Nicole Mitchell has long dreamt of performing in Africa. Her Black Earth Ensemble, which celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2018, has been dreaming its way to Africa and beyond through music since its earliest performances and recordings “In many ways,” Mitchell says, “the music of Black Earth Ensemble sings out to Black folks everywhere, and says, ‘Hey, we’re here shining with resilience, and we’d like to meet you and see you shining, too!’”
So when the Cape Town International Jazz Festival invited Mitchell to perform there this past March, she seized the opportunity to share her music in South Africa. Mitchell began planning a “greatest hits” concert of old and new Black Earth Ensemble songs. From the group’s rotating personnel, she assembled a nonet of veteran group musicians like percussionist JoVia Armstrong, cellist Tomeka Reid, and drummer Shirazette Tinnin, along with newer collaborators like pianist Joshua White. To enhance the ensemble’s messaging for a South African audience, Mitchell decided to feature both Avery Young on vocals and Calvin Gantt on spoken word.
The Black Earth Ensemble’s connection with South Africa began before its performance, when the musicians hit Cape Town’s Long Street and found themselves at home in its lively mixture of African cultures. “Within some hours,” Mitchell recalls, “Avery got a haircut, Shirazette and JoVia took some djembe lessons, Tomeka, Avery and I had beautifully crafted bags made for us, we found some West African jollof rice and Calvin had a suit made by a brother from Mali. We met folks from Mozambique, Senegal, from different townships and even from North Carolina. Everybody’s doing their thing, just like on 75th Street in Chicago or anywhere else in the diaspora. We saw money, we saw poverty, and we felt a familiar rhythm in the people.”
By the time the festival performance rolled around, Black Earth Ensemble was primed to bond with the crowd through music, and through its Chicago roots in particular. “I wanted to get across some of the spirit of Chicago through pieces like ‘Too Many of Our Young,’ which was inspired by a poem by Chicago institution builder Haki Madhubuti and has a Chicago dance groove,” Mitchell says.
Black Earth’s collective improvisation involved its trademark combination of chamber music, soul, jazz and other styles, but on the Cape Town stage the musicians were especially intent on tracing the African diaspora and communicating kinship. Mitchell’s own wide-ranging flute sounds were matched by Young’s soaring soul, with intertwined rhythms from Tinnin’s drums and Armstrong’s percussion spanning the globe.
“We wanted folks in Cape Town to feel us and connect to our similar struggles,” Mitchell notes. “‘Peaceful Village Town’ is a reggae tune that romanticizes African-Americans dreaming of having a home in a peaceful African village before being stolen into slavery.”
Audience members told me they loved the ensemble’s “Chicago soul that resonates with African soul” and how the “group played back to its African roots.” The concert’s music itself conveyed the purpose articulated in one of Calvin Gantt’s spoken-word lines: “What we’re giving to you/we got from you/and we’re bringing it back.”
For me, witnessing Nicole Mitchell’s Black Earth Ensemble connect deeply with South African audiences was more than interesting. It was life affirming.
Among attendees at a master class offered by the Black Earth Ensemble were four Cape Town girls, aged 10-14, who have a band called Sisterhood. After the class, Mitchell advised the girls to find a café in their community and make a connection with an audience. Sisterhood vowed to start a café residency as soon as possible, and told me to look out for them later in New York.
The great African diaspora continues its dance around the world. -
Michelle Mercer
