PART OF LIVE @ OBERON
Yosvany Terry, alto & soprano saxophones, chekere
Baptiste Trotignon, piano
Yunior Terry, bass
Clarence Penn, drums
Yosvany Terry and Baptiste Trotignon will give a pre-performance talk on the creation of Ancestral Memories at OBERON from 7PM – 7:30PM. Their lecture is free and open to the public. Doors will open at 6:45PM.
With grant support from the French-American Jazz Exchange Program, Cuban-American saxophonist/percussionist/composer Yosvany Terry and French pianist Baptiste Trotignon present a unique and exciting program inspired by the rich and diverse musical traditions that emerged from the African Diaspora in the United States and former French colonies in the Americas.
Named Ancestral Memories, the project captures the rhythms, melodies, and harmonies of the Caribbean, New Orleans and French Louisiana, re-imagined through 21st century aesthetics and a jazz sensibility. The ensemble also features the extraordinary rhythm section of Terry’s brother, bassist Yunior Terry, and drummer Clarence Penn. Ancestral Memories’ debut album will be released in October 2017 on OKeh/Sony Records.
Nominated for a Grammy for Best Latin Jazz Album, Yosvany Terry’s most recent album New Throned King (5Passion, 2014) was based on a similar concept and seamlessly blended modern jazz with the ceremonial music of the West African and Cuban Arara culture.
About the Pre-Performance Talk:
The blues born of slavery, the sophistication of the salon, chants and rhythms of the African diaspora transformed under French colonization in the Caribbean – those are elements Grammy-nominated saxophonist, composer and Senior Lecturer on Music at Harvard Yosvany Terry and acclaimed Parisian pianist-composer Baptiste Trotignon forge into a suite for impassioned modern jazz quartet on Ancestral Memories.
“We wanted the music on this album to be generous, warm, languorous, violent like in spiritual island trances, and gentle like children’s nursery rhymes, all while trying to blend the sophistication of language with dance — our ancestral source of energy,” says Trotignon, who contributed five compositions to the album. “I wanted to celebrate all the voices of my ancestors, and do justice to the enormous contribution of the African descendants who populated the French Antilles and the Pan-African world. The music sounds like nothing you’ve heard before because we place the Caribbean at the center of the universe in terms of contemporary aesthetics and vision,” adds the Cuban-American musician Terry. Terry also wrote five of the themes on “Ancestral Memories,” plays chekeré as well as soprano and alto saxes on it and considers the album a musical tribute to his grandmother’s Haitian heritage.