“Meditations on Freedom” by Lara Downes

No sooner had I finished writing about the recordings that pianist Lara Downes had made of the music of Florence Price than I learned that she had prepared a mini-recital of musical selections compiled in honor of Juneteenth. The recital was presented as a video streamed through YouTube that Downes arranged in conjunction with Gather NYC. Less than fifteen minutes in duration, the title of the program was Meditations on Freedom.

That title was inspired by Langston Hughes’ poem “Freedom.” Downes began by reciting the poem as her “call;” and “responses” took the form of four short compositions. One of these was “Summerland” one of the three movements of the Visions suite for solo piano by William Grant Still. The other three were solo piano arrangements of classic jazz tunes, Duke Ellington’s “Come Sunday” (one of the movements from his Black, Brown and Beige suite), “God Bless the Child,” written by Billie Holiday and Arthur Herzog Jr., and the blues standard (of unknown origin) “Ain’t Nobody’s Business,” first published in 1922 by Porter Grainger and Everett Robbins.

In many respects this may be the first time that the celebration of Juneteenth was significant enough to become a major news item on television. This was probably the case because of the recent global uprisings against police brutality in the name of that phrase “justice for all” in the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. In that context Hughes’ poem reflects as much on the immediate present as it did among those reading it during his lifetime. It thus seems appropriate to reproduce the words with which Downes preceded her performance:

Freedom will not come

Today, this year

            Nor ever

Through compromise and fear.

I have as much right

As the other fellow has

            To stand

On my two feet

And own the land.

I tire so of hearing people say,

Let things take their course.

Tomorrow is another day.

I do not need my freedom when I’m dead.

I cannot live on tomorrow’s bread.

            Freedom

            Is a strong seed

            Planted

            In a great need.

            I live here, too.

            I want my freedom

            Just as you.

There was nothing politicized about either the music that followed this poem or Downes’ approach to playing it. She captured the spirit of the Still movement and evoked the voices behind the three song arrangements without trying to imitate any vocal effects. Hughes’ poem invites us to think about things as they are, rather than how we would like them to be; and Downes found just the right sense of things-as-they-are for each of her selections. This is the frame of mind to which we should aspire when we turn to the television today and observe the marches and gatherings taking place to honor the significance of Juneteenth.