Baptiste, Denys / Let Freedom Ring!
Album: Let Freedom Ring!   Collection:Jazz
Artist:Baptiste, Denys   Added:Feb 2005
Label:Dune  

A-File Activity
Add Date: 2005-02-13 Pull Date: 2005-04-17 Charts: Jazz
Week Ending: Apr 17 Apr 3 Mar 13 Mar 6 Feb 27 Feb 20
Airplays: 2 1 2 2 1 2

Recent Airplay
1. Feb 25, 2011: No Cover, No Minimum
With this Faith
4. Oct 03, 2008: No Cover, No Minimum
Free at Last!
2. May 14, 2010: No Cover, No Minimum
With this Faith
5. Apr 04, 2008: Memory Select
With this Faith
3. May 22, 2009: No Cover, No Minimum
Free at Last!
6. Apr 04, 2008: No Cover, No Minimum
Free at Last!

Album Review
Craig Matsumoto
Reviewed 2005-02-11
Accessible, post-bop jazz with spoken word in a Ken Nordine-like bass voice (Ben Okri). This is a jazz suite devoted to Martin Luther King’s famous speech and vision. Tracks are long and expansive, with Baptiste going for a “jazz symphony” kind of sound.

1- Gently swaying feel. Deep and breezy. Includes a cool violin solo (-7:30)

2- Brash New Orleans feel: Trumpet solo, then jumping and joyous midtempo. Poetry near the end calls black people to draw power from the limitations handed down by society: “embrace our marginalization … for [it] can well be the key to some of the most beautiful energies.” Uplifting.

3- Mid/fast, nicely complex theme. Then a spacey poetry break and a free blowout with some wicked soloing by Baptiste.

4- Joyous “grand conclusion” with a choir singing “free at last.” Gets a bit cheesy, admittedly, but has a nice rolling, dusky, post-bop backdrop.

Track Listing
1. I Have a Dream   3. Let Freedom Ring!
2. With this Faith   4. Free at Last!