Blood on the Fields

by Wynton Marsalis

Blood on the Fields cover art
  • Type: Album
  • Released: 1 June 1997
  • Label: Columbia
  • Country: United States
  • Length: 2:41:55
  • Community rating: 4.08/5 from 1 rating

Album Notes & Community Reviews

Marsalis's jazz oratorio, commissioned by Lincoln Center and premiered there in April 1994, tells of Jesse and Leona, an enslaved couple on a Southern cotton plantation, across 21 movements and some three and a half hours. Scored for three singers and fifteen musicians, it won the Pulitzer Prize for Music, the first jazz work and the first non-classical composition to do so.

Genres

Descriptors: orchestral, storytelling, ensemble, long-form, theatrical

Tracklist

  1. Calling The Indians Out - Part 1 (5:25)
  2. Move Over (10:04)
  3. You Don't Hear No Drums (11:50)
  4. The Market Place (6:00)
  5. Soul For Sale (6:07)
  6. Plantation Coffle March (10:42)
  7. Work Song (Blood On The Fields) (8:26)
  8. Lady's Lament (6:15)
  9. Flyng High (2:04)
  10. Oh We Have a Friend in Jesus (4:06)
  11. God Don't Like Ugly (8:04)
  12. Juba And A Brown Squaw (6:05)
  13. Follow The Drinking Gourd - Part 1 (2:20)
  14. My Soul Fell Down (2:18)
  15. Forty Lashes (7:30)
  16. What A Fool I've Been (2:33)
  17. Back To Basics (11:28)
  18. I Hold out My Hands (7:36)
  19. Look And See (5:05)
  20. The Sun Is Gonna Shine - Part 1 (2:17)
  21. Will The Sun Come Out? (9:09)
  22. The Sun Is Gonna Shine - Part 2 (6:42)
  23. Chant To Call The Indians Out (3:56)
  24. Calling The Indians Out - Part 2 (5:36)
  25. Follow The Drinking Gourd - Part 2 (1:43)
  26. Freedom Is In the Trying (2:45)
  27. Due North (5:34)

Credits

  • Wynton Marsalis - primary artist, written-by, conductor, trumpet
  • James Carter - baritone saxophone, bass clarinet, clarinet
  • Herlin Riley - drums, tambourine
  • Victor Goines - tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone, clarinet, bass clarinet
  • Wycliffe Gordon - trombone, tuba
  • Josephine DiDonato - art direction
  • Dennis Jeter - coordinator [production coordinator]
  • Brian Faehndrich - engineer [assistant engineer]
  • Brian Kingman - engineer [assistant engineer]
  • James Biggs - engineer [assistant engineer]
  • John Harrison - engineer [assistant engineer]
  • Mark Wilder - engineer [recording engineer]
  • Stanley Crouch - liner notes
  • Edward C. Arrendell - management
  • The Management Ark - management
  • CFP - management
  • Jen Wyler - mixed by [mix assistant]
  • Todd Whitelock - mixed by [mix engineer]
  • Steve Epstein - producer

More from Wynton Marsalis: full discography