Written December 19, 2023 by Charles Rose
An excerpt from the full article:
The Alberta House was an appropriate venue for the shows. The politically charged American Patriots matched well with the paintings on the walls depicting the 2020 George Floyd protests in Portland. The paintings were a more impressionistic take on the events, but seeing shadowy figures looming in front of a boarded-up courthouse downtown was a familiar enough sight for me to understand them immediately.
Three vocalists took turns portraying at least a dozen characters and perspectives: Annie Sherman, Robert Wesley Mason, and Williams herself. Some of the best moments of the show saw the three singing in harmony together, such as the tune “Sovereignty” which addressed life on Native American reservations. All three did a great job embodying a diverse collection of characters from various ethnic, social and economic backgrounds.
The diverse instrumentation of a jazz octet (two winds, trumpet, violin, guitar, bass, percussion and piano) gave the composers a wide tonal palette to work from, with many songs sounding like some of the more ornate compositions of Charles Mingus or Esperanza Spalding. With this instrumentation the music spanned all sorts of styles, from the heavy-swinging C minor blues of “Aging out” to the open 4ths and tubular bells of “Flag.”