "Laughin' and Talkin' [With Higg]," a smoking free-form blues in the manner of the Sonny Rollins–Don Cherry quartet of the early '60s; and on a detailed arrangement of Jelly Roll Morton's "Jungle Blues," performed by the remaining Marsalis family musicians (Jason, drums; Delfeayo, trombone; and Ellis, the family patriarch, on piano). Guitarist Doug Wamble, a Marsalis Music artist, augments the quintet on Duke Ellington's "Slappin' Seventh Avenue" and a Sidney Bechet–inflected Branford original entitled "B's Paris Blues," and takes an unaccompanied solo on his own original “Autumn Lamp.” Marsalis conjures Bechet’s ghost on James P. Johnson’s “Carolina Shout" in a romping soprano-piano duo with Harry Connick Jr., a longtime family friend who released an instrumental quartet session on the label earlier this year. The quartet is alternately mellow (Bearden’s “Seabreeze”) and intense (“Steppin’ on the Blues”), and the eldest Marsalis brother is in fine form, playing both the tenor and soprano with rounded tone and melodic inspiration. A fine recording, with depth and substance.
| Release Date: | 09/09/2003 |
|---|---|
| Label: | Marsalis Music |
| UPC: | 0011661330627 |
| catalogNumber: | 613306 |
Performance Credits
Branford Marsalis Primary Artist,Soprano Saxophone,Tenor Saxophone
Harry Connick Piano
Joey Calderazzo Piano
Ellis Marsalis Piano
Reginald Veal Bass
Jeff "Tain" Watts Drums
Wynton Marsalis Trumpet
Delfeayo Marsalis Trombone
Jason Marsalis Drums
Eric Revis Bass
Doug Wamble Guitar
Technical Credits
James P. Johnson Composer
Jelly Roll Morton Composer
Irving Mills Composer
Tommy Ladnier Composer
Jeff "Tain" Watts Composer
Lovie Austin Composer
Larry Douglas Composer
Duke Ellington Composer
Branford Marsalis Composer,Producer
Wynton Marsalis Composer
Fred Norman Composer
Jimmy O'Bryant Composer
Gregg Rubin Engineer
Bob Blumenthal Executive Producer
Arnold Levine Art Direction
Rob "Wacko" Hunter Engineer
Henry Nemo Composer
Romare Bearden Composer,Artwork
Doug Wamble Composer
Robert O'Meally Liner Notes
Rommie Bearden Composer
Reviews
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I think the artist has to be something like a whale, swimming with his mouth open, absorbing everything until he has what he really needs. When he finds that, he can start to make limitations. And then he really begins to grow.
Romare Bearden -
I felt that the Negro was becoming too much of an abstraction, rather than the reality that art can give a subject.
Romare Bearden, 1964
