Each Monday evening in October on the KCBX program Freedom Jazz Dance, listen in four parts to a new and groundbreaking musical work by Wynton Marsalis. The SLO Chapter of the NAACP presents "The Ever Fonky Lowdown," a funky, jazzy, satirical look at democratic freedom, abuse of power, racism and cultural corruption. Hear the work in four parts from 8:00-8:30 each Monday night, starting October 5. Listen at kcbx.org or on the air on KCBX FM.
The work is performed by the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis, featuring vocalists Christie Dasheill, Ashley Pezzotti, Camille Thurman and Doug Wamble with narration from Wendell Pierce as Mr. Game, whose commentary reveals the 'hustle' that keeps us at each other’s throats and prevents us from working together to build a more equitable and friendly world.
"The Ever Fonky Lowdown" is entertaining—but it also brilliantly reveals an incisive, panoramic and satirical view of modern society. A funky jazz parable for 2020, the new work covers terrain from football to politics, power to poverty, from love and romance to betrayal and corruption; it will make you dance and sing and it will make you think and reconsider.
Through this work, Marsalis suggests the need for all of us to question cheap populism and propaganda; rather than looking at what you are being told to see, look at what you are actually seeing in your immediate environment and act to improve that.