Our Mission

Africa in New Orleans is a collection of songs created from the wellspring of collaboration that is composer, musician and dancer, Sidiki Conde. In 2023, The New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park invited Conde and guitarist, Wowo Souakoli, to work with New Orleans musicians engaged in the diverse genres of the city: jazz, blues, and zydeco. All genres with origins in West Africa where Conde hails from. Through this collaboration Conde felt both at home and part of a bigger global story.

Building on a long track record of scholarship and interpretive artistry focused on the great Mary Lou Williams, vibraphonist and composer Cecilia Smith is proud to announce the release of Volume 1: Small Ensemble Repertoire, the new album from her NEA American Masterpiece Award-winning Mary Lou Williams Resurgence Project. Through countless hours of immersion in the Williams archive at the Institute for Jazz Studies, and direct access to manuscripts and scores from Williams’ former manager Father Peter O’Brien, Smith and her top-tier bandmates put their unique stamp on music either composed by Williams, composed in honor of her, or arranged and recorded by Williams during her lifetime. Among the timeless gems on Volume 1: Small Ensemble Repertoire is Williams’ previously unrecorded “Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone,” sung by the acclaimed Carla Cook.

Pianist and composer Mary Lou Williams made her reputation as a road warrior with the storied Midwestern territory bands of the 1930s (notably Andy Kirk’s 12 Clouds of Joy). She gained renown as a formidable boogie-woogie pianist, but her pioneering role in Swing Era big band arranging and composition was for far too long unheralded. She also served as a mentor to Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell and other icons of the bebop revolution, and continued to refine and deepen her creative vision until her death in 1981. In Smith’s treatments we hear the intelligence and inventiveness that Williams brought to all her endeavors. With her seasoned swing feel and sparkling touch on the vibes, Smith finds a solid rapport with longtime colleagues Lafayette Harris, Jr. and Carlton Holmes (sharing piano and Hammond organ duties), bassist Kenny Davis and drummer Ron Savage. The album is coproduced by Smith, Harris, Jr. and master trumpeter and educator Cecil Bridgewater.

On Volume 1: Small Ensemble Repertoire, Smith extends her considerable performance history with Mary Lou Williams’ music, bringing new insights and ideas to the work at every opportunity. She leads off with her original “Sketch One — Truth Be Told,” incorporating a sequence of motifs drawn from Mary Lou’s pieces “Nicole,” “Waltz Boogie” and “Truth” (a.k.a. “Scratchin’ in the Gravel”). The fourth and final motif, commonly identified with Thelonious Monk’s “Rhythm-a-ning,” is in fact a riff from the killer shout chorus in Mary Lou’s “Walkin’ and Swingin’” (1936) — just one of Williams’ innovative contributions to the band book of Andy Kirk’s 12 Clouds of Joy. “Sketch Three — 100 Years of Mary Lou Williams,” a Smith original in . time, is another fine example of elevated swing and flowing lyricism. “I’ve combined a gospel feel with unique harmony and a simple melody,” the composer remarks. “My mission is to keep Mary Lou’s music current and in the world as part of the jazz narrative.”

Cecilia Smith is a leading vibraphonist of the four-mallet technique and an avid composer and arranger, with six albums as a leader to her credit. She has recorded and performed with Gary Bartz, Milt Hinton, Randy Weston, Marian McPartland, Donald Harrison, Greg Osby, Billy Pierce, Mulgrew Miller and Cecil Bridgewater. Her vibraphone stylings can be heard on Cassandra Wilson’s acclaimed Traveling Miles, Digable Planets’ Blowout Comb, Lonnie Plaxico’s Short Takes and more. She received a Joyce Foundation Award to develop her multimedia work Crossing Bridges. Another multimedia work in development, Decisive Moments, is being made in collaboration with Blue Man Group video artist and filmmaker Kevin Frech. Smith is a 2016 recipient of the Ziegfeld Club’s Elizabeth Swados Award. She is the Artistic Director of the Mary Lou Williams Resurgence Project and a teaching artist for nonprofit organizations and social service agencies.

Alicia Waller is a New York City-based soprano, vocalist, and songwriter seeking to integrate a range of diverse musical traditions through a performance practice that centers around the female voice. To hear her is to encounter an incredibly versatile musician with a seemingly insatiable appetite for artistic exploration. She is, for example, a classically trained opera singer as well as an avid interpreter of a number of Latin and vernacular forms from around the world.

In her debut album release Some Hidden Treasure, Waller unveils four original songs that present a wide-ranging exploration of American music.  Appearing as frontwoman of Alicia Waller & The Excursion, she calls the record “an experiment about the spaces in between.” Waller’s Some Hidden Treasure weaves globally inspired jazz with soul, soul with R&B, and R&B with spirituals and the blues, plus a nod to hip-hop.  She achieves this all while expertly adapting her trained vocal instrument to an entirely new direction alongside veteran bassist and co-producer, Marcos Varela, and in the company of the formidable instrumentalists who form her backing ensemble, The Excursion.

While composing the E.P., Waller looked to the artists she’d grown up on—the music her parents listened to like Bobby Womack, Marvin Gaye, Donny Hathaway, and Anita Baker.  Fascinated by the compositional complexity and textural diversity that these great musicians offered alongside their masterful vocal performances, she sought to develop a lush and varied sonic landscape for the album.  The artist says that she wanted to push boundaries in contemporary music and challenge listeners.  “When I went into this, I didn’t know exactly what was going to come out,” Waller states. “I just knew that I wanted it to sound ballsy and new.  I wanted the voice to have a touch of classical and jazz, but the instrumentation to feel like soul music.  I wanted it to sound like it came from the gut.”

The record is also a frank expression of feminine vulnerability.  In the frenetic “Soul,” Waller and the band race between three distinct musical themes as the singer describes her contradictory emotions toward a lover—courting him, refusing him, and seducing him at once.  In the title track, “Some Hidden Treasure,” she tenderly contends with having fallen in love with a dear friend, while in “Just Step Back” she manically consults the many voices in her head as she frees herself from a relationship that has run its course.  The song, “Clouds,” finds the singer at perhaps her most transparent, as she openly discusses a desire for love and fear of time lost.

Some Hidden Treasure is the opening act of an artist with a lot to say, and who is daring enough to say it all while channeling her musical roots in a refreshingly inventive way.