A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
A new album from Wynton Marsalis' Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra is out in time for Juneteenth. "Freedom, Justice And Hope" is a collaboration with the Equal Justice Initiative and its founder, Bryan Stevenson. While some of the music on the album is from jazz greats such as John Coltrane, the collection also features commissions from a couple of young composers.
(SOUNDBITE OF JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER ORCHESTRA'S "ELAINE")
JOSH EVANS: My name is Josh Evans. I mostly play the trumpet, and I composed a song for the Elaine massacre. It's entitled "Elaine."
(SOUNDBITE OF JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER ORCHESTRA'S "ELAINE")
EVANS: The story of the Elaine massacre is a complicated one, but simply, after World War I, cotton prices rose substantially. It was not uncommon for sharecroppers to owe money to the plantation owners after a month's work. In 1919, a man named Robert Hill started a union. On September 29, 1919, two white men disrupted a union meeting at a church. One was killed, and the other man was wounded.
(SOUNDBITE OF JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER ORCHESTRA'S "ELAINE")
EVANS: Soon, posses were sent out. The posses soon began killing people indiscriminately. Even federal troops were sent to the area, but they only added to the killing. The exact number of men and women and children killed is not known, but it's somewhere 50 and 250.
(SOUNDBITE OF JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER ORCHESTRA'S "ELAINE")
EVANS: When I set out to write this composition, I wanted to tell the story of the Elaine massacre through music, almost like a soundtrack. With the syncopated rhythms and drum hits, I try to demonstrate and have the listener feel the turmoil and unrest of those days.
(SOUNDBITE OF JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER ORCHESTRA'S "ELAINE")
ENDEA OWENS: My name is Endea Owens, and my piece is entitled "Ida's Crusade."
(SOUNDBITE OF JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER ORCHESTRA'S "IDA'S CRUSADE")
OWENS: I am a bass player, and people might know me from "The Late Show With Stephen Colbert."
(SOUNDBITE OF JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER ORCHESTRA'S "IDA'S CRUSADE")
OWENS: Ida B. Wells is someone who I found extremely inspirational to my life. Once I read her autobiography, "Crusade For Justice," I was so inspired, and in jazz, and in society in general, women's stories are often untold. She is one of the founders of the NAACP. She was one of the leading journalists for writing pamphlets and newsletters and articles concerning lynchings, concerning everything happening in the Black community. She was also a very important part in the suffrage movement, so I had to write a piece about her. Somebody had to do it (laughter).
(SOUNDBITE OF JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER ORCHESTRA'S "IDA'S CRUSADE")
OWENS: So there's four suites to my composition. The second suite is more somber, just talking about her beginning, like, the struggles that she had to go through, the discrimination.
(SOUNDBITE OF JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER ORCHESTRA'S "IDA'S CRUSADE")
OWENS: The third suite is actually her call for justice, because there was an event that happened at a grocery store, where one of her friends was one of the three that had gotten lynched by an angry mob.
(SOUNDBITE OF JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER ORCHESTRA'S "IDA'S CRUSADE")
OWENS: Four - my favorite suite. It's her homecoming, because I feel like all of our Civil Rights activists, and all of our heroes around the community in general - our parents, people who have really uplifted us - even though they're not here, should receive a homecoming, and a grand homecoming.
(SOUNDBITE OF JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER ORCHESTRA'S "IDA'S CRUSADE")
MARTÍNEZ: This piece was produced by Jeff Lunden and Isabella Gomez Sarmiento.
(SOUNDBITE OF JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER ORCHESTRA'S "IDA'S CRUSADE")
Copyright © 2024 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.