Bassist/composer
Marcus Miller has signed to Universal
Jazz & Classics in France and will make his debut for Blue Note Records
next month with the release of his new album Afrodeezia, which will be
available March 16 in Europe and March 17 in the U.S. The album’s lead single “Hylife” is available today across all digital
retailers and streaming
services. Miller has also announced
select shows around the album’s March release in Chicago, Washington DC, New
York and Los Angeles, with further tour dates to be announced shortly.
Afrodeezia—which was inspired by Miller’s role as a UNESCO
Artist For Peace and spokesperson for the organization’s Slave Route
Project—was recorded in locations around the world including Morocco, Paris,
Rio de Janeiro, New Orleans and Los Angeles, and features a wide range of
guests including rapper Chuck D., vocalist Lalah Hathaway, keyboardist Robert
Glasper, trumpeters Etienne Charles and Ambrose Akinmusire, guitarists Keb’ Mo’
and Wah Wah Watson, bassist/producer Mocean Worker, organist Cory Henry (Snarky
Puppy), and cellist Ben Hong, as well as musicians from Africa, South America
and the Caribbean. Miller’s core band includes saxophonist Alex Han, trumpeter
Lee Hogans, pianist Brett Williams, guitarist Adam Agati, and drummer Louis
Cato.
"It was after visiting
the House of Slaves on Gorée Island that I composed “Gorée,” explains Miller,
referring to the powerful track featured on his previous album Renaissance. “Onstage I felt the need to
say what I had been feeling in Senegal. I wanted people to understand that this
tune spoke not only of the slave tragedy but, through the music especially,
that these people who suddenly found themselves at the bottom of a ship's hold
had discovered a way to survive, and were able in time to transform their
distress into joy. Shortly after my trip to Gorée, UNESCO named me an Artist
for Peace, and made me the spokesperson for the Slave Route Project. That was
when I started thinking about Afrodeezia."
"The power of music has
no limits,” states Miller. “Through spirituals, jazz and soul we were able to
preserve our history, because all the rest had been erased. What I wanted most
was to go back to the source of the rhythms that make our musical heritage so
rich, to follow them like footprints from their beginnings in Africa all the
way to the United States. That journey took us from Mali to Paris, from New
Orleans to Sao Paulo and across the Caribbean.”
“For
this project, I collaborated with musicians from West Africa, South America,
the Caribbean, the southern U.S. and the large northern cities of the U.S. This
is my way of paying tribute to the long journey of my African ancestors who
became African-Americans. The melodies and rhythms they carried with them from
Africa have EXPLODED into a ‘dizzying’ array of musical styles and genres
that have changed the world.”