CEASEFIRE NOW!
So, you scanned the code and now you're here! Welcome, and I hope you enjoy your Harmony Bar!
As a multisensory artist, I am called to explore by the many ways that sensory experiences can intersect to convey ideas, tell stories, and shape our life experiences. As "texture" and "flavour" are words we can use to describe characteristics of both music and food, I wanted to create and share a ritual that involves both!
Take a bite, scroll down, press play and allow the textures and flavours of sound and taste to lovingly guide your experience.
Scroll down even further to learn about the art and artists that inspired this creation.
Give thanks.
Naomi Grace, artist and founder of Melanin Rising
“Dream of a land my soul is from…”
Afro Blue is a jazz standard written in 1959 by Mongo Santamaria with lyrics by Oscar Brown. It has been recorded by many iconic artists including John Coltrane (1963), Roberta Flack (1970), Dee Dee Bridgewater (1974), and Liz Wright (2004).
My favorite interpretation of this song, however, is the second track of The Robert Glasper Experiment’s 2012 Grammy-winning album, Black Radio. This spacious reimagination of Afro Blue is characterized by the ethereal call of Erykah Badu’s signature brassy-smooth vocals, and response of dream-like melodic patterns played by the flute, underscored by punctuated double kick and heavy backbeat of hip-hop drums. Overhead float gentle, arpeggiated piano lines, weaving together an otherworldly sonic tapestry.
“Shades of delight, cocoa hue, rich as the night, Afro Blue.”
As I was creating the first batch of these bars, my plant-based take on creamy milk chocolate with warm vanilla, these lyrics played on loop in my inner stereo. A most welcome earworm, this music paints richly-coloured images in my mind’s eye of lovers swaying passionately on the shore of a foreign-yet-familiar, faraway land. If lucid dreaming were a sound, Afro Blue would be it.
I hope you enjoy this offering. It was truly inspired. Give thanks. NG.
From allmusic.com written by Matt Collar:
Robert Glasper is a jazz pianist with a knack for mellow, harmonically complex compositions that also reveal a subtle hip-hop influence. Crucial to the enduring relevance of Blue Note Records since his mid-2000s debut as a leader, the Houston native regularly topped Billboard's Jazz Albums chart with his highly collaborative recordings for the label, such as the Grammy-winning Black Radio (2011) and Black Radio 2 (2013), as well as ArtScience (2016), all three of which were credited to Robert Glasper Experiment. In addition to guiding projects such as the soundtrack for Miles Ahead (another Grammy winner) and R+R=Now's Collagically Speaking, Glasper has contributed to dozens of sessions across genres, most notably Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly. Since moving to Loma Vista Recordings, Glasper has released Fuck Yo Feelings (2019), a mixtape that exemplifies his resistance to expectations and devotion to spontaneity, and Black Radio III (2022), a progression from his Blue Note sessions.
Jazz standards are pieces of music that are an important part of the collective repetoire for jazz musicians. Every musician plays the standard according to their own artistic interpetation, lending their own flavour to the music. Check out some of these great recordings of Afro Blue!
Which one speaks to you the most?
Mongo Santamaria
this is the original, recorded in 1959! Mongo Santamaria was a prolific Afro Cuban percussionist who had a huge impact on the evolution of jazz.
Click the image to hear the music!
John Coltrane
from the 1966 album "Afro Blue Impressions" (if you feel like exploring, there are some great live versions of this tune as well!)
Click the image to hear the music!
Dee Dee Bridgewater
from the 1974 album, Afro Blue
This was her first studio album released when she was 23. She has gone on to win 3 Grammys and a Tony!
Click the image to hear the music!
Lizz Wright
from the 2003 album "Salt"
This is one of my favorite vocal jazz albums and her version is oh-so dreamy, delicate and sweet (and she's a chef too! An artist after my own heart)
Click the image to hear the music!
