Listen to an alternate track from UPLIFT: 12 pieces for positive action in 2018 for free!
UPLIFT Eight: Sharing a Small Planet - Take One
Listen to a free track from our UPLIFT subscribers series:
Enjoy!
Click here to learn more about the UPLIFT Subscriber Series.
Greenleaf Subscribers can stream and download Sharing a Small Planet on Bandcamp along with all of the tracks from the UPLIFT series.
If you’d like to join us a subscriber, visit our Bandcamp subscription page here.
UPLIFT | Eight: Sharing a Small Planet
UPLIFT Eight: Sharing a Small Planet
Global interconnectedness and humanity. We need to educate ourselves so we can coexist on this planet. No single nation can “go it alone.” It was a founding father, Benjamin Franklin, who said, “We must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.”
To support this nation’s most effective and enduring efforts in peace and diplomacy, this month Greenleaf Music and I will support the Peace Corps, which continues to operate worldwide and represent the better parts of us as human brothers and sisters. The current wave of diplomatic disasters will pass, and we will need to be forward facing about our role in the world. Love all, serve all, treat all.
Don’t forget to support your state senate and house candidates, as well as paying close attention to local elections. They decide who we are. If you have close house or senate races in your state, please donate widely, even if in small amounts. It sends a positive signal to the candidates and to the media. Red To Blue is a good resource to find flippable seats in your area.
"What an extraordinary time to be alive. We’re the first people on our planet to have real choice: we can continue killing each other, wiping out other species, spoiling our nest. Yet on every continent a revolution in human dignity is emerging. It is re-knitting community and our ties to the earth. So we do have a choice. We can choose death; or we can choose life.
"Hope is not what we find in evidence, it’s what we become in action.”
- Frances Moore Lappé, author of Diet for a Small Planet
Click here to learn more about the UPLIFT Subscriber Series.
Greenleaf Subscribers can stream and download Sharing a Small Planet on Bandcamp along with all of the tracks from the UPLIFT series.
If you’d like to join us a subscriber, visit our Bandcamp subscription page here.
Preview our July subscriber track
Here’s a short preview of the July track from our 2018 subscriber series:
UPLIFT features twelve pieces of positive action by Dave Douglas, Joe Lovano, Mary Halvorson, Julian Lage, Bill Laswell, and Ian Chang.
Vote in the DownBeat Magazine Readers Poll
The polls are open for this year’s DownBeat Magazine Readers Poll!
A number of Greenleaf artists have been included in the entries:
Jazz Artist: Dave Douglas
Jazz Group: Joe Lovano & Dave Douglas’ Sound Prints, Ryan Keberle’s Catharsis
Jazz Album: Joe Lovano & Dave Douglas’ Sound Prints - Scandal
Trumpet: Dave Douglas
Trombone: Ryan Keberle
Alto Saxophone: Greg Ward
Tenor Saxophone: Joe Lovano
Flute: Nicole Mitchell
Bass: Linda May Han Oh
Drums: Rudy Royston Music
Composer: Dave Douglas
Record Label: Greenleaf Music
Anyone can vote here. We hope you'll consider supporting our artists and projects in the poll!
ANFTD #53: Sara Serpa
Dave sits down with Sara Serpa to listen to some her new album on Clean Feed as well as talk about her varied and diverse musical interests and practices. The Portuguese vocalist living in New York has performed with Greg Osby, Danilo Perez, John Zorn, Ran Blake and many others, in addition to leading her own groups as a composer and bandleader. The conversation also gets into her role in We Have Voice, an organization of 14 women dedicated to creating safe(r) workspaces in the performing arts.
Music played in this episode:
From the Sara Serpa album Close Up
With Ingrid Laubrock and Erik Friedlander
"Cantar Ao Fim"
"Quiet Riot"
"The Future"
"Woman"
"Choral Music" by Diogo Dias Melgas
"Um Choro Feliz" by Maria Joao
"Left Alone" by Ran Blake and Jeanne Lee
"Field Cry" by Ran Blake and Sara Serpa
"Lisboa" by Sara Serpa and Andre Matos
"Belial" by Mycale
Please support this podcast and Greenleaf Music by subscribing to our exclusive series of recordings. Join us and join all our artists and creative endeavors sustainably and equitably here.
UPLIFT | Seven: A Tree Planted by the Rivers of Water
UPLIFT Seven: A Tree Planted by the Rivers of Water
Amid all the struggles for justice, peace and equality this year, the right to health care remains one of the most persistent problems in this country. Advocating for health takes many forms, and like so many other issues, intersects with almost every aspect of life. We seem to be stuck in this argument about whether people deserve an economic, social and cultural right to a universal minimum standard of health care. As in Psalms, we see the blessed like a tree planted by the streams of water, leaves and branches prospering. We have to continue to fight for this right for everyone.
Join me in supporting PNHP: Physicians for a National Health Program — supporters of universal health care and Medicare For All. They are fighting this fight in the legislative and electoral arena. We can win there. UPLIFT will also be supporting Democratic candidates for the House of Representatives state-wide in New York. We must flip the house Red To Blue if we are going to uphold our right to health care, among so many other things. Please join me. And most important, VOTE. It is your franchise. Use it. We all need you.
Click here to learn more about the UPLIFT Subscriber Series.
Greenleaf Subscribers can stream and download A Tree Planted by the Rivers of Water on Bandcamp along with all of the tracks from the UPLIFT series.
If you’d like to join us a subscriber, visit our Bandcamp subscription page here.
Sheet music now available at Bandcamp
We recently moved all of our subscription service to Bandcamp to better serve our community, and now we’ve posted our sheet music there too!
