Howard Wiley "The Angola Project"

 

 

HOWARD WILEY EXPLORES TRADITIONAL FOUNDATIONS OF FOLK AND JAZZ ON

THE ANGOLA PROJECT

 

Saxophonist’s New Release Was Inspired by Alan Lomax and Harry Oster’s Historic 50s-Era Recordings

 

While it is obvious that most jazz musicians today willingly pay tribute to the rich history of the music even as they pursue their own unique departures from tradition, 27 year old saxophonist Howard Wiley has managed to take bold steps both forward and back on his 2007 release, The Angola Project, which draws its inspiration from the legendary recordings produced by Alan Lomax and Harry Oster in the 1950s, most notably their Angola Prison Spirituals.

Wiley’s friend, ethnomusicologist Daniel Atkinson, introduced an at-first uninterested Wiley to the music of the prison, but the saxophonist quickly found musical, emotional and social resonance in the Angola recordings, particularly in “Rise and Fly,” “It was some of the most powerful and original music I’d ever heard,” says Wiley. “The technique of allowing the melody/soloist to dictate the tempo of a song which changes with each solo transected spiritually with what I hear when I listen to Mahalia Jackson and John Coltrane.

Following a visit to the prison in 2005, Atkinson played Wiley a recording he’d made there of “12 Gates to the City,” and Wiley was hooked.  In short time he founded the Angola Project ensemble and received a commission from the Bay Area’s Intersection for the Arts, where he is currently artist—in-residence. 

The resulting recording features a stellar array of musicians performing both traditional and original compositions.  Joining Wiley are vocalists Faye Carol (Billy Higgins, Steve Turre); Jeannine Anderson, and Loren Benedict (Steve Coleman); bassists Dave Ewell (Marc Cary and 2 Live Crew) and Devin Hoff (Nels Cline); drummer Sly Randolph; and Geechi Taylor on trumpet. Acclaimed saxophonist David Murray also guests on the original track, “Angola.” 

Wiley penned another of The Angola Project’s original songs, “The Conversation” based on Alan Lomax’s interview with a prisoner named Bama.  “It was one of the saddest conversations I have ever heard,” explained Wiley. It is a tribute to Wiley’s power as a composer that the song manages to convey both pathos and rage, and gives testament to the fact that The Angola Project offers both historical perspective and social commentary. That same sensibility carries through on Wiley’s arrangement of “Amazing Grace,” based on his dismay at the fact that John Newton, the composer of the song which is arguably the most well known Christian hymn, continued to trade slaves after his conversion and ordination as an Anglican minister.  As Atkinson explains in the liner notes, “Wiley’s arrangement makes an attempt at expressing….the perspective of thousands of souls doomed to a life of bondage and brings to light the reality of what has been done to ‘others’ in the name of God.” 

Wiley began to play jazz when just 11 years old, and through the years his own style has evolved to fuse his experience on New York’s downtown improvisational scene with more mainstream work with the likes of hip-hop’s Lauryn Hill, all influenced by his early exposure to the music of the church.  His first release as a leader, Business Man, and its follow up, Twenty First Century Negro, introduced a more widespread audience to that talents that drew jazz journalist Dan Ouellette’s attention to Wiley, calling him, “a representative of the next generation” of keepers of the jazz flame.

Wiley has performed the music on The Angola Project at several venues throughout the Bay Area, including sold-out performances at Jazz at Pearls and the De Young Museum.  The Angola Project is available at CD Baby.  For more information on Howard and the Angola Project, visit www.howardwiley.com. 

 

Click here to read Howard's bio

You can download black and white and color photos, and grab a jpeg of The Angola Project cover art

here

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


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