For those unaware, a brilliant new recording will be released on JKNM Records by internationally renowned bassist/composer Avery Sharpe, I Am My Neighbors Keeper this upcoming June 19th, 2024.

Sharpe has composed a new work which highlights our commitment to one another. Avery initiated the project as a response to the political and racial division that has grown over the past seven years in the country. “The U.S political climate has drastically changed in the past 40 plus years, especially during the last seven of those years. In this age of greed, which Sharpe refers to as IGM, I Got Mine, basic human compassion has been eroded. Racial, economic and social strides are being turned back.”

“We have food insecurity, the unhoused, pandemics, school shootings, domestic violence, and an opioid problem, just to name some. There is a need to remind people that each of us is here on this planet for a very short period of time. It doesn’t matter if one has a religious approach or a secular approach, it all comes down to concern and compassion for each other.”

“Through these compositions and recordings, Avery’s mission as an artist is to remind us that we all are interconnected and that ‘We Are Our Neighbor’s Keeper.’ When we help to uplift one, we uplift everyone,” Sharpe says.

1. My Friend, Don’t Be Afraid to Ask For Help
2. Unspoken Words
3. Trust
4. I See You
5. Compassion
6. Parental Love
7. All About You
8. World Love
9. A Little Prayer for Mom
10. The Good Samaritan
11. Six on Six

This imaginative and wholly evoking new recording - one where each movement in the piece describes the values we should strive for to help one another for this multi-media (video slide show during performance) and multi-discipline performance - opens on the funk-grooved blues-jazz of My Friend, Don’t Be Afraid to Ask For Help and the free-flowing Unspoken Words, and the we get both the languishing Trust, the gently fervent I See You and the veritably classical orchestrations that pave the way for Compassion.

Along next from the artist who has himself recorded and performed with many jazz greats from Dizzy Gillespie to Yusef Lateef, is the rhythmic Parental Love and the low slung All About You, which are in turn backed seamlessly by the jaunty World Love, the vocalized magnificence of the bluesy A Little Prayer for Mom, the recording rounding out on the foot-tapper The Good Samaritan, closing on the stoically charming Six on Six.

Musicians:
Avery Sharpe - Bass, Zaccai Curtis-piano
Yoron Israel - drums,Tony Vacca-balafon/african percussion
Sarah Briggs & Kaila Graef - violins
Gregory Diehl - viola
Dave Haughey - cello

www.averysharpe.com

www.twofortheshowmedia.com