You can purchase PDFs of lead sheets, scores and parts for original music from artists including Linda May Han Oh, Donny McCaslin, and Dave Douglas.
We’ll send you the digital files immediately so you can way to study the compositions as well as perform the music yourself.
Check out our offerings at our Bandcamp store and let us know what you think.
ANFTD #52: Rory Stuart
Guitarist, composer, educator, author Rory Stuart talks to Dave about arrival in New York, composing and rhythmic devices, and his new series of books, The Rhythm Book, volumes one through six. The books are a progressive study of rhythm based on work Rory has developed over 26 years at The New School for Jazz in New York. We hear excerpts from two of Rory’s albums, Hurricane and So Rise Up.
"Push Pull", Hurricane (Sunnyside 1986)
Rory Stuart - guitar
Keith Copeland - drums
Anthony Cox - bass
Armen Donelian - piano
"Experiment #2", So Rise Up (Smart Cat Music 2004)
Rory Stuart - guitar
Ari Hoenig - drums
Matt Penman - bass
Mark Shim - saxophone
"Track 1", The Shadows (unreleased) from “Hurricane” (Sunnyside)
Rory Stuart - guitar
Keith Copeland - drums
Anthony Cox - bass
Armen Donelian - piano
"Lembranças", So Rise Up (Smart Cat Music)
Rory Stuart - guitar
Ari Hoenig - drums
Matt Penman - bass
Mark Shim - saxophone
"Synechdoche In Schenectady", So Rise Up (Smart Cat Music)
Rory Stuart - guitar
Ari Hoenig - drums
Matt Penman - bass
Mark Shim - saxophone
New Events Dates
We just listed a whole bunch of dates for our community of Greenleaf artists. Visit our events page to check it out.
UPLIFT | Six: Trail of Dreams
UPLIFT Six: Trail of Dreams
The way we treat immigrants in this country says a lot about who we are. Emma Lazarus long ago told us to open our arms and welcome everyone. Now we are in a struggle just to extend simple humanity to people who live in this country peacefully and productively — in many cases for decades — the Dreamers. One of the great hallmarks of the U.S.A. is the diversity of the people here. It’s an essential part of what has always made this country rich and vibrant, even despite the many troubling aspects of our history. In this year of activism, I feel it is only right that we also join the struggle to ensure that our nation respects and welcomes our brothers and sisters from all parts of the globe, starting right away with those who already live and work among us. On the release of this track, the 6th installment of UPLIFT, please join me in supporting Coalition of Immokalee Workers and The Center for New Americans — two of the many outstanding groups working on behalf of immigrants with support for language, documentation, family services, and housing, just a few of the many services needed on this issue. Thank you.
The composition "Trail of Dreams" was initially inspired by Katha Pollitt’s poem, "Trying To Write A Poem Against The War".
Dave Douglas, trumpet
Joe Lovano, alto clarinet
Mary Halvorson, guitar
Julian Lage, guitar
Bill Laswell, bass
Ian Chang, drums and electronics
Recorded and mixed by Tyler McDiarmid at The Bunker Studios in Brooklyn, NY December 2017
Click here to learn more about the UPLIFT Subscriber Series.
Greenleaf Subscribers can stream and download Trail of Dreams on Bandcamp along with all of the tracks from the UPLIFT series.
If you’d like to join us a subscriber, visit our Bandcamp subscription page here.
ANFTD #51: Marcus Strickland
Dave talks to multi-reed player, composer, Blue Note recording artist Marcus Strickland. Aside from leading his own bands, Marcus has had long stints with both Roy Haynes and Jeff ’Tain’ Watts. Marcus was also a key member of Dave’s Keystone electric sextet and appears on the Greenleaf Music albums Keystone, Moonshine, and Spark Of Being (Marcus plays soprano sax on the original "A Noise From The Deep"). They talk about recording and production, multi-reeds and composition, creation and application of sampled beats, Black Lives Matter, social change, and the Blue Note All-Stars.
Marcus Strickland
Interview conducted April 17, 2018
Tracks played:
Drive
Alive
Sissoko’s Voyage
Tic Toc
All tracks from Nihil Novi (Blue Note)
Charles Haynes - Drums
Kyle Miles - Electric Bass
Mitch Henry - Keyboards, Organ, Organ [B-3], Clavinet, Organ [Wurlitzer], Electric Piano [Rhodes]
Masayuki Hirano - Keyboards
Marcus Strickland - Soprano Saxophone, Alto Saxophone, Tenor Saxophone, Bass Clarinet
Keyon Harold - Trumpet, Flugelhorn
Meshell Ndegeocello - Producer
Nihil Novi also includes appearances from singer Jean Baylor, bassists Pino Palladino and Ndegeocello, keyboardist James Francies, drummer Chris Dave, guitarist Chris Bruce, and pianist Robert Glasper.
UPLIFT | Five: Love is a Battle
UPLIFT Five: Love is a Battle
The phrase comes from a James Baldwin piece on the struggle for racial justice. There is hard work that we all have to do. I am also inspired by the George Yancy essay, Dear White America, from 2015. It’s not pretty. It’s a struggle. And as Baldwin says, love unmasks much about us we’d rather leave behind the mask. Get it out in the open and fight for it. NAACP Legal Defense Fund and Color of Change are both among the many organizations doing good hard work on this issue. I will be contributing and continuing to grow and evolve.
Click here to learn more about the UPLIFT Subscriber Series.
Greenleaf Subscribers can stream and download Love is a Battle on Bandcamp along with all of the tracks from the UPLIFT series.
If you’d like to join us a subscriber, visit our Bandcamp subscription page here.