Recipient Information
Location
Brooklyn, New York
Medium
Jazz Trio
Project Title
HARRIET TUBMAN w/ Melvin Gibbs & J.T. Lewis
Year of Award
2020
Grant or Fellowship
Jazz Road Tours Grant
Grant Amount
$15,000
Performances
- Icehouse MPLS. March 19, 2020. Minneapolis, MN
- Blue Stem Jazz. March 20, 2020. Madison WI
- Constellation. March 21, 2020. Chicago IL
- Sound Observatory @ Three Keys at Ace Hotel. March 25, 2020. New Orleans LA
- BIG EARS Festival. March 28, 2020. Knoxville TN
- Capitol Bop (Venue TBD). April 18, 2020. Washington DC
About the Artist
Harriet Tubman is a musical collective formed in 1998 by guitarist/vocalist Brandon Ross, bassist Melvin Gibbs and drummer JT Lewis. Harriet Tubman was an African-American woman born into slavery in 1822 in the southern US state of Maryland. Tubman is renowned as a liberator of other African-American slaves who like she, chose to defy the system of Slavery and seek freedom by escaping to the North. She accomplished this with the help of a secret network of safe houses, or “stations” on what was known as “The Underground Railroad”.
Far from being underground, Ross, Gibbs and Lewis have collectively performed with some of the most important musical innovators and visionaries of the last half of the 20th century: Herbie Hancock, Henry Threadgill, Tony Williams, Don Pullen, Tina Turner, James Blood Ulmer, Sonny Sharrock, Leroy Jenkins, Cassandra Wilson, Ronald Shannon Jackson, Oliver Lake, Muhal Richard Abrams, Aretha Franklin, Lawrence Butch Morris, and many others.
The music of Harriet Tubman is both familiar and fresh, while allowing the listener to experience the music free from distracting labels of style or genre. At the same time, it is easy to perceive sources that have seeded the musical development of the trio. From the electric explosion of fabled Miles Davis bands of the 70’s; to the transcendent spirituality of the music of the Mississippi Delta and beyond; to the anointing cry of John Coltrane’s musical apex; to the open rhyme scheme of the rhythm invention of the American Urban 80’s; to the imagined sound of the endless expanse of the African savannah – Harriet Tubman uses ALL of their musical experiences to communicate a vision of musical freedom and musical invention for those who choose to take the journey.
