Jazz Articles about Marcus Shelby

Marcus Shelby Orchestra: Soul Of The Movement: Meditations On Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

by Bruce Lindsay
January 2, 2011

Soul Of The Movement: Meditations On Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr is a beautiful album. Bassist, composer and arranger Marcus Shelby was inspired to put the album together by his study of the Civil Rights Movement and, in the combining of his own original compositions with spirituals and tunes associated with the movement, he has created a most affecting and uplifting recording, performed with passion by the superb 15-piece Marcus Shelby Orchestra. Shelby's own compositions take their ...

The Marcus Shelby Orchestra Plays the Douglas Beach House, Half Moon Bay California

by Bill Leikam
December 25, 2009

Marcus ShelbyDouglas Beach HouseSan FranciscoNovember 15, 2009Fifteen jazz musicians gathered onstage at the Douglas Beach House (home to the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society) November 15 to perform numbers from Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn as well as original compositions by the orchestra's band leader, Marcus Shelby. The compositions were part of the yet-to-be-completed series of tunes inspired by the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the civil rights movement. Not only did ...

Marcus Shelby Jazz Orchestra: Harriet Tubman

by Budd Kopman
August 19, 2008

Bassist, librettist, composer, and conductor Marcus Shelby has created with the jazz oratorio and double CD Harriet Tubman, a work that ought to have a place of honor in the intersecting worlds of jazz and American Black history. Performed exquisitely by the Marcus Shelby Jazz Orchestra, with vocals mostly by Faye Carol as Harriet Tubman, but also by drummer Kenny Washington, Jeannine Anderson, and Joseph Mace, Tubman's story is brought to life in music and words. Basing ...

Marcus Shelby Jazz Orchestra: Harriet Tubman

by Michael P. Gladstone
July 26, 2008

Harriet Tubman is an ambitious jazz opera, largely composed and arranged by bassist Marcus Shelby for his Jazz Orchestra. Shelby was a member of Black/Note, an ensemble that recorded for Blue Note and Impulse! during the first half of the 1990s.

The biographical heroine of this effort is the 18th-century woman who rose from slavery to become a freedom fighter, and later, a civil rights activist. Tubman has been universally recognized as one of the most inspirational African-Americans. Marcus Shelby, ...

Marcus Shelby Jazz Orchestra: Harriet Tubman

by AAJ Italy Staff
July 23, 2008

Harriet Tubman resta un simbolo per la nazione afro-americana e mentre si avvicina il centenario della scomparsa (nel 2013) la sua figura viene sempre più celebrata: dieci anni fa Wynton Marsalis le ha dedicato un brano del disco Thick in the South, più recentemente Brandon Ross, Melvin Gibbs e J.T. Lewis hanno intitolato il loro organico col suo nome ed oggi Marcus Shelby le dedica un'intera suite che ricostruisce in musica la vita della leggendaria ex schiava, che fece fuggire ...

Marcus Shelby Jazz Orchestra featuring Faye Carol: Harriet Tubman

by Jeff Dayton-Johnson
June 16, 2008

Bay Area bassist and orchestra leader Marcus Shelby conducts his jazz oratorio based on the life of legendary Underground Railroad heroine, Harriet Tubman. Her story doesn't lack for pathos or drama--either in its broad outline or in the smaller details. For example, while she was a teenaged slave, an overseer threw an iron weight at her head, nearly killing her and rendering her subject to seizures for the rest of her life.As much as the recording might evoke ...

Marcus Shelby Jazz Orchestra: Port Chicago

by Jack Bowers
May 1, 2006

Are you aware of Port Chicago, and do you know what happened there more than sixty years ago? Chances are you don't, as it's not something American history books will likely mention or military recruiters point to with pride. In brief: on July 17, 1944, a massive explosion at the Port Chicago Naval Base (near Oakland, California) killed more than 320 men, most of them African-American sailors, and injured some 400 others, by far the worst disaster on US soil ...