Matana Roberts - Mississippi Moonchile (2013)

Matana Roberts
Coin Coin Chapter Two: Mississippi Moonchile
2013 - Constellation: CST098
http://www.cstrecords.com/cst098/

* Matana Roberts: alto saxophone, vocals, conduction, wordspeak
* Shoko Nagai: piano, vocals
* Jason Palmer: trumpet, vocals
* Jeremiah Abiah: operatic tenor vocals
* Thomson Kneeland: double bass, vocals
* Tomas Fujiwara: drums, vocals

http://www.matanaroberts.com/
http://www.aacmchicago.org/matana-roberts-0
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matana_Roberts

Recorded by Radwan Moumneh at Systems II Studios,
Brooklyn NY, 28-29 November 2012.

Reviews
~~~~~~~

By Thom Jurek
http://www.allmusic.com/album/coin-coin-chapter-two-mississippi-moonchile-mw0002566488

Mississippi Moonchile is the second chapter in saxophonist and composer Matana
Roberts' projected 12-part work, Coin Coin, which examines race, class, gender
and personal experience through the prism of American history. The first
chapter, Gens de Couleur Libre, was a large-scale offering, combining out jazz
with narrated and sung sections that commenced at the dawn of slavery on North
America's shores through the Civil War. It was at once moving, arresting,
provocative, and militant, combining histories and mythologies personal,
actual, spiritual, and mythological. By contrast, Mississippi Moonchile was
composed with her New York sextet in mind. The ensemble -- Roberts (saxophone),
Shoko Nagai (piano), Jason Palmer (trumpet), Thomson Kneeland (double bass),
Tomas Fujiwara (drums), and Jeremiah Abiah (an operatic tenor) -- delivers a
wildly creative, contrasting, and wide-ranging musical theater performance that
embodies three folk songs and 15 original compositions, narration, chorus and
solo singing, divided into 18 sections yet played as a continuous whole. The
music often reflects the origins of blues and jazz from the Delta and New
Orleans, but is woven seamlessly with modern sounds (the meld of gospel, blues,
and modal music in "Humility Draws Down Blue" is the epitome of "art music"
rooted in American folk traditions and Latin sounds), scat singing, post-bop,
and Abiah's gorgeous voice anchoring nearly every cut. Roberts' horn more
readily reflects her speaking and singing voices here; it is much warmer and
calmer. It reflects blues because it comes straight out of them...

--

By Martin Schray (with a little help of Colin Green)
http://www.freejazzblog.org/2013/10/matana-roberts-coin-coin-chapter-two.html

By Mark Corroto
http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=45482

Piotr Lewandowski (pl)
http://www.popupmusic.pl/no/41/recenzje/1985/matana-roberts-coin-coin-chapter-two-mississippi-moonchile

Di Gianfranco Marmoro (it)
http://www.ondarock.it/index.php/OR3_require/recensioni/2013_matanaroberts_coincoinchaptertwo.htm

Por Cayetano López (es)