submitted on Sat, 07/26/2008 - 06:05 in Jazz Group by Mike_Longo 
Harriet Tubman is an ambitious jazz opera, largely composed and arranged by bassist Marcus Shelby for his Jazz Orchestra. Shelby was a member of Black/Note, an ensemble that recorded for Blue Note and Impulse! during the first half of the 1990s.
The biographical heroine of this effort is the 18th-century woman who rose from slavery to become a freedom fighter, and later, a civil rights activist. Tubman has been universally recognized as one of the most inspirational African-Americans. Marcus Shelby, in researching the background for this work, visited the eastern shore of Maryland, where this story had its origins. Tubman lived there for 27 years before becoming the inspiration for the Underground Railroad, which she served as "the conductor...
Source: allaboutjazz
Author: Michael P. Gladstone
