There is no existing compilation that even comes close to resembling Black Lives: From Generation to Generation. It has over 20 tracks spread across two discs featuring over 60 musicians. Executive producer and Jammin Colors label boss Stefany Calembert and her husband, bassist Reggie Washington, commissioned new work on the subjects of racism and Black realities. Everything here is original to this compilation and was recorded in the U.S., the Caribbean, Africa, and Europe. This music consciously connects African diasporic traditions to the sounds of contemporary Black music. These artists actively confront racism while celebrating history, family, and cultural connection.
The roster is impressive. Malian composer-singer Cheick Tidiane Seck kicks off disc one with "Sanga Bô" accompanied by a girls choir and a rap group. Saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins' "Praying" is a moving, minimal modal blues in duet with guitarist Marvin Sewell. Siblings David and Marque Gilmore enlist poet Sharriff Simmons for "We Are Here," setting the African diaspora's past as prelude to the jarring, struggle-laden present. Singer/composer Stephanie McKay's Rhodes-driven neo-soul tune "Phenomenon" and Washington's "Walk" (vanguard jazz-funk with mezzo soprano vocalist Alicia Hall Moran) both take on the struggle of parenting Black children at this historical juncture. Guadeloupe drummer Sonny Troupe's jazzy Afro-funk fusion trio deliver "Sa Nou Ye/Be Proud" with newsreel samples from Muhammad Ali. Trumpeter Jeremy Pelt's trio closes the disc with the spidery electric jazz of "Anthem for a Better Tomorrow."
Disc two commences with "Friendship," a polyrhythmic post-bop exercise by Martinique-born pianist Grégory Privat, with Guadeloupe-born jazzmaster Gwoka saxophonist Jacques Schwarz-Bart (McKay's husband), Washington, trumpeter Franck Nicolas, and drummer Arnaud Dolmen. That group, with McKay on wordless vocals, assist the saxophonist on his gorgeous ballad "Dreaming of Freedom (For Tony)." Oliver Lake's funky "Pre-Existing Conditions" is a poignant meditation on the death of George Floyd with Washington and DJ Grazzhoppa. Son Gene Lake's Back & Forth" is a smoking exercise in contemporary jazz. Marcus Strickland's "Matter" in collaboration with vocalist Christie Dashiell, samples chants from the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, while weaving them into a meld of syncopated handclaps and hip-hop rhythms, buoyed by her soaring alto and layers of bass clarinet and saxophone. E.J. Strickland follows with the gorgeous post-bop of "Language of the Unheard" with Wilkins, vibist Joel Ross, keyboardist Michael King, vocalist Lydia Harrell, and drummer Ben Williams. Beninese-cum-Togo percussionist Yul combined his Yoruba band with American jazzmen and McKay on "Higher," invoking guidance and protection from the spirit world across the Atlantic. Sewell's "Hero's Journey" is a mellifluous, blues-tinged, resonator guitar meditation, while six-string innovator Jean-Paul Bourelly's canny, Afro-futurist closer "Masters of Mud" features poet/emcee Terrence "Sub-Z" Nicholson and saxophonist Vincent Henry. The music on Black Lives: From Generation to Generation offers a sprawling yet consciously curated community mixtape of modern sounds that weds activism and spirituality to the ongoing legacy and pervasive influence of the African diaspora.