Bright Shiny Things Releases Grammy® Nominated PubliQuartet's 'WHAT IS AMERICAN'

For Immediate Release
June 17, 2022
Media Contact: Paula Mlyn
paula@a440arts.com 
(212) 924-3829

BRIGHT SHINY THINGS RELEASES GRAMMY® NOMINATED PUBLIQUARTET’S WHAT IS AMERICAN
FEATURING THE WORLD PREMIERE RECORDING OF ROSCOE MITCHELL’S CARDS 11-11-2020

Album also includes music from Vijay Iyer, Rhiannon Giddens, and reimaginings of works by Antonín Dvorák, Ornette Coleman, Tina Turner, Betty Davis, Alice Coltrane, Ida Cox, and Fats Waller  

NEW YORK, NY–On June 17, 2022, Bright Shiny Things releases What Is American [BSTD-0171] from the Grammy®-nominated PUBLIQuartet, the “intrepid string band” for which “blending genres, conjuring new sounds and ideas from canonical standards, and taking a radical approach to inclusivity come[s] as naturally as breathing” (The New Yorker). The album includes the world premiere recording of Roscoe Mitchell’s PUBLIQuartet-commissioned CARDS 11-11-2020, At the Purchaser’s Option by Rhiannon Giddens, and Dig the Say by Vijay Iyer. Rounding out the album are new takes on  PUBLIQuartet’s signature MIND | THE | GAP project, which include the titular work based on Antonin Dvorák’s “American” Quartet  alongside the music of Ornette Coleman, Alice Coltrane, Ida Cox, Betty Davis, Tina Turner, and Fats Waller.

What Is American is available for purchase here.

 

 

What Is American features an amalgamation of styles that trace their roots to American Indigenous and Black music. The title is intended as both a question and a statement: the question interrogates our  nation’s complex musical traditions, while the statement projects traditions forward. 

The album features the world premiere recording of legendary multi-instrumentalist and composer Roscoe Mitchell’s CARDS 11-11-2020. The composition incorporates Mitchell's groundbreaking CARDS technique in which cards containing musical excerpts are collaged in ways that inspire the freely-improvised section at the heart of the piece. The album also includes Vijay Iyer’s 2012 string quartet Dig the Say, a four-movement homage to the music of James Brown, and Rhiannon Giddens’s heartbreaking song At the Purchaser’s Option (arr. PUBLIQuartet) which is inspired by an 1830s advertisement announcing the sale of a Black woman and her child. 

Surrounding and contextualizing those works are four new takes on PUBLIQuartet’s ongoing MIND | THE | GAP project, in which the group uses improvisation  to highlight connections between diverse musical genres. First is a reimagination of Antonín Dvorák’s “American” Quartet, which like his New World Symphony composed just before it, was inspired by American Indigenous and Black music. The other three MIND | THE | GAP selections take inspiration from some of America’s most revolutionary creative voices- Fats Waller’s “Honeysuckle Rose” is refashioned as a tribute to Madam C. J. Walker, the pioneering Black entrepreneur, self-made millionaire, and activist, with narration by special guest A’Lelia Bundles who is Walker’s great-great-granddaughter. On the next track themes from “Law Years” and “Street Woman” from Ornette Coleman’s 1972 album Science Fiction weave together in a freely-improvised live performance recorded at the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts. The album’s final tracks are developed as a four movement set dubbed Wild Women which honors four women who left indelible marks on American music history: Tina Turner, Betty Davis, Alice Coltrane and Ida Cox. 

Interspersed with these pieces are four original compositions by PUBLIQuartet collectively titled Fifth Verse that use the text of Oliver Wendell Holmes’s U.S. Civil War-era fifth verse from “The Star-Spangled Banner.” A century and a half later, when Black Lives Matter is still a subject for protest, the line “the millions unchain’d who our birthright have gained” takes on an all too relevant meaning in the year 2022. After a complete reading of the verse in “Prelude,” fragments of it return throughout the album in a slowly unfolding reminder about what has been and what has yet to be accomplished.

TRACK LIST

Fifth Verse*
1. Prelude

MIND | THE | GAP: What Is American 
Improvisations on Antonín Dvorák's String Quartet No. 12, Op. 96 "American"
2. Allegro ma non troppo”
3. Lento
4. Molto vivace
5. Vivace ma non troppo

Rhiannon Giddens 
6. At the Purchaser's Option (arr. PUBLIQuartet)

Fifth Verse*
7. Page of Her Story

MIND | THE | GAP: Pavement Pounding Rose with A’Lelia Bundles, narrator
8. Improvisations on “Honeysuckle Rose” by Fats Waller

MIND | THE | GAP: Free Radicals 
9. Improvisations on “Law Years” and “Street Woman” by Ornette Coleman

Fifth Verse*
10. Land of the Free

Vijay Iyer
Dig the Say 
11. I. carry the ball
12. IIa. this thing together
13. IIb. up from the ground
14. III. to live tomorrow

Fifth Verse*
15. Interlude

Roscoe Mitchell
16. CARDS 11-11-2020

MIND | THE | GAP: Wild Women 
Improvisations on:
17. “Black Coffee” by Tina Turner
18. “They Say I'm Different” by Betty Davis
19.“Er Ra” by Alice Coltrane 
20. “Wild Women Don't Get the Blues” by Ida Cox

*Fifth Verse music composed by PUBLIQuartet, lyrics by Oliver Wendell Holmes

 

ABOUT PUBLIQUARTET: 

The GRAMMY-nominated PUBLIQuartet’s modern interpretation of chamber music makes them one of the most interesting artists of their generation. Dedicated to presenting new works for string quartet, PUBLIQuartet rose on the music scene as winner of the 2013 Concert Artists Guild’s New Music/New Places award, and in 2019 garnered Chamber Music America’s prestigious Visionary Award for outstanding and innovative approaches to contemporary classical, jazz, and world chamber music. PQ’s genre-bending programs range from 20th century masterworks to newly commissioned pieces, alongside re-imaginations of classical works featuring open-form improvisations that expand the techniques and aesthetic of the traditional string quartet.