Jacob Fred Fred Odyssey – the Race Riot Suite: World Premier from Jacob Fred on Vimeo.

Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey will premiere its Race Riot Suite at Tulsa, OK’s the John H. Williams Theatre at the Tulsa Performing Arts Center on Friday, May 20. The group will perform the suite at both 8 and 10 PM.

The Race Riot Suite was written by JFJO lap steel player Chris Combs. In January 2011 the band recorded the piece at Tulsa’s hallowed Church Studio with guest horn players Jeff Coffin (Bela Fleck & the Flecktones, Dave Matthews Band), Steven Bernstein (Sex Mob, Levon Helm), Peter Apfelbaum (Don Cherry), Mark Southerland (Snuff Jazz) and JFJO co-founder Matt Leland.

The band explains, “In 1921, Tulsa, Oklahoma was home to the most powerful and affluent African-American community in the country. In one of the largest racial conflicts and cover-ups in America’s history “Black Wall Street” was burned to the ground. The Race Riot Suite is a long form musical work that tells the story of the evolution & destruction of one of America’s greatest cultural epicenters in one of the least understood atrocities of the Jim Crow era. The Suite serves as vehicle for insight & reflection on the event itself, as well as a tool for understanding the ways in which these issues continue to pervade our modern day culture and society.”