Coin Coin Chapter One: Gens de Couleur Libres

The saxophonist and composer Matana Roberts first reached a wider audience with her band Sticks and Stones, a trio that included bassist Josh Abrams and drummer Chad Taylor. Roberts has been involved with various projects since then, and she has received quite a bit of attention for her ambitious work-in-progress, *Coin Coin*, which deals with family and social history, Like Archie Shepp’s *Attica Blues* and *The Cry of My People*, *Coin Coin* incorporates a number of African-American musical styles and a sense of theater. 2011’s *Coin Coin Chapter One: Gens de Couleur Libres* was recorded live in studio in Montreal with a large group composed of local musicians. The album opens with “Rise,” and from then on the listener is gripped. Not only does Roberts lend her strong horn playing to the proceedings, she also sings, screams, and lets loose powerful spoken word passages. Her performance is cathartic, strange, artful, and quite moving. After hearing *Chapter One*, one looks forward to future installments of *Coin Coin*.

Matana Roberts is one of the leading lights of contemporary African-American experimental music, combining her widely recognized gifts as an alto saxophone player and improviser with an intensely engaged re-definition of American Jazz traditions. Matana's COIN COIN project is the centerpiece of this engagement and re-definition: a multi-chapter work that combines conceptual scoring (graphic notation, 'chance' strategies), storytelling and historical narrative, performative theatre (personae, costume, multi-media), and a deeply considered channeling of personal ancestry and the 'universal' experience of Africans in America. COIN COIN Chapter One: Gens De Couleur Libre is the first official recording of this ambitious and powerful project. We invited Matana to assemble her Montreal group for a live in-studio performance at the Hotel2Tango facility, before a small but capacity audience of about 30 friends and supporters. The performance was stunning, literally bringing audience members to tears, and went to tape beautifully. The full 90-minute performance was then edited down to around 60 minutes. While it may sound trite, we truly feel this music speaks for itself. It rallies adventurous improv, experimental voice and narrative, a wide array of black folkways, and Matana's impassioned lead playing to tremendous emotional and conceptual effect.