Saturday, September 18th at 6pm ET, ISSUE and Weeksville Heritage Center are pleased to present acclaimed musical collective Harriet Tubman, formed by guitarist/vocalist Brandon Ross, bassist Melvin Gibbs, and drummer JT Lewis at Weeksville’s historic site and cultural center in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. The performance will also feature a first time collaboration between composer, poet, performer, and 2021 ISSUE Artist-In-Residence JJJJJerome Ellis and vocalist, improviser, performance artist, and 2020 ISSUE Artist-In-Residence Holland Andrews.
Fusing soul, rock, jazz, blues, and avant-garde together into a compelling genre-defying sound, Harriet Tubman combines cerebral extemporizations with volcanic danceability. Given the band’s namesake, it’s no surprise that the group is deeply inspired by the ideals of freedom, and their own sound is a pure and liberated musical expression—one that truly needs to be heard to be believed. Speaking on Harriet Tubman’s 2017 album Araminta, writer and journalist Adam Shatz notes, “Harriet Tubman’s new album is a reminder that when creative musicians fly into the outer space of improvisation, they don’t spend much time worrying about the planet they left, or where they might land. Like their namesake, they have only one concern: to lead people to freedom.”
The performance also features the debut collaborative performance between JJJJerome Ellis and Holland Andrews, relying on and celebrating the duo's respective improvised approaches. In presenting this concert alongside Holland, on the 171st anniversary of the Fugitive Slave Act, Ellis has stated he wants to practice what Christina Sharpe calls "wake work." To create some kind of musical breathing-space in the wake of the Act, to continue the neverending wake for the dead, to celebrate being alive and awake.
Notes from Brandon Ross on Hariet Tubman’s Performance:
This performance on the anniversary date of the signing of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 (September 18th, 1850) at Weeksville in NYC, is a kind of “perfect storm” of historic significance. While many in our country struggle with the unavoidable - the profoundly staggering truths of how this ‘more perfect union’ established and sustained itself - a historical directive/objective which condoned a consistently redacted, or obscured record of violence and repression of native, African, Asian and other peoples deemed non-white - our band, HARRIET TUBMAN is honored to celebrate the on-going resistance-as-existence narrative woven into the deepest fabric of the sinew of the American Black Being. Unyielding in its array of manifestation, continuation and triumphant resilience.
The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 reflects the consciousness of dense materialism that has held sway since the time of our nation's beginnings. Harriet Tubman, one of the great Wayshowers serving the goal of liberation for enslaved Africans in America, whose goal was a threat to the economic system of the time, has been an inspirational force for us. The fact of her, is an eternal counter to the articles and terms of the Fugitive Slave Act. She stood for freedom and by circumstance of her birth and such acts of legislation, for a time, found herself a wanted criminal.
While America transits through a further reckoning with itself in our present, we take this occasion to honor the shoulders upon which we stand; the perseverance that literally made us possible; the brilliance of the light that still calls us forward in the pursuit of authentic liberation; and the proclamation of the ground, where we stand, as ours, as home.
- Brandon Ross
Brooklyn, NY, July 2021
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.” As individuals, Ross, Gibbs and Lewis have individually 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, Ronald Shannon Jackson, Oliver Lake, Muhal Richard Abrams, Aretha Franklin, Lawrence Butch Morris, and many others. As a group, Harriet Tubman's collaborators have included artists as diverse as DJ Logic, Kyp Malone of TV On The Radio,, Meshell Ndegocello, Cassandra Wilson, who collaborated with Tubman in the project "Black Sun” and Wadada Leo Smith, who collaborated with them on the album “Araminta” 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. Harriet Tubman uses ALL of their musical experiences to communicate a vision of musical freedom and invention. Their most recent album, “The Terror End Of Beauty” earned them critical acclaim, landing on various “Best Of” lists, including those of Rolling Stone magazine and the New York Times in the year of its’ release, 2018. JAZZWISE magazine UK, states “...Harriet Tubman is one of the great bands of our age.” The band is equally renowned for their live performances, having been recognized by the New York Times as giving a “Best Jazz Performance” of 2017 as well as National Public Radio, who says they gave the “Best Jazz Performance” of 2019.
JJJJJerome Ellis is a composer, poet, and performer. His current practice explores blackness, music, and disabled speech as forces of refusal and healing. JJJJJerome’s work has been heard at Lincoln Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Poetry Project, Sotheby’s, Soho Rep, and on This American Life. He’s a 2019 MacDowell Fellow, a writer in residence at Lincoln Center Theater, and a 2015 Fulbright Fellow. JJJJJerome collaborates with James Harrison Monaco as James & Jerome (or Jerome & James). Their recent work explores themes of border crossing and translation through music-driven narratives. They have received commissions from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Ars Nova.
Holland Andrews is an American vocalist, composer, improviser, and performance artist whose work is based on emotionality in its many forms. In their work, Andrews focuses on the abstraction of operatic and extended-technique voice to build soundscapes encompassing both catharsis and the interplay between dissonance and resonance to tell stories of the interior worlds of humanity. Frequently highlighting themes surrounding vulnerability and healing, Andrews arranges music with voice and clarinet, harnessing the innate qualities of these instruments’ power and elegance to serve as a vessel for these themes. As a vocalist, their influences stem from a dynamic range of musical stylings including contemporary opera, free jazz, musical theater, as well as ambient, drone, and noise music. In addition to creating solo work, Andrews develops and performs the soundscapes for dance, theater, and film, and whose work is still toured nationally and internationally. Andrews has gained recognition from publications such as The New York Times, Uncut Magazine, Electronic Sound, NPR, and more. Holland Andrews is currently based in New York City. Andrews also performs solo music under the stage name Like a Villain, including a performance at ISSUE alongside Tyondai Braxton in 2017.
