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Alonzo Demetrius: Live From The Prison Nation

By Mike Jurkovic
January 4, 2021
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Alonzo Demetrius: Live From The Prison Nation

Drummer

Ralph Peterson

drums
1962 - 2021

" data-original-title="" title="">Ralph Peterson's righteous mission is the continuum of late mentor

" data-original-title="" title="">Art Blakey with the all cylinders burn of the Messengers Legacy performances and twenty-five recordings, including 2020's charismatic Onward & Upward (Onyx Productions). He chooses trumpeter

Alonzo Demetrius

trumpet

" data-original-title="" title="">Alonzo Demetrius as his first label mate to help bring the even larger legacy of the black movement forward.

Samples of a 2003 speech from of activist Angela Davis open Demetrius's episodic debut suite Live From The Prison Nation. She's discussing prison reform and its consequential and existential impact on one and all. It's a sad matter that has breen uncomfortably and unendingly argued since well before they, the quintet, and many an AAJ reader, were born. But it's the young trumpeter and his emphatic cohorts who take up the dispute, fully engaging in it with a tangibly subversive, less fractional, pissed-off notion that underlies the seductively soothing, outside smoothness of the overall sound. Given the obvious friction we all readily inhabit, Live From The Prison Nation, on that elemental level alone, exudes as much promise as it brings to the table. And then some.

Demetrius enters the conversation behind Davis then the band: saxophonist

Yesseh Furaha-Ali

saxophone

" data-original-title="" title="">Yesseh Furaha-Ali, pianist

Daniel Abraham Jr

piano

" data-original-title="" title="">Daniel Abraham Jr, bassist

Benjamin Jephta

bass

" data-original-title="" title="">Benjamin Jephta and drummer

Brian Richburg Jr

drums

" data-original-title="" title="">Brian Richburg Jr, who soon make "Expectations" a swirling, serpentine array of voices both ancient and newborn in accord. "The Principle" emerges from the blur of history and its many iterations slowly, paced to remind even the most casual listener this thing we call a perfect union is going to take some time, but it's time to get started.

The true beauty of Live From The Prison Nation, be it the golden groove that takes out "Yesseh's Interlude," or a natural break in the lesson at hand that gives saxophonist Furaha-Ali a moment to exhale his deep chops, leading into the spaciousness of "Mumia's Guidance," is that no one voice here overshadows the other. No other voice is more important or impertinent than the other, thus making the conversation civil. Something sorely lacking in our zoom-a-day world.

Many may wear their passions on their sleeve, but none wear it more passionately than Demetrius, whose sound and vision echoes that of

Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah

trumpet
b.1983

" data-original-title="" title="">Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah and

Roy Hargrove

trumpet
1969 - 2018

" data-original-title="" title="">Roy Hargrove. This is good music to sink into, reflect upon, and act on.

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Track Listing

Expectations; The Principle; Yesseh's Interlude; Mumia's Guidance; F.O.O. Interlude; F.O.O. Shit.

Personnel

Alonzo Demetrius

trumpet

Yesseh Furaha-Ali

saxophone

Daniel Abraham Jr

piano

Benjamin Jephta

bass

Brian Richburg Jr

drums

Album information

Title: Live From The Prison Nation | Year Released: 2020 | Record Label: Onyx Productions

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