Coin Coin Chapter One: Gens de couleur libres begins with a lone, abrasive squeal from Matana Roberts’ alto saxophone. What follows is an extremely intriguing battle of a call and response between Roberts and pianist David Ryshpan. The dialogue between the two musicians, which includes Roberts’ unflinching bursts of freedom juxtaposed by her menacing, longer sax lines and Ryshpan’s harsh, heavy-handed piano playing, sets the stage of “Rise” before other instruments join in. Of course the opener can be interpreted in many ways, for some it could evoke images of resistance and capture, but it could also be seen to play out like a nightmare. “Rise” begins with a sax-piano fight, grows more layered and unpredictable as more musicians join in and ends in a restrained lament. The episode is over, but it doesn’t seem to have