(jazz music) - Hey, emcee.

How you doing?

- Better than all right.

I'm better than all right.

(laughs) (people chattering) (gentle music) - Welcome to Music for Social Justice.

I'm your host, Damien Sneed.

An expression I've heard, even in an episode in this series, is that there's only one race, the human race.

If we're able to see one another as human beings, we'll be able to accept the change necessary to achieve social justice in issues around the world.

For over 20 years, jazz bassist Rodney Whitaker has led jazz studies at Michigan State University to become one of the top collegiate jazz programs in the nation.

Their guiding principle, "each one, teach one."

So now Prof Whitaker takes us to class to teach us the lesson of finding meaning in music.

(somber music) - This piece that we're gonna perform for you, it's called A Mother's Cry.

I actually wrote a film score, and the film score is called Malaria in Malawi.

And this piece was about really depicting children dying from malaria because they couldn't afford a $30 mosquito net.

And it was very difficult to write the music for this piece because it was so many deaths.

And I cried through every time I watched the documentary.

And when I would play this piece live, folks would come up to me, and they would sort of have their own meaning of what the piece meant, depending on their experience.

And so some people thought I was talking about police brutality.

Some people thought I was talking about senseless gun violence in the black community.

So it's taken on a meaning of so many different things.

And a couple years ago, Mark Sullivan and I, Mark Sullivan is a faculty member, composition faculty member at the college of music, has been a champion of human rights and civil rights at the college for more than 30 years.

He's really like the first pioneer, doesn't get a lot of credit.

But he also is a gifted photographer.

And so with this piece, we combine his photo and my piece together.

I think his photo takes it to the next level to come up with a masterful work.

And it really sort of inspired me because music has that power to make people imagine and to dream.

And so I felt that that your music is a reason to talk about change.

I think it's important that musicians find their voice to address issues of social justice.

Because at one time we weren't really allowed.

Like you were told by your manager or the record company or some political entity to stay away from that.

But I think we are living, breathing folks.

And as we learned, probably from the artists of the 1960s, a lot of the folk artists, a lot of jazz artists, began to speak out about social justice.

And by the late 60s, sort of everyone began to do it.

And we've seen over time that it's a way to bring change.

(gentle music) You know, there's a phrase that they use in Detroit, comes from a West African proverb, which is "each one, teach one."

And Detroit is really about mentorship and sharing the knowledge in the community raising you.

And I think this series embodies that idea and that musicians, you know, we learn and grow from each other.

And I think that this series, we get to get a glimpse of each artist that will be presented in the series, and just get to pick their brain a little bit and hear what they think about things, and what music inspires them.

And I think from that, we all learn.

And it's important that I represent the culture I grew up in, in a profound way, in a positive way.

And that sometimes it could be showing joy, like Louis Armstrong.

Sometimes it could be spirituality, like John Coltrane, or like Miles playing love and romance.

So there's so many various aspects that I think about, but I'm always trying to depict who I am and where I'm coming from in a positive way.

So that as people see me, they see my culture.

It's our role as musicians to make people aware of things that are going on in the world.

And I think through that awareness, we can build, begin to chart a course forward.

And I think oftentimes, you know, like there could be a call to action, but that's not our role, we're musicians.

Our role is to say, this is what's happening, and what are you gonna do about it?

(gentle music) (jazz music) - Bass-baritone Marc Embree has seen a lot in his lifetime.

He's traveled the world and performed, lived in new Orleans for several years, and has learned from his roots as a boy in Nebraska.

In this episode, he weaves together his own heritage, and shares stories of influences that shaped his views on what he hopes is the world we're all working toward.

(gentle music) - I went to college in the 60s.

I'm a product of the 60s.

And I had an ancestor Elihu Embree who published a newspaper in Tennessee in 1820 called The Emancipator.

He was a fervent abolitionist.

And I always thought, you know, with the, you know, with the turmoil of the 60s and civil rights, and it's like I always thought, well, we're probably all racist, but at least I have my ancestor, Elihu, who was, you know, anti-racist at the time.

And I was kind of, you know, smug about that.

And as I dug a little deeper, as we always do, the stories get messier and messier.

Every time you start looking down a rabbit hole, you got something that you gotta connect up with.

Elihu Embree had owned seven or eight people.

He had seven or eight enslaved people working for him on the farm.

And through some kind of spiritual transformation, he freed them and became a fervent abolitionist.

I was very inspired by that.

And, you know, I can't take any credit, but it just was to have an ancestor that did that makes me feel that I have to do the best that I can.

My brother-in-law, Howard Horii, sadly, he passed away, but he was Japanese American.

His mother and father were first generation, but Howard was born in this country.

Howard was an was an artist, a painter, but when he was a teenager, they came to his house, and they tore his family out of, they had three homes and a farm, and they took them away and took them to the Santa Anita racetrack in a holding area that I think lasted from, you know, early 1942 until the fall of '42.

And then the Japanese Americans were sent to internment camps.

And Howard was in the Gila River camp, I believe.

And, you know, in the song, we have some slides of his watercolors.

He's made sketches while he was there as a teenager, then made watercolors after they were released.

But he was three years, along with thousands of American citizens, behind barbed wire.

And, you know, this had a lasting effect on Howard.

He was very influential in my life, a real father figure to me.

He would do things like he gave me the record of Paul Robeson, Goin' Home, an adaptation of the Largo section of the Dvorak New World Symphony.

One of his students, William Arms Fisher, made an arrangement, arranged it, the song.

You know, it was from my childhood.

My mother used to play it and, and I loved it.

I loved the sound.

I loved the music and loved the, you know, the sense and the feeling and the texture.

The attention to text and emotional core, you know, it just moved me greatly.

Goin' home, goin' to the heart, to the heart of things.

That's what we want, to be surrounded by people that we love and that love us back.

And you know, we all have the opportunity to thrive.

I guess that's an awful lot for this little song to bear, but that's kind of what comes into my heart.

(gentle music) (gentle music) ♪ Going home ♪ ♪ Going home ♪ ♪ I'm just going home ♪ ♪ Quiet, like some still day ♪ ♪ I'm just going home ♪ ♪ It's not far, just close by ♪ ♪ Through an open door ♪ ♪ The work's all done, care laid by ♪ ♪ Going to fear no more ♪ ♪ Mother's there expecting me ♪ ♪ Father's waiting, too ♪ ♪ Lots of folks gathered there ♪ ♪ All the friends I knew ♪ ♪ All the friends I knew ♪ ♪ Home ♪ ♪ Home ♪ ♪ I'm going home ♪ ♪ There's no loss nor gain ♪ ♪ No more fret and pain ♪ ♪ No more stumbling on the way ♪ ♪ No more longing for the day ♪ ♪ Going to roam no more ♪ ♪ Morning star lights the way ♪ ♪ Restless dreams all done ♪ ♪ Shadow's gone, break of day ♪ ♪ Real life's just begun ♪ ♪ There's no break, there's no end ♪ ♪ Just a-living on ♪ ♪ Wide awake, with a smile ♪ ♪ Going on and on ♪ ♪ Going home ♪ ♪ Going home ♪ ♪ I'm just going home ♪ ♪ It's not far, just close by ♪ ♪ Through an open door ♪ ♪ I'm just going home ♪ ♪ Going home ♪ (gentle music) - The song that I'm performing happens to be written by the great Billy Taylor.

What's interesting is the song was first introduced to me instrumentally.

But then when I found out about the great Nina Simone, I heard her performance, and I was totally mesmerized.

(upbeat piano music) It's a song that I think incorporates verses that really speak to the heart of social justice, wanting to be free.

It deals with a person just being heard, being understood, a person being seen and not being pushed to the side as if they're invisible.

Music has a major role in the pursuit of social justice, because music is a universal language.

Sometimes people are very uncomfortable discussing the topics that deal with social justice, because it makes them uncomfortable.

Or perhaps they don't know the right words to say, or what is the correct way of addressing an issue.

But in order for us to move forward with healing, we cannot be afraid to ask the question, to find out why these things happened.

Music is the very thing that you can bring forward that allows people to now have conversation about social justice, what it is, and what we have to do to change things.

My hope for this series is that it will change people's viewpoint, and it will leave them open to learn about something they've never learned about or something that never interested them.

I hope that those people will have an impetus, a thrust, a push, to research, to read.

Because we all have a different story.

You cannot assume or throw all people of color into one pot or one box and think they all grew up with a church experience in their background, or that they all grew up eating certain foods, or that they all grew up with the same type of experience in school or the same types of injustices.

But I think when we come together, with people around the table who all are very different and look different, and actually come from different backgrounds.

I think if we do it with the intention of loving each other and being unified, I think we can get to a place of healing.

Hopefully this will be a catalyst for change.

(upbeat jazz music) ♪ I wish I knew how ♪ ♪ It would feel to be free ♪ ♪ I wish I could break ♪ ♪ All the chains holding me ♪ ♪ I wish I could say ♪ ♪ All of the things that I should say ♪ ♪ Say 'em loud, say 'em clear ♪ ♪ For the whole round world to hear ♪ ♪ I wish I could give ♪ ♪ All I'm longing to give ♪ ♪ I wish I could live ♪ ♪ Like I'm longing live ♪ ♪ I wish I could do ♪ ♪ All the things that I can do ♪ ♪ Though I'm way over due ♪ ♪ I'd be starting anew ♪ ♪ Well I wish I could be ♪ ♪ Like a bird in the sky ♪ ♪ How sweet it would be ♪ ♪ If I found I could fly ♪ ♪ I'd soar to the sun ♪ ♪ Then I look down at the sea ♪ ♪ Then I'd sing 'cause I know ♪ ♪ Then I'd sing 'cause I know ♪ ♪ Then I'd sing 'cause I know ♪ ♪ How it feels ♪ ♪ To be ♪ ♪ Free ♪ ♪ Yeah, yeah ♪ (gentle music) (upbeat jazz music) - I'm Damien Sneed.

It's my honor to have the title of host of this special series, Music for Social Justice.

We'll hear some moving performances from excellent musicians.

Most importantly, we're going to hear from the musicians themselves, as they put into words what social justice means to them and how the power of music transcends all.

(bright music)