Frank London - Spirit Stronger Than Blood '2024

Tracks list

Spirit Stronger Than Blood pays homage to some of the recordings that shaped my
musical-spiritual aesthetic: Charles Mingus’s Changes 1&2, Booker
Little’s Strength and Sanity, Pharaoh Sanders’s Peace and Love,
Clifford Thornton’s Gardens of Harlem, Alice Coltrane’s Ptah, The
El Daoud. Each of these artists, as different as they are from each other,
shared a commonality of intention that set me on my life and career path. Their
music is spiritual, political, romantic, at turns angry and peaceful, and
inspires us to transcend and challenge the inequities of quotidian existence in
order to make the world a better place, to heal the broken world (tikkun olam).

Some of the songs are inspired by Jewish texts—“Let There Be
Peace” from the prayer Oseh Shalom, asking the Almighty to bring us peace;
“Abundant Love” is in the Jewish prayer mode, Ahava Raba,
acknowledging God’s infinite love for all of us. “Poem for a Blue
Voice” is a poem by davida singer, whose partner Isabel Deconinck never
let her blood cancer quash her indominable spirit. “Resilience and
Resistance” are attributes that we need to get through the trials,
tribulations, and indignities life can throw at us. Healing of course from
disease, but also from trauma, from blind obeisance to dogma.

Spirit Stronger Than Blood. I was recently diagnosed with myelofibrosis, an
extremely rare and fatal blood cancer, and dedicate this recording to my dear
friends and colleagues who have passed away from blood diseases & other
cancers—Lester Bowie, Thomas Chapin, Adrienne Cooper, Isabelle Deconinck,
Jewlia Eisenberg, Ron Miles, and my namesake, Frank London Brown. Check out all
of their work and be inspired.

Spirit Stronger Than Blood is my celebration of life, making music with my
friends and chosen family.—Frank London, April 2024

THE ELDERS are:
Frank London - trumpet
Marilyn Lerner - piano
Hilliard Greene - bass
Newman Taylor Baker - drums
Greg Wall - sax (tracks 2,3&4)

Tracklist:
1.01 - Frank London, Hilliard Greene, Marilyn Lerner, Newman Taylor Baker - Let
There Be Peace (7:16) 
1.02 - Frank London, Hilliard Greene, Marilyn Lerner, Newman Taylor Baker, Greg
Wall - Resilience (9:05) 
1.03 - Frank London, Hilliard Greene, Marilyn Lerner, Newman Taylor Baker, Greg
Wall - Spirit Stronger Than Blood (7:59) 
1.04 - Frank London, Hilliard Greene, Marilyn Lerner, Newman Taylor Baker, Greg
Wall - Poem for a Blue Voice (11:03) 
1.05 - Frank London, Hilliard Greene, Marilyn Lerner, Newman Taylor Baker -
Abundant Love (9:45) 
1.06 - Frank London, Hilliard Greene, Marilyn Lerner, Newman Taylor Baker -
Resistance/Healing (8:40)

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