They're the most significant singing group in America, and have been for a long time. But when Sweet Honey In The Rock (SHIR) played Jazz at Lincoln Center's Rose Theater last weekend, they broadened their legendary African-American a cappella repertoire with a tribute to the songs of Nina Simone, Odetta and Miriam Makeba--and with the backing of a jazz trio.
"We did some electrified versions of Sweet Honey songs when we performed with Toshi Reagon's band during our 30th year celebration," says Sweet Honey's Ysaye Maria Barnwell, "but this is the first time we've really stepped out by choosing and performing solo songs--which is radically different for us."
But not at all out of place--or much of a challenge--for Barnwell and fellow vocalists Nitanju Bolade Casel, Aisha Kahlil, Carol Maillard and Louise Robinson, who along with sign language interpreter Shirley Childress Saxton make up SHIR. Now in its 37th year, the group has carried on the music/social activism tradition set forth by retired founder Bernice Johnson Reagon (Toshi's mom) with a new show that is really just a natural extension.
"Odetta, Nina and Miriam saved my life at school," says Barnwell. "When I went to college in upstate New York, there were literally seven black people--students and staff--on campus, and while it wasn't necessarily racism, people showed a stupidity around black folks. It really plunged me more deeply into my culture, and I tried to look and sound like Odetta!"
When the opportunity to perform at Jazz at Lincoln Center arose, SHIR saw fit to perform the music of these three African-American role models in a jazz setting.
"I knew they toured together in Italy in 1990, but didn't know what songs they did," continues Barnwell. "So we thought it would be interesting to recreate that threesome in a way they they might have done it."
SHIR found "a good 10 songs" that both Odetta and Simone had performed during their careers, including "Seeline Woman," a slavery-era song in the tradition of the Georgia Sea Islands ring shouts, which Barnwell sings accompanied by her and Robinson's pounding percussion using long sticks.
"Miriam was a little different, obviously," she adds. "We wanted somehow to do the traditional a cappella sound of her Sangoma album, which we loved, but needed to translate it--and then come up with some arrangements in order to balance her songs with those of the other two. Then we each picked at least two songs from two different women to do solo, and then fill in group songs around them."
At the start of Friday night's Rose Theater show Maillard said it was "such an honor and privilege to remember these three amazing women," all of whom, she noted, had such "a serious impact" as artists, women and social activists. After the group entered the stage and sang Simone's "Come Ye," she added, to joyous applause, "The dead are not under the earth."
High points of the first set included Casel's version of Simone's "If I Should Lose You" (for which she strolled over to the stellar backup group comprised of pianist Stacey Wade, bassist Parker McAllister and percussionist Jovol Bell), Robinson's scat-filled take on Simone's "Trouble In Mind" and the group's lively rendition of Makeba's classic South African touch-dance hit "Pata Pata."
After the intermission (and SHIR's traditional costume change from all black to gloriously multi-colored garb), Barnwell introduced a "Freedom Suite" of Odetta's Civil Rights Movement songs with the telling instruction, "If you know them, join us, and if you don't, learn them--because you will need them sometime soon."
Barnwell also scored on Odetta's prison-escape song "Another Man Done Gone" work-song blues, which instead of a cappela she performed with the jazz group, providing her own violin call-and-response accompaniment. Kahlil delivered an Abby Lincoln mini-tribute, explaining that SHIR "would be remiss to not include her in the circle of light," the great jazz singer/activist having died last year. All joined together for a big finish on Odetta's "Midnight Special," followed by Robinson's original "Let There Be Peace."
Sweet Honey In The Rock will reprise Remembering Nina, Odetta & Miriam this weekend at Yoshi's jazz club in San Francisco. Meanwhile, the group, which in 2008 scored the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater's production of Go in Grace, has collaborated with Berklee College of Music professor/composer William Banfield in a symphonic piece, tentatively titled Affirmations and scheduled to premiere with the National Symphony next year.
[The Examiner wrote the liner notes to Sweet Honey In The Rock's 1998 25th anniversary album ...Twenty-Five....]
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