Ask Your Mama is Emmy Award-winning composer Laura Kapman's multimedia setting of Langston Hughes' epic 1961 poem "Ask your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz. "Ask Your Mama" bursts the boundaries of time, place and expression, tracing the currents and tributaries of cultural diasporas, from Africa to the Americas, the south to the North, cities to suburbs, opera to jazz, gospel to be-bop. Karpman fulfills Hughes' musical instructions, which run in the margins of the poetry, evoking hot jazz, German lieder, cha-cha, patriotic songs, post-bop, Arabic music, Afro-Caribbean drumming, and weaves a compelling tapestry of American cultural life through the lens of 21st century orchestral, genre-bending music. Featuring The Roots, Janai Brugger, Nnenna Freelon, Angela Brown, Medusa and San Francisco Ballet Orchestra. Conductor George Manahan.
CD 1 62.15
- Dedication
- Cultural Exchange
- Ride, Red, ride
- Shades of Pigmeat
- Ode to Dinah
- Blues in Stereo
- Horn of Plenty
- Gospel Cha-Cha
CD 2 38:19
- Is It True?
- Ask Your Mama
- Bird in Orbit
- Jazztet Muted - Show Fare, Please