SIX PROTEST JAZZ RECORDS YOU SHOULD HEAR

June 3, 2020 | by Rusty Aceves

Max Roach

Civil Rights icon, author, and educator Angela Davis joins the Marcus Shelby Quartet for this week's Fridays at Five streaming concert.
Jazz musicians have always been political commentators and social critics, and here is a list of six iconic songs of conscience, politics and protest.

Billie Holiday: “Strange Fruit”
Originating as a poem composed by teacher and writer Abel Meeropol (under the pseudonym Lewis Allen), this harrowing song was inspired by the 1930 lynching of African Americans Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith in Marion, Indiana, and became closely associated with Holiday, who recorded it in 1939 and again in 1944.

Max Roach: “Tryptich: Prayer, Protest, and Peace”
Centerpiece of the landmark 1960 Civil Rights-centered album We Insist: Max Roach’s Freedom Now Suite, this three-part track is a visceral improvised duet between Roach’s drums and the remarkable voice of Abbey Lincoln, tracing the parallels between slavery in America and the bondage of apartheid in South Africa.

John Coltrane: “Alabama”
One of three studio tracks included on the saxophone giant’s 1964 Impulse! release Live at Birdland, “Alabama” was a response to the September 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham by the Ku Klux Klan that killed four young girls and injured 22 others. That event was a turning point in the Civil Rights Movement, spiking support for the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Charles Mingus: “Fables of Faubus”
Originally recorded as an instrumental on the bassist and composer’s 1959 Mingus Ah Um album because Columbia Records refused to allow the lyrics to be included in the release, the tune was a protest against Arkansas governor Orval Faubus, who instructed the National Guard to prevent the racial integration of Little Rock Central High School in 1957. It was later retitled "Original Faubus Fables" and recorded with vocals on Mingus’ 1961 Candid album Presents Charles Mingus.

Nina Simone: “Mississippi Goddam”
One of several memorable protest songs written by Simone, 1964’s “Mississippi Goddam” was an impassioned response to the 1963 murder of Civil Rights leader Medgar Evers, as well as the same church bombing that inspired Coltrane’s “Alabama.” Simone notably performed this song in front of 10,000 people at the end of the marches from Selma to Montgomery in 1965.

Gil Scott-Heron: “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”
Arguably the singer, composer, and keyboardist’s most famous song, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” became a cultural touchstone in the early 1970s, with its title and message becoming part of mainstream pop culture. The song originally appeared on Scott-Heron’s 1970 debut album Small Talk at 125th and Lenox, and predicted the irrelevancy of the mass media and consumerism in the face of an African American social revolution.

(Originally posted June 29, 2016)