Requiem for Jazz

Jazz · 2023 · 24 tracks · 57m

Requiem for Jazz

Angel Bat Dawid

A monumental, 24-track liturgical jazz requiem blending spoken word, choral arrangements, and free-jazz clarinet into a profound meditation on Black grief and joy.

Avant-garde liturgy

A thick cloud of incense and low woodwinds fills the room before the choir rises in a wave of mournful, towering harmony. This music moves like a Sunday service held in a basement club, where sharp clarinet cries cut through heavy organ chords and tape hiss. You are pulled into a dense, swirling space of grief and celebration, feeling the physical weight of every collective breath and the raw scrape of the strings.

Tracklist · 24 Tracks · 57m

01

Jazz is merely the Negroes cry of Joy & Suffering

1:06

02

INTROIT - Joy n’ Suff’rin

3:33

03

Jazz is the musical expression of the triumph of the Negroes Spirit

1:14

04

KYRIE ELEISON - Lawd Hav’ Merci

4:59

05

This endless repetition is like a Chain around the Spirit. And is a reflection of the denial of a future to the Negro in the American way of life

1:13

06

DIAS IRE - Chain Around the Spirit

3:51

07

Another restraining factor in Jazz are the changes

0:44

08

TUBA MIRUM - The Changes

3:07

09

The Negro experiences the endless daily humiliation of American life which bequeaths him a Futureless Future

1:22

10

REX TREMENDAE - Futureless Future

2:39

11

The Negro transforms America’s image of him into a transport of Joy!

1:34

12

RECORDARE - Recall the Joy

2:06

13

Jazz reflects the improvised life thrust upon the Negro

1:40

14

CONFUTATIS - Repression

3:47

15

Through Spirituals, through the Blues, then through Jazz we made a memory of our past and a promise of all to come

2:14

16

LACRIMOSA - Weeping our Lady of Sorrow

2:44

17

Because Jazz is the one element in American life where whites must be humble to the Negro

1:30

18

OFFERTURIUM-HOSTIAS - Humility

3:42

19

Only when whites have paid the price in suffering to be the Negroes equal

0:40

20

SANCTUS - Holy, Holy, Holy

2:11

21

The Jazz body is dead but the Spirit of Jazz is Alive

0:38

22

AGNUS DEI - Jazz is Dead!

2:06

23

LUX AETERNA – Eternal Light / My Rhapsody

5:50

24

Long Tone for Rayna Golding (A Binti Zawadi our Future)

2:35

Moments Worth Waiting For

02INTROIT - Joy n’ Suff’rinThe transition from the spoken-word statement of track one into the operatic vocal swells of track two establishes the album's ritualistic structure.

06DIAS IRE - Chain Around the SpiritHeavy, somber percussion patterns anchor the dense choral layers on track six, evoking a physical sense of confinement.

24Long Tone for Rayna Golding (A Binti Zawadi our Future)The final movement closes the requiem with an extended, meditative single-note drone that slowly dissolves into silence.

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