DAVID HILLYARD & THE ROCKSTEADY 7 – United Front – CD

Label: Brixton Records
Catalog Number: BR-011-CD
Format: Compact Disc, Album
Released: 2002

…IF AN ATOMIC BOMB FELL ON MANHATTAN THE MOTH-EATEN JAZZ PURISTS WOULD DIE JUST LIKE THE MODERNISTS, AND JUST BECAUSE SOMEONE PLAYING THE CORNET LOOKED OUT THE WINDOW AND SAID ‘WHAT’S UP?’ WOULDN’T MEAN THAT THE WHOLE THING HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH HIM. HE’D FALL TOO” – LeRoi Jones aka Amiri Baraka, 1961

The fact that there are no words in our music doesn’t mean it doesn’t talk about anything. I have always believed that the saxophone is more human than the human voice. It is more expressive and can tell you things you would never understand in normal communication.

The sax can talk to you about those days when you wake up alone and wonder where life is taking you. It can tell you: “you’re a fool,” because when you think you know something, you don’t. It is about crying and screaming. It is about having a laugh and making some noise because… well, because it’s a fun thing to do. It exposes your traps, because if you can’t play it through the sax, you don’t really know it. It can tell you to finally stop repeating yourself because: you don’t have to do it!

Speaking with 7 other musicians, this “voice” becomes a facilitator of communication. On this record, we recorded our debates as they happened, without edits or remixes that would make it harder for us to be heard.

For Rocksteady 7, our music is a conversation about what is happening in our time. A time in which my president has betrayed his nation and the principles upon which it was founded. He is, at the very least, incompetent, if not devilish (where is my personal missile defense shield when I need it?). A time in which the champions of industry and commerce fill their briefcases before leaving town. And they want the rest of us to pay for it? To just sit back and take it. A time in which terror, in many different forms, parades over the corpses of desperate and starving people. We have enough food for everyone; all that needs to be done is to distribute it among our fellow human beings! Is that the justice Moses wanted? Isn’t that more Christian than the Christians themselves? Isn’t that the Islam the prophet spoke of? We need more Gandhis and Mandelas, and fewer Osamas and Bushes.

WE MUST CREATE AND NOT DESTROY!

This is about 8 musicians coming together, trying to create something bigger than themselves. It is about communication, direction, momentum, and unreserved cooperation.

It was the year 2002, and this was our music.

DAVID HILLYARD – November 28, 2002