Harriet Tubman formed in 1998 when drummer J.T. Lewis, guitarist Brandon Ross, and bassist Melvin Gibbs came together to start a band. Harriet Tubman is named after the heroic African-American slave who risked her life to escape from slavery and helped more than 300 others to do the same. Deeply inspired by the ideals of freedom, Harriet Tubman’s music plumbs the soul’s depths for liberated musical expression. Harriet Tubman’s music is a continuation of the process of contextual and musical innovation exhibited by such diverse artists as Ornette Coleman, Jimi Hendrix, Derrick May, Art Ensemble of Chicago and Parliment-Funkadelic. Recontextualizing musical technology to create innovative compositional and cultural spaces is an important part of the African-American cultural tradition. Harriet Tubman is part of our contribution…

Recorded live at The Fillmore East in New York City N.Y. on December 31st, 1969 & January 1st, 1970, the Band of Gypsys debut recording consisted of six tracks released to the public on March 25th, 1970 – close to fifty years ago. That vinyl record established the template for the Funk & Roll genre. The re-releases, with new tracks & multiple versions of the six tracks from the Fillmore shows, illuminated that Jimi Hendrix, Billy Cox, and Buddy Miles never played a tune the same way twice, breaking away from the “note-by-note” live renditions prevalent in Pop & Rock hit songs at that time. This “breaking away” also highlighting BOG’s use of improvisational interplay within the Pop/Rock song structure, which up to that time,…