Label: Reading Group – RG
Format: CD, Album, Stereo
Country: US
Released: 2026
Genre: Jazz, Classical
Style: Free Improvisation, Contemporary Jazz, Modern
Fresh suite of piano studies from legendary writer Ishmael Reed. Word incoming. (Mint / New)
////
Every Time I Feel the Spirit is a collection of piano studies, epistles, sketches, improvisations, and meditations composed, performed, and recorded by the legendary writer Ishmael Reed at his home in Oakland, California, over the past five years. After 2022's The Hands of Grace (recently re-released on vinyl by All Night Flight), we are thrilled to collaborate with Reed again to bring this extraordinarily precious music to light. Two and a half hours of music spanning two discs, Every Time I Feel the Spirit is, in Ishmael's words, "a hidden spiritual landscape, and had I not lived this long life, this region would have remained undiscovered."
Like The Hands of Grace, these pieces range from citational irony to arresting sincerity, but here we have the sense of looking through the composer's sketchbook, developing the ideas as they are being traced out of the piano by the "spirit" that compels Ishmael to play. Despite its seeming solitude as a self-recorded solo piano set, this music is full of other people, from the other luminaries of American literature to whom many of the pieces are dedicated, to the intimate connections of Reed's family, including his wife Carla, his children, and his niece Marquel, whose image graces the cover.
No other album so gracefully articulates the spirit of Reading Group. It reminds me why I love music.
- Derek / RG
Tracklist
1. Remembering Nikki 05:25
2. Amanuensis 03:30
3. Sonya Dances with Miriam in Heaven 05:31
4. His Daughter Phoned Him Three Days After Her Death 08:28
5. Blues for Hubert 04:34
6. The Women Were Wailing, "Where Has Our Sweet David Gone?" 05:38
7. One Saturday Morning in Oakland 04:10
8. Francesca and David 04:53
9. Little Sister 03:58
10. Dnipro 07:05
11.A Candle for Marquel 03:53
12. Carla, Mother's Day 2025 06:04
13. Oct 13th, Timothy's Birthday 05:24
14. Song for Rainy 03:26
15. After A 5-Star Trip Abroad She Was Glad to Be Back in Her Own Bed 07:53
16. Chattanooga Suite 1 05:13
17. False Horizons 1 07:35
18. False Horizons 2 07:07
19. Every Time I Feel the Spirit 05:08
20. Carla Isogashi Desu 04:52
21. Sketch 1 05:03
22. Sketch 2 04:41
23. Sketch 3 04:24
24. Sketch 4 06:14
25. Sketch 5 05:33
26. Sketch 6 04:39
27. Sketch 7 05:39
