John Mackey - Juba (2003) [w/ score]

John Mackey’s intense, rhythmically driving “Juba,” for electric string quartet and percussion, was commissioned by and written in collaboration with dancer, choreographer, and Artistic Director of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Robert Battle. Mackey and Battle have had many music-dance collaborations over the years, with many other pieces in Mackey’s catalog created in this collaboration like “Strange Humors” and “Mass.”
Mackey writes in the program notes of this work:
“Robert wanted something aggressive. His only specific musical request was that the work have a ‘Rite of Spring’ sort of nastiness, with repeated eighth-notes and featuring syncopated accents. Robert also wanted percussion, and although I was initially reluctant to incorporate it - almost all of our works have featured percussion - I relented, and Robert was, as usual, completely right. As you’ll hear, this piece wouldn’t be the same without the percussion, and specifically, the amazing playing of Damien Bassman. (Yes, these are real, live musicians. No synths here.) The first movement is full of ‘power chords,’ with those repeated eighth-notes that Robert requested. The second movement allows the dancers to catch their breath briefly before the final movement, a rhythmically dense and virtuosic 7-minute crescendo of raw energy.”
COMPOSER: John Mackey
ENSEMBLE:
Vesselin Gellev, violin
Annaliesa Place, violin
Ralph Farris, viola
Rebecca Patterson, cello
Damien Bassman, percussion
TRACKLIST:
0:00 - Introduction
0:13 - I.
5:18 - II.
7:30 - III.
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