"Bound for the Promised Land"
"Marcus Shelby
Award-winning composer, arranger, and bassist Marcus Shelby presents his unique artistic vision -- developing the composition and production of an oratorio for jazz orchestra and chorus based on the momentous life-story of Harriet Tubman. Through research and discussion of Tubman's impact on American history, Shelby explores how Tubman's relationship to song inspires jazz composition. The manner in which Tubman improvised spirituals to communicate coded messages - forming a call-and-response dialogue with other slaves — represents, in fact, the very roots of jazz improvisation.
Born in February 1966, Marcus Shelby has been playing the acoustic bass for 23 years. In that time, he has built a diverse and accomplished biography. Shelby was bandleader of Columbia Records and GRP Impulse! Recording Artists Black/Note and is currently the leader of The Marcus Shelby Jazz Orchestra, Meet The Composer Resident Composer at Intersection for the Arts, and CEO/President of the San Francisco based independent record label NOIR Records. As the 1991 winner of the Charles Mingus Scholarship, Shelby's studies include work under the tutelage of composer James Newton and legendary bassist Charlie Haden.