Not In Our Name, stands as a musical manifesto for the disaffection many people in America and all over the world feel about the manner in which the present administration is conducting its affairs both at home and in the global arena. The material on Not In Our Name comes strictly from American composers. As Haden explained, “There was a necessity that I felt to play music from American composers in protest to what’s going on, to make a statement that just because you’re not for everything that this administration is doing, doesn’t mean that you’re not patriotic. So I wanted to do “America the Beautiful" to show everybody that there’s a lot of work that needs to be done here in this country. And inside that song, Carla [Bley] put the African-American anthem “Lift Every Voice And Sing." and Ornette Coleman’s provocative ”Skies Over America” (the title track of Coleman’s first recorded orchestral symphonic work from 1972). And then there is a Pat Metheny song that I’ve always liked, which he wrote for the movie, The Falcon and the Snowman. At the end of the movie they do this song with David Bowie singing called “This Is Not America." We do “Amazing Grace," Dvorak’s “Goin’ Home", which is from his New World Symphony. And we also do “Throughout," which is a Bill Frisell song that my daughter Petra did with Bill on a duet record that they did (2003’s Petra Haden & Bill Frisell on True North). When I heard it I really loved it and wanted to put it on the record. We also do “Adagio for Strings" by Samuel Barber, put to a chamber orchestra, which I always wanted to do. This fourth Liberation Music Orchestra recording reunites Haden with his longtime friend and colleague Carla Bley. Recorded in Rome last summer at the end of a triumphant tour of Europe, Not In Our Name, produced by Haden, Bley and Haden’s wife Ruth Cameron, features a Liberation Music Orchestra lineup comprised of seasoned LMO veterans like French horn player Ahnee Sharon Freeman and tuba ace Joe Daley along with newcomers trumpeter Michael Rodriguez and alto saxophonist Miguel Zenon (both of whom played on Haden’s Grammy Award-winning Land of the Sun last year), tenor saxophonists Chris Cheek and Tony Malaby, trumpeter Seneca Black, trombonist Curtis Fowlkes, guitarist Steve Cardenas and drummer Matt Wilson.
Tracks:
1. Not In Our Name
2. This Is Not America
3. Blue Anthem
4. America The Beautiful (Medley)
5. Amazing Grace
6. Goin' Home
7. Throughout
8. Adagio (from Adagio For Strings)
For more information contact All About Jazz.
