Just You Stand and Listen With Me
SSC1684 2023-01-27
Track List
Driva' Man - 4:14
When Malindy Sings - 5:52
Mendacity - 3:47
Caged Bird - 4:04
Straight Ahead - 5:04
All Africa - 7:02
Triptych: Prayer / Protest/ Peace - 6:03
Who Will Buy? - 5:51
Tears From Johannesburg - 7:49
Garvey's Ghost - 4:33
Freedom Day - 3:58
Musicians
Christine Correa - voice
Sam Newsome - soprano saxophone
Michael Sarin - drums
Andrew Boudreau - piano
Kim Cass - bass
The Civil Rights Movement was a principal fight during the turbulent 1960s. In turn, many artists took up the mantle of progress and/or revolution. Three of the most righteous voices in jazz music were vocalist Abbey Lincoln, drummer/composer Max Roach, and composer Oscar Brown, Jr. Their defiant music on We Insist!: The Freedom Now Suite and Percussion Bitter Sweet remains as poignant and topical today as it was upon release.
Vocalist Christine Correa was introduced to the music of these three icons by her mentor Ran Blake upon her arrival from Mumbai, India. The music had visceral effect on her that has remained to this day, especially as the parallels of the Civil Rights and the Black Lives Matter movements have become more and more focused. Correa’s new recording, Just You Stand and Listen with Me, revisits the powerful music of Lincoln, Roach, and Brown to remind listeners that their struggles are still very much alive.
Correa came to Boston from her native India in 1979 to attend the New England Conservatory of Music. NEC is where she met the pianist and jazz sage Ran Blake. During their studies, Blake brought the music of Lincoln and Roach to Correa’s attention. Correa was stunned by Lincoln’s conviction and honesty in performance along with her ability to evoke joy, pain, and anger, which added such emotional depth to Roach’s dramatic writing and to Brown’s resonant texts. // Over sixty years since the recording of Roach and Lincoln’s quintessential albums, Correa realized that the musical content and texts still speak to the truth of the present realities of American racial politics. The 1960s performances of this material were these artists’ forms of protest, highly visible ones at that. Correa believes that it is important to deepen the awareness of the impact of these artists and this music. To do this, she recorded a program of this essential music with a tremendous quintet.
Correa hand-picked the musicians to accompany her on Just You Stand and Listen with Me. All involved have engrained themselves in the African American musical tradition of jazz and have the utmost respect for these stylists and their songs. Drummer Michael Sarin has been a longtime collaborator with Correa and has truly absorbed the nuances of Max Roach’s playing and songs. Soprano saxophonist Sam Newsome was a new collaborator but proved to have the right depth and character to perform these pieces. Pianist Andrew Boudreau and bassist Kim Cass construct a perfect harmonic support for the ensemble.
The recording was done at a single session at Big Orange Sheep recording studio in Brooklyn, New York in November 2021.