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Gary Bartz performs at the 1973 Montreux Jazz Festival. The saxophonist is often cited as a messenger of black empowerment in music.

Gary Bartz performs at the 1973 Montreux Jazz Festival. The saxophonist is often cited as a messenger of black empowerment in music.

Today, June 19, is a holiday known as Juneteenth the oldest commemoration of slavery’s end. Though the Emancipation Proclamation declared the freedom of slaves in Confederate states on Jan. 1, 1863, it was only on June 19, 1865 (months after Confederate forces had surrendered) that Union soldiers landed at Galveston, Texas, to spread news of the war’s end, and to enforce the proclamation in Texas. The date has since been noted in Texas and across the country as a celebration of African-American freedom and history, especially since the Civil Rights movement.

Jazz has always been one of the most important musical narratives of the African-American journey toward freedom in America. Emancipation did not mean equality for ex-slaves, and jazz, whose call to improvisation models the principles of freedom, has often documented the ongoing pursuit. Indeed, this year jazz musicians and educators Dr. Ronald Myers and Dr. Larry Ridley are illuminating African-American history within jazz by organizing a national Juneteenth jazz concert series.

Earlier this year, I spoke with pianist Jason Moran and bassist Christian McBride about how the “message in the music” charged social movements across the country. Artists such as Nina Simone, Sonny Rollins and Charles Mingus anchored our discussions of what it meant to use one’s craft as a means to evoke change, and what it means to be part of a continuum toward total emancipation. See what they and their fellow jazz luminaries have to impart: Here are five recordings, picked by five musicians, which represent the triumphs and tribulations within the freedom struggle.

Jason Moran, pianist: “I showed 45 minutes of [an episode of the PBS series] Eyes on the Prize [to my students]. It was the episode when they discuss the Little Rock Nine in Arkansas and Governor Faubus and … how crazy he was. After watching it and listening to Mingus’ song, a student said, ‘Well, now it makes a lot more sense.’ This is an entire segment of the population whose life was dealing with stuff like this. And we’re just watching an edited excerpt of people’s everyday lives. Everything is not just about a chord or a melody … it wasn’t about that. It was therapy. People were using the music as therapy.”

Click here for more from this interview.

Christian McBride, bassist: “Duke [Ellington] was always somehow able to express and convey the feelings of black folk without being angry. You could feel the sadness, pain, angst, but it was always done through this filter, this lens of triumph in the end … or hope. I think that’s what separated Duke from the rest of the pack. [On] this album specifically, you’ve got Mahalia Jackson, and these are two titans, arguably at the peak of their powers, collaborating together. When you talk about fusion, I can think of no greater example of one of the earliest collaborations of jazz and gospel.”

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