Composition for saxophone sextet (two soprano, alto, two tenor, and baritone). It was originally used in the dance performance “Last Supper at Uncle Tom’s Cabin / The Promised Land,” and later recorded by the Julius Hemphill Sextet on Fat Man and the Hard Blues (1991).
Found on: Fat Man and the Hard Blues, The Hard Blues: Live in Lisbon.
From Marty Ehrlich: This is one of the most extensive pieces in Last Supper at Uncle Tom’s Cabin/The Promised Land. It was played at a very slow tempo (quarter note = 40), and it underscored a long dance sequence. It became a staple of the Julius Hemphill Saxophone Sextet repertoire.
The harmonies sound like no one else but Julius Hemphill, light and dark and mysterious. He spoke to this work in an interview in BOMB Magazine published in 1994: “Opening is supposed to be church bells, the sound of a lot of bells going off….I was striving for a certain majesty. A ringing bell creates a series of overtones that exist within it. So I was trying to activate enough pitches in the saxophone to create that sound.”