Wide As Heaven: A Century of Song By Black American Composers

This collection of songs represents one hundred years of music produced by American composers and poets of color. Some identify(ied) as African-American, some Black, some men, some women, and some insisted they were beyond classification, adamant that their work speak for itself. Unfortunately, too many of these voices have been stifled from inclusion in our American story thus far. But the time is right, and the fruit is ripe for the picking. The harvest has come in, and the first fruits of the fields yield a bounty of beauty so remarkable that silence is no longer an option. In fact, it is annihilated. Where once the famed halls of old lived on solely in black and white, they are now alive and brimming in technicolor, vividly representative of truth and creative vision - Heaven.

The songs collected here are a mere sampling of the finest of those neglected voices. Most are from our published archives. Some have been recorded from transcriptions of sound recordings. Are they "art" songs? Are they popular songs? Is it jazz, Bebop, or blues? Is it "classical" music? It is music, in all cases. Music to be enjoyed and reflected upon. Performed with integrity and informed enthusiasm by all who would approach it. Resist the urge to classify and segregate. Enjoy the creativity and savor the sounds of words and music dancing together as one in each singular work of art. - James Martin

1: Elysium
2: Ethiopia Saluting the Colors
3: Li'l Gal
4: Song to the Dark Virgin
5: On the Dusty Road
6: Lit'l Girl
7: The Negro Speaks of Rivers
8: Pierrot
9: Night Song
10: Death Song
11: Harlem Sweeties
12: Harlem Blues
13: The Way We Dance (In Harlem/Chicago)
14: O Le' Me Shine
15: To a Brown Girl Dead
16: Grief
17: David
18: Bells
19: Prayer
20: The Lynching
21: If We Must Die
22: To the White Fiends

Composer: Robert Owens, Hall Johnson, Margaret Bonds, Harry Thacker Burleigh, Anthony Davis, Dorothy Rudd Moore, W.C. Handy, Howard Swanson, Florence Beatrice Price, John Rosamund Johnson, Hall Johnson/Toy Harper, H. Leslie Adams, William Grant Still

Number of Discs: 1

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