What Place Can Be for Us? - A Suite in Ten Movements Anthony Branker & Imagine

• 1 The Door of No Return 08:52
• 2 Sundown Town 07:21
• 3 I, Too, Sing America 04:05
• 4 Indivisible 06:05
• 5 We Went Where the Wind Took Us 04:47
• 6 What Place Can Be for Us? 08:28
• 7 Sunken Place 04:45
• 8 The Trail of Tears to Standing Rock 06:01
• 9 Sanctuary City 05:40
• 10 Placeless 05:44
• Total Runtime 01:01:48

Info for What Place Can Be for Us? - A Suite in Ten Movements

Composer Dr. Anthony Branker presents this captivating ten-movement suite that speaks to notions of "Place" and the overarching issues of inclusion and belonging, as well as circumstances of exploitation and zones of refuge experienced by people of color and other global citizens. It is brilliantly performed by the latest edition of his group Imagine, featuring tenor saxophonist Walter Smith III, trumpeter Philip Dizack, alto saxophonist Remy Le Boeuf, guitarist Pete McCann, pianist Fabian Almazan, bassist Linda May Han Oh, drummer Donald Edwards, and vocalist/spoken-word artist Alison Crockett. Branker's ensemble takes his expansive compositional vision and infuses it with passionate performances drenched with lyrical flow and ingenious rhythmic interplay.

"(Branker) illuminates the pungent individuality of each musician without compromising the prominence of his own voice..." (JAZZIZ)

“Honing a hybrid of freewheeling post-bop and social commentary...Branker incorporates these elements in broad, bold strokes, like a muralist. He has yet to make a bad record.” (Jazz Times)

"Anthony Branker is an American composer and conductor who is releasing his eighth album on the Origin Records label. He is certainly one of the most important current American composers, and this work makes us question the fundamental issues of inclusion and belonging, as well as the circumstances of exploitation and the zones of refuge experienced ..." (Paris Move, Thierry Docmac)

"Ma Rainey channeled music as her ritual of "singing to understand life." Congressman John Lewis leveraged music towards the "good trouble" he created fighting for civil rights in an uncivil land. Anthony Branker understands music as the calculus of his life's work—the art of weaving words and sound into transcendent tapestries that explore the ..." (All About Jazz, Michael Ambrosino)

Walter Smith III, tenor saxophone
Philip Dizack, trumpet
Remy Le Boeuf, alto & soprano saxophones
Pete McCann, guitar
Fabian Almazan, piano
Linda May Han Oh, double & electric bass
Donald Edwards, drums
Alison Crockett, vocals & spoken word
Anthony Branker, composer & musical director

Recorded 8/5/22 by Mike Marciano of Systems Two, NY at Samurai Hotel Recording Studios, Astoria, NY
Vocals Recorded 10/21/22 by Brian Sullivan at Brian Sullivan Music Studio, Upper Marlboro, MD
Mixed by Mike Marciano & Anthony Branker at Systems Two, NY
Mastered by Mike Marciano, New York
Produced by Anthony Branker

Anthony Branker
Composer, conductor, and bandleader Anthony Branker is an Origin Records recording artist who was named in DownBeat magazine's 63rd & 62nd Annual Critics Poll as a "Rising Star Composer." Dr. Branker has nine releases in his fast growing and musically rich discography that include: What Place Can Be For Us? (Origin, 2023), Beauty Within (Origin, 2016), The Forward (Towards Equality) Suite (Origin, 2014), Uppity (Origin, 2013), Together (Origin, 2012), Dialogic (Origin, 2011), Dance Music (Origin, 2010), Blessings (Origin, 2009), and Spirit Songs (Sons of Sound, 2006), which have featured Walter Smith III, Philip Dizack, Remy LeBoeuf, Fabian Almazan, Linda May Han Oh, Donald Edwards, Pete McCann, Alison Crockett, Rudy Royston, Ralph Bowen, David Binney, Conrad Herwig, Jim Ridl, Kenny Davis, Renato Thoms, Mark Gross, Tia Fuller, Steve Wilson, Antonio Hart, Clifford Adams, Andy Hunter, Eli Asher, Jonny King, Bryan Carrott, John Benitez, Belden Bullock, Adam Cruz, Ralph Peterson Jr., Wilby Fletcher, Kadri Voorand, and Freddie Bryant.

Dr. Branker's releases Beauty Within and The Forward (Towards Equality) Suite won Gold and Silver awards respectively at the Global Music Awards and he was a Third Place Winner in the 2021 International Songwriting Competition (ISC) in the jazz category for his composition "Joy." He has received commissions, served as a visiting composer, and has had his music featured in performance in Poland, Italy, Denmark, Finland, France, Estonia, Russia, Australia, China, Germany, Lithuania, and Japan. Dr. Branker's works have also been performed and/or recorded by the New Wind Jazz Orchestra, Sylvan Winds with Max Pollack Dance Ensemble, Composers Concordance Big Band, Princeton University Orchestra, Rutgers University Jazz Ensemble, Princeton University Jazz Composers Collective, Rutgers Avant Garde Ensemble, Orrin Evans, Steve Nelson, Stanley Jordan, Talib Kibwe (TK Blue), Curtis Lundy, James Weidman, Calvin Hill, Steve Kroon, Jann Parker, and the Spirit of Life Ensemble, and have featured such guest soloists as Kenny Barron, Eddie Henderson, Winard Harper, John Hicks, Valery Ponomarev, Joe Ford, Cecil Brooks III, Onaje Allen Gumbs, and Alex Blake.

Dr. Anthony Branker was on the faculty at Princeton University for 27 years, where he held an endowed chair in jazz studies, was founding director of the program in jazz studies, and associate director of musical performance until his retirement in 2016. Currently, he is on the jazz studies faculty at Rutgers University Mason Gross School of the Arts where his teaching responsibilities have included graduate and undergraduate courses in jazz historiography, composition & arranging, theory, improvisation, and directing the Avant Garde Ensemble and Rutgers Jazz Ensemble II. Dr. Branker has also served as a U.S. Fulbright Scholar at the Estonian Academy of Music & Theatre and has been a member of the faculty at the Manhattan School of Music, Hunter College (CUNY), Ursinus College, and the New Jersey Summer Arts Institute. He was also visiting composer at the Southern Danish Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts in Odense/Esbjerg, Denmark; Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hamburg, Germany; and the Estonian Academy of Music & Theatre in Tallinn, Estonia.

This album contains no booklet.