The Movement Revisited - 6abc Loves the Arts

The Kimmel Center kicks off its jazz season, this month, with a host of musical selections, including a performance by a Philadelphia-born Grammy award-winning artist.

Philadelphia's very own Christian McBride has been described as everyone's favorite acoustic bassist, and in this homecoming concert, he combines jazz with poetry and gospel music to tell the story of the fight for Civil Rights.

"Christian is a world-renowned bass player," says Kimmel Center Artistic Director Jay Wahl, "he's the band leader and the composer and the bass player for this exciting evening."

The concert is called The Movement Revisited, and it's a musical ode to the Civil Rights activists McBride admired as a child.

"He started this investigation of Civil Rights and jazz about 20 years ago," says Wahl, "and many, many, many years later, he went back to their words and set them to jazz music."

The result, Wahl says, is a performance that is equal parts concert and theatre, "he takes actors and they play Rosa Parks and Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King and Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali, and they're going to read famous passages that are inspiring us and uplift us from those famous activists."

The piece will culminate with excerpts from President Barack Obama's first inauguration speech.

"When you pair those really important words, it really helps us think deeply about who we are as Americans," says Wahl who adds that McBride has a local choir accompanying a full 18 piece jazz band to marry the sounds of history and music.

"Usually when you go see jazz, you're talking 3 or 5 musicians; this is a really enormous sound you're going to have coming from the stage."

McBride will use that sound to take audience members on a musical journey back in time.

"I think we have a lot of emotions we're going to go through. We're going to question where we are at in our lives, how we've contributed to this movement, what we could do differently," says Wahl, "and what better than to have Philly's own jazz legend Christian McBride to lead us in that"

The Movement Revisited is a one night only performance November 21st at the Merriam Theater. For tickets, go to http://www.TheArtsInPhilly.org.