#elliott sharp

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"Bad Alchemy #7"

(cassette. Bad Alchemy. 1987)

Elliott Sharp - The Boreal

Starkland

Elliott Sharp's Terraplane - Century - powerful takes on racism with vocals by Tracie Morris, Mikel Banks, and Eric Mingus 

This latest Terraplane album, "Century", found its genesis in a 2020 radio-play for the Bavarian Radio in Munich commemorating the 100th anniversary of the book Negro, a collection of African-American writings, poems, and song lyrics edited by shipping heiress Nancy Cunard. The book is a collection of African-American writings, poems, and song lyrics. This volume, controversial as it was at its inception, introduced African-American literature and culture from the likes of Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, and Zora Neale Hurston to the unknowing white world. Beginning with a commission to write five songs based on the uncompromising and blistering texts found in the book, the project expanded. These texts took an unflinching look at life in post-Reconstruction post-WWI America with lynchings, beatings, and blatant racist discrimination the norm, and displayed courageous defiance and clear-headed analysis, often in guttural and graphic terms. The "n-word" was in common usage and is indeed found in some of these lyrics. A century later, how much has changed? As a son of a Holocaust survivor raised on the necessity of confronting racism in all its forms, I was unsure of how to proceed. With the encouragement, discussion, and collaboration of Tracie Morris and Mikel Banks, songs were written and recorded based on the old texts with new music to bring them to date. "Tol' Mah Capn", "Whip & Trigger", "Stan Boys Stan", "Goin To Atlanta" all frame their anger in a world-weary and slyly humorous stance. New songs as well were composed with Eric Mingus that comment on the state of things, pointed, but without falling into polemic: "Toppling Statues" is as direct as can be. The album continues with the instrumental memorials "Tulsa '21" and "The Murder of Elijah McClain" - grim reminders of a terrible past that is still very much present. Elijah McClain was a musician and his story resonated deeply with me but his is not the only one: there are far too many of late: their names, their names. The set is rounded out with a century-old song of continual relevance, Blind Alfred Reed's classic, "How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times And Live?" and a new song, "Exit Strategy", that came out of a deep dive into an old hard drive. Lost guitar parts by the legendary Hubert Sumlin surfaced: obbligati to a track never completed for Terraplane's 2011 album "Sky Road Songs", now ready to go. –– Elliott Sharp, NYC June 2021

POST-POST-SCRIPTUM 1133

49 - QUE POURRAIT BIEN RACONTER CE PROJET ?

Elliott Sharp is a composer and multi-instrumentalist. He was awarded the Berlin Prize in Music in 2015 and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2014. His composition "Storm of the Eye" for violinist Hilary Hahn appeared on her Grammy-winning album In 27 Pieces. His new book is IrRational Music, published by Terra Nova. He’s discussing his book along with David Rothenberg (who also has a new book, Nightingales in Berlin, published by University of Chicago) on Thursday, June 27, 2019.

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