Reed master Ted Nash, best know for his work with the JALCO, teams up with actress Glenn Close in a reciting role as he leads an orchestra that includes Sherman Irby, Victor Goines, Wynton Marsalis, Marcus Printup and Obed Calvaire through a collection of tone poems addressing various social issues of the day.
Close teams up with Wayne Brady for a bohemian Creation Part I”, while Close and Nash bring up a heartfelt conversation on “Dear Dad/Letter”. Mystique by Close and Irby on alto flute get dreamatic for “Prelude for Memnon” with Goines and Marsalis surrounding Close’s text on “Reaching the Tropopause”. Actress Amy Irving addresses incarceration on “One Among Many” while Matthew Stevenson delivers a text on anti-Semitism with Tatum Greenblatt’s trumpet on an elegiac “Rising Out Of Hatred”. While these issues are poignant, I always find it intriguing that the defense of the unborn is never addressed by those seeking “equality” for “all”.