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LIVE FROM DEATH ROW

Albert Marquès

Label: Self Produced
Released: 2025
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Tracks

Woke Up This Morning (With My Mind Stayed on Freedom); The Journey; Calling All Souls; Alabama; Transformation; Tell 'Em The Truth; Intro to Strange Fruit; Strange Fruit; On Living; Acknowledgement; The Drowned and The Saved; Truth.

Personnel

Albert Marquès

piano

Keith LaMar

poet / spoken word

Nia Drummond

vocals

Elsa Nilsson

flute

Milena Casado

flugelhorn

Caroline Davis

saxophone

Roy Nathanson

saxophone

Keyanna Hutchinson

guitar

Matthew Garrison

bass, electric

Zack O'Farrill

drums

Album Description

Follows 2022’s FREEDOM FIRST, the first album by an artist on death row – a collaboration with composer and pianist Albert Marquès and featuring Nia Drummond, Elsa Nilsson, Milena Casado, Caroline Davis, Roy Natahnson, Kenyanna Hutchinson, Matthew Garrison and Zack O’Farrill.

In 2022, Cleveland-born poet, writer and activist Keith LaMar and Brooklyn-based, Catalan pianist and composer Albert Marquès made history with the release of Freedom First, the first-ever full-length album created by an artist on death row. Now, on May 30, they will break new ground once more with the release of LIVE FROM THE DEATH ROW, the first-ever live album recorded by an artist facing execution on death row.

Recorded in September 2023 at ShapeShifter Plus in Brooklyn, LIVE FROM DEATH ROW captures the powerful energy of a sold-out audience witnessing history. LaMar performed live via phone from the solitary confinement cell where he has spent more than 30 years for a crime he maintains he did not commit. He is scheduled for execution by the State of Ohio on January 13, 2027.

The concert featured an extraordinary ensemble, including Nia Drummond (voice), Elsa Nilsson (flute), Milena Casado (trumpet), Caroline Davis (alto saxophone), Roy Nathanson (baritone and alto saxophone), Keyanna Hutchinson (electric guitar), Matthew Garrison (electric bass) and Zack O’Farrill (drums).

“This band is diverse in every way—gender, race, age, nationality,” LaMar shares. “Freedom First is more than a band; it’s a movement. Through music, we amplify my voice and the voices of all those sentenced to death in the United States. This is a fight for our collective liberation.”

Since 2020, LaMar and Marquès have toured the world with their project Freedom First, collaborating with a rotating roster of international musicians in cities across the United States and abroad. Despite his confinement, LaMar performs his spoken word poetry in real-time via phone from the Ohio State Penitentiary. The Freedom First project has received extensive media coverage, including features in The New York Times, WNYC, Rolling Stone, Democracy Now!, Le Figaro (France), El Diario - El Pais (Spain) and Time Out (Barcelona), among others.

LaMar’s conviction stems from the 1993 Lucasville Prison Uprising, an 11-day standoff that left the State of Ohio desperate to assign blame. With physical evidence compromised by law enforcement mishandling, prosecutors leaned on incentivized informant testimony to convict LaMar, suppressing exculpatory evidence—including confessions from the actual perpetrators. Tried before an all-white jury in a rural Ohio community, LaMar was sentenced to death. More details about his case can be found at keithlamar.org. Additionally, artist Molly Crabapple’s award-winning video offers an in-depth visual account of his story.

During his time in prison, LaMar became a student of jazz, especially drawn to John Coltrane and A Love Supreme. “John Coltrane saved my life,” LaMar said. “Had it not been for A Love Supreme, I'm sure I would have lost myself [in prison]. I listened to it every day, and it rewired something in me, changed the circuitry of my brain and opened me up in a way that allowed me to view things (most especially myself) through a broader lens. I needed that, to free my mind, in order to keep living and breathing.”

As explained in a 2022 piece on the case and Freedom First in The New York Times, LaMar came to the attention of the jazz community after talking to Mother Jones in 2020 about the case and his experience filling his time in solitary confinement. Brian Jackson, a jazz musician who frequently collaborated with Gil Scott-Heron, then reached out to LaMar. Together, they created a podcast about music and justice which attracted more attention. Over the past five years, the jazz community has rallied around LaMar, presenting numerous concerts to benefit the Justice for Keith Lamar campaign and advocate for his freedom.

FREEDOM FIRST is part of Marquès’ larger initiative Ampl!fy Voices www.albertmarques.com/amplify, which aims to create music with individuals affected by state-sponsored violence and censorship, ensuring that their stories are heard.