On March 22, luminaries in experimental and jazz music, historians, and spoken word artists came together in one of the most hallowed music venues in the country to celebrate poet Phillis Wheatley. Most known as the first Black American woman to have a book of poetry published, Wheatley rose above her circumstances as an enslaved woman in colonial-era Boston and advocated for herself, other Black people, and America itself through her poetry.
The event, called “Echoes of Freedom: A Tribute to Phillis Wheatley Peters,” was held in association with AFROPUNK and presented as part of Lincoln Center’s American Songbook series of concerts.
The event took place in Jazz Lincoln Center’s amphitheater style Appel Room with its 50 by 80-foot wall of glass overlooking Columbus Circle. Kevin Young, director of the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of African American History and Culture (which houses Wheatley’s papers), musician aden, spoken word artist and first Lincoln Center Poet in Residence Mahogany Browne, and trumpeter Theo Drucker with his band Dream Manifest came together to share words and music inspired by Wheatley’s life and work.
With Central Park, reflections of city lights zipping back and forth across the glass, and a view of the gold tip of Gaetano Russo’s 1892 sculpture of Christopher Columbus as the backdrop, the evening began with an introduction by Young, himself a poet. Young discussed Wheatley’s life and emphasized that the social context in which she created included being a part of a thriving community of other Black creatives.
“Though she was first,” he said, “she was not alone. She had important connections to Jupiter Hammon, who was the first Black person to publish poems in magazines in the United States, and artist Scipio Morehead, who drew the frontispiece of her for her first book.”
Young also discussed Wheatley’s political awareness. “She lived in Boston during the Revolutionary War and was politically savvy,” he said. “She wrote and published poems about politics. She was surely thinking about her own liberation as she wrote and witnessed the colonists demand for the same.”
Young recited a poem of his own, “Emancipation,” dedicated to Wheatley.
aden performed on piano, keyboards, and computer while accompanied by bass guitarist Emmanuel and drummer Eliza. They created what was essentially a musical score while Brown performed a poem titled “A Sickle for Phillis Wheatley.” She described it as “a response to [Wheatley’s] poem ‘Farewell to America.’ It’s the contemporary voice responding to the classic.”
The accompanying music rose ever so slowly as Browne spoke, reaching a crescendo as she concluded.
aden went from playing audio effects on her computer, including poetry by Lucille Clifton and Gwendolyn Brooks, to keyboard, piano, and singing. The overall effect went back and forth from subtly experimental to smooth plaintive soul, her voice alternating between slick, haunting soprano and warm, velvety alto, resulting in a satisfying, cerebral performance.
A brief Q and A between aden and Brown followed as they inquired about each other’s creative processes and artistic connections to Wheatley, and discussed how they researched Wheatley and her poetry.
“I felt like it was really important, as much as I was reading into what was left of her writings, to also try to leave space for the imagination of what has been left unsaid and what can we never know, but still hold space for its complexity,” aden said.
Browne connected some of her own challenges with those of Wheatley. “I’m used to people trying to erase my stuff and Phillis Wheatley went through that.”
Referring to an infamous 1772 tribunal assembled to verify authorship of Wheatley’s work, Browne added, “She had to have 12 white men saying ‘Yes, she really wrote this,’ instead of just people believing the word of the poet.”
The evening concluded with the cool jazz stylings of Afrofuturist artist and Grammy-nominated jazz trumpeter and composer Theo Croker and his band, consisting of Eric Wheeler on bass, Patrice Frederick on piano, and Miguel Russell on drums. Croker, like aden, incorporated recorded spoken word into the presentation, from singer Jill Scott and activist Malcolm X.
Croker said of Wheatley, “It’s good to be able to look at history and find actual proof of the ability to overcome all circumstances.”`He chose the elements of his recorded audio, he said, as “an extension of that ability to show everybody our collective humanity through their art and work.”
Croker and his band created a multifaceted soundscape for the audience; at times mournful, hopeful, smoldering, romantic—all touched by an appealing otherworldliness.
The performances all came together to provide a rousing and sincere tribute to the legacy of Black American creativity first (reluctantly) recognized in Wheatley more than 200 years ago.
Visit https://www.lincolncenter.org/home for more information about the American Songbook series and other upcoming events at Lincoln Center and Jazz at Lincoln Center.