Tyshawn Sorey: Members... Don't!

Pulitzer Prize-winning, MacArthur Fellow Dr. Tyshawn Sorey may not remember 1968 directly, since he was born in 1980, but he most certainly and unapologetically understands how angry that year was. And he has captured that fiery time with an epic reimagining? rethinking?  rebooting? double take of Max Roach's epic telling of that year after the Summer of Love, Members, Don't Git Weary  (Atlantic, 1968)

Recorded live at the tail end of a four-day stay at the Jazz Gallery back in the otherwise chaotic year of 2024, Members. . . Don't! , by echoing that chaos, gathers momentum like a slow-motion avalanche picking up steam as it roils. The ensemble, comprised of Sorey, trumpeter Adam O’Farrill, tenor man Mark Shim. deftly telepathic pianist Lex Korten and bassist Tyrone Allen II, light a match and watch it burn in the form of the seismic "Abstrusions."  A visceral, as well as vascular, experience, "Abstrusions" pours the gas that lights the fire burning down and through the thrilling "Effi."

An opera with a gut punch, Members. . . Don't! never loses its grip on the story that needs to be told anew each generation: Jim Crow, The People's March, and how each of us has skin in both the long and the short game. With that mission first and foremost sworn to by all onstage, Sorey, O'Farrill, Shim, Korten, and Allen, daring to defy all theory and evaluation, bolt headfirst into "Absolutions." As volatile as enriched uranium and more, "Absolutions" scorches into "Equipoise (pt. 1)" as well as its only natural successor, "Equipoise (pt. 2)." Korten's treated piano ghost sonatas the former to the latter, where team interplay rules the immediate: O'Farrill and Shim declare sure, sharp, and unabashedly. Korten pursues his rhapsody with a determined, often manic, muscle memory. Allen holds. The music surges. The music seethes. It seeks release. Sorey makes sure only the truth gets through.

"Libra" is pure young lion blow-out: a bashing exhalation of, and for, our collective future. A future, not far, where if one man stands, all men stand. Roach understood that. Dr. Sorey understands that. Members. . . Don't! makes damn sure we get it too.