The Pledge of Black/Asian Allegiance

With his panoramic global view and his epic sense of historical time with the present, this recording features the continuation and advancement of composer-pianist Jon Jang as a musical polyglot and collaborative field-builder in the context of black Asian music relationships. The opening composition, Yuri Kochiyama, Malcolm X is a hybrid informed by Soran Bushi, a Japanese fisherman s song and the Wailers Get Up, Stand Up! Yank Sing Work Song, Jasmine Among the Magnolias and Flower Drum Song is a hybrid of Chinese folk songs recontextualized in black music forms from funk, gospel, jazz to the harmonic language of Wayne Shorter. At the heart of the recording is Can t Stop Cryin for America: Black Lives Matter! In which Jang directly addresses his relationship and, by extension, the Asian American relationship to the urgent black freedom struggle.