Media
Here you’ll find videos of performances, interviews, and other media involving me!
I was recently interviewed by the amazing Toronto vocalist Jenna Marie for North York Arts. We spoke about how I got into music, jazz and the bass, social justice in music and a bunch of other stuff. Check it out and be sure to subscribe to Jenna’s youtube page!
Isfahan
In August 2020 I joined Andrew Downing and a whole bunch of other musicians to record a concert for Confluence Concerts in which we played Andrew’s arrangements the music of Billy Strayhorn. It was a fantastic experience and I feel so lucky to have gotten the opportunity. Here’s a clip from the concert of me playing Isfahan with my friend Alexa Belgrave. Hope you enjoy!
Fonny.
in his 1974 novel If Beale Street Could Talk, James Baldwin tells the story of two young lovers in Harlem, named Tish and Fonny. Their lives are forever changed when Fonny is arrested for a crime he did not commit, and held captive by the state in the Manhattan House of Detention, which is colloquially referred to as “The Tombs”. Baldwin describes the jail complex as an “unimaginable inferno” in which unspeakable violence and abuse occurs daily. This piece is written for Fonny and countless others whose lives are taken or indelibly altered by state violence against and the mass incarceration of Black people. It begins with a meditation and prayer mourning those we have lost in cells, whose souls die in those wretched cages even if their bodies live on for many years. It then transitions, after brief improvisation at the discretion of the soloist, to a hopeful theme. The end of the piece poses a question. What would the world look like without state violence? Without carceral politics? Without prisons? Sheet music for sale by donation, email harrell.leighton@gmail.com