Tag Archives: Addena Sumter Freitag

World Poetry Celebrates Waddada Leo Smith!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ariadne’s Notes: On March 7, The World Poetry Café, CFRO 100,5 FM  was honoured to have the talented composer and musician Wadada Leo Smith (https://wadadaleosmith.com) call in  at 1:30 pm PST for an special Black History Month with his beautiful music and his advice to the world. The oratorio to Rosa Parks was breath taking. It is so important to honour the heroines of the past because their courage helps us all to come together in appreciation.

This was our best Black History Month ever with talented and insightful guests!  In the interview with Wadada, he talked about his work and had the following advice for the world: “The planet needs to come together to accept each other’s humanity  without conditions. Follow your heart.”

Also featured was  a living heroine, Addena Sumter-Freitag,  author and poet at 1:30 pm PST who had written a poem for Rosa Parks and thanks to our radio tech, we were able to hear Rosa Parks speak from archives.

LISTEN TO THIS VERY SPECIAL SHOW HERE!

Breaking news: Courtesy of Brathwaite and Katz. The endlessly innovative composer and trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith presents the Third Annual CREATE Festival in New Haven, CT, a two-day gathering to delve deeply into his multi-faceted and unclassifiable music featuring brilliant works for a diverse roster of musicians and ensembles. Taking place Saturday, April 6 and Sunday, April 7, 2019 at Firehouse 12, 45 Crown Street, New Haven, CT, the festival will include performances by four of Wadada’s own wide-ranging groups as well as unique collaborations and solo performances, alongside an exhibit of Smith’s Ankhrasmation Symbolic Language Art-Scores. Go to http://firehouse12.com/ for more information.

 

 

 

 

 

Wadada Leo Smith’s latest album Rosa Parks: Pure Love. An Oratorio of Seven Songs is out this FRIDAY, February 15, 2019 via TUM Records. The recording features another extended composition by Smith inspired by the civil rights movement in the United States. This new major work is composed for the iconic civil rights hero Rosa Parks (1913-2005) and performed by three vocalists, a double-quartet and a drummer with electronics.

The album was released in February 2019 to celebrate Rosa Parks’ birthday on February 4.

“With its haunting string arrangement and slowly accumulating harmonic energy, the movement ‘Mercy, Music for Double Quartet’ evokes the piercing tension of the moment Parks refused to give up her seat, as well as the triumphant sense of mercy and equality that was restored when, after 381 days of boycotts, the federal district court ruled that racially segregated buses were unconstitutional.” – Brian Zimmerman, 

“Rosa Parks: Pure Love…is in many ways a culmination of Smith’s multi-faceted, extensive body of work approaching the intersection of human rights, the potency of individual action in the arc of history, and spiritual expression. It also serves as a personal and political statement, acting as a reminder that the struggle for human rights and justice depends on the bravery and moral strength of individuals, but also requires grounding in history, intellectual astuteness, and hard-nosed pragmatism.” – Bobby Davis, Black Grooves

“Rosa Parks: Pure Love is an album to listen to all the way through, not to be excerpted, chopped up, or played piece by piece. There is a flow from beginning to end, a storyline writ by music and words that comes to an end all too soon….this album opens (for some, reopens) doors that one must enter to understand how we got to now, how the politics of 2019 is built upon the responses and reactions to the events of the 1950s (and before) and the misguided beliefs of certain members of society that have been ingrained since before this country became United.” – Richard Kamins, StepTempest.

Wadada Leo Smith
Rosa Parks: Pure Love. An Oratorio of Seven Songs

Featuring vocalists Karen Parks, Min Xiao-Fen Carmina Escobar, with RedKoral Quartet, BlueTrumpet Quartet, drummer Pheeroan akLaff and Hardedge (electronics)

To be released February 15, 2019 via TUM Records

Wadada Leo Smith’s latest album Rosa Parks: Pure Love. An Oratorio of Seven Songs features another extended composition by Smith inspired by the civil rights movement in the United States. This new major work is composed for the iconic civil rights hero Rosa Parks (1913-2005) and performed by three vocalists, a double-quartet and a drummer with electronics. The album is released in February 2019 to celebrate Rosa Parks’ birthday on February 4.

“The oratorio is composed for the iconic Rosa Parks, a person of exceptional courage and wisdom, who made the right move of resistance at the right time,” says Smith. “Her action generated a movement worldwide for liberty and justice for human beings.”

“Rosa Parks: Pure Love employs the song form as composition to convey a philosophical and spiritual narrative about my vision of Rosa Parks,” he continues. “The oratorio is concerned with ideas and my meditation on the Civil Rights movement, and through lighting, photographs and video images, reconnecting history in the present.”

Embedded in the oratorio are brief excerpts from early recordings by Smith, Anthony Braxton, Leroy Jenkins and Steve McCall, the four musicians who made up the legendary ensemble known as the Creative Construction Company some fifty years ago. Braxton, Jenkins and McCall are among the dedicates of this recording. “Our shared journey as creative artists was beneficial to each of us, and had a powerful impact on our friendship and artistic thinking. That ensemble impacted the world with its profound musical application and artistic integrity,” says Smith.

The first performance of Rosa Parks: Pure Love (in an earlier version) took place at the New School in New York City as part of the Festival of New Trumpet Music in September 2016. The recorded version of over 70 minutes in duration received its premiere at the REDCAT Theater in Los Angeles during the Angel City Jazz Festival in October 2018.

© Jimmy Katz

Bio:

Wadada Leo Smith (b. 1941), who was part of the first generation of musicians to come out of Chicago’s Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), has established himself as one of the leading composers and performers of creative contemporary music. In the late 1960s in Chicago, Smith, saxophonist Anthony Braxton and violinist Leroy Jenkins formed a trio (Braxton, Jenkins, Smith) that was expanded into a quartet when Steve McCall later joined them in Paris. Since the early 1970s, Smith has mostly led his own groups, which currently include the Golden Quartet and Quintet, the Great Lakes Quartet, Mbira and Najwa, among others. In 2012, Smith released his most extensive recording to date, Ten Freedom Summers, a four-CD collection which was one of three finalists for Pulitzer Prize in Music in 2013. In 2013, he released Occupy The World (TUM CD 037-2), a two-CD recording of six extended compositions performed by Smith with TUMO, a 22-member improvising orchestra. The Great Lakes Suites (TUM CD 041-2, a double-CD with Henry Threadgill, John Lindberg and Jack DeJohnette) was broadly hailed as one of the top albums of the year in 2014. In 2017, Smith received awards for Jazz Artist of the Year, Jazz Album of the Year (for America’s National Parks) and Trumpeter of the Year in DownBeat’s 65th Annual Critics Poll and was named Musician of the Year by the Jazz Journalists Association. Most recently, Smith has release a solo trumpet recording dedicated to Thelonious Monk (Solo: Reflections and Meditations on Monk, TUM CD 053) and a recording by a group that includes four electric guitarists, electric bass, drums and percussion (Najwa, TUM CD 049).

Wadada Leo Smith.

Source for all material : Braitwaite and Katz.

World Poetry Celebrates Addena Sumter-Frietag!

 

 

 

 

Ariadne’s Notes:  We had  the best Black History Month Celebration ever!  Starting with Keisha Prince, Dr. Mark Lomax  and ending with Addena Sumter Freitag and Wadada Leo Smith! The theme that stood out was the message of positivity and celebrating our differences plus healing together.

World Poetry Café Radio Show , 100.5 FM, CFRO  on  February 28, 1-2 PM PST was so honoured to have World Poetry Lifetime Achievement Award Winner and Ambassador to Jamaica , Addena Sumter Freitag call into the show with her great knowledge of  Black History in Canada. Addena is a wonderful poet, actress and writer. Every year, when we celebrated Black History Month at the VPL, she would bring the most beautiful display  and participate in the celebration.  On the show, she told stories about her mom who was a real heroine as well and also read a poem for Rosa Parks. 

Also on the show was the renowned Wadada Leo Smith with his Oratorio on Rosa Parks who will be featured soon.  E-poem by Rabia Ahrar, a new story by Sharon Rowe  and poems by Victor Schwartzman .

We also heard the voice of Rosa Parks speaking thanks to Victor’s search for her archives.

CLICK HERE FOR AN AMAZING SHOW WITH BEAUTIFUL MUSIC! 

Bio:

Addena Sumter-Freitag is from a 7th generation African-Canadian family.
She grew up in Winnipeg’s North End, and lived 12 years in Canada’s Arctic where she worked as a Community Development Worker for Status of Women NWT, and served 4 years as a Board member of Status of Women Canada. In her Social and Community Services career, Addena worked extensively with Women, Women’s Groups and with Aboriginal youth.

Addena is an actor as well as a published and award winning author.
Her first book “Stay Black & Die”, published by Commodore Books, has been included in English curriculum reading lists at UBC, Universery of Victoria, Emily Carr, Vanier College (Montreal), and also included in U.B.C Women’s Studies courses.
Her second book, “Back In The Days”, published by Wattle and Daub, was the 3rd of three books reviewed in Canadian Literature Quarterly by Atef Laouyene. The review was entitled, “Of Violence and Poetry”.

Addena writes and performs in English, although her poems have been translated to French and Korean. She is well known in the Canadian Theatre and Arts community. Writing and performing are her first loves.

Here is her poem for Rosa Parks: 
“EXPLAINATION
When Rosa Parks was 81, a robber broke into her house With the pretense of chasing away an intruder. He asked her for a Tip for his deed, and when she went to give him money he then proceeded to rob her. He hit her in the process and she fought to defend herself and then he beat her severely and threw her down stairs and took all the money she had. She moved from her house to an apartment after this incident.”

Miss Rosa

You were Dog-Tired
And Alabama parched
Hero was ‘the furthest’ from your mind’
When they ‘threw you into the light’

After you’d had so much darkness

Color it Lime.

How they held you up
So honored
And so cherished
On everyone’s lips
In everyone’s eyes
Immortally memorable
Eternally loved.

Strange, that the calendar was your enemy
The clock
Your Foe

It isn’t fair!

It is fair
That one of them ‘Chillin’
Whose Rights
You ‘wore your feet out’ for

Took his tragic rage out on you

He battered your face
Your arms
Your legs
Your heart …

For Fifty-three bucks.

Then he threw you down
And hurled you toward
Your final darkness.

© 2005 Addena Sumter-Freitag. All rights reserved  by author.

Source: Addena Sumter-Freitag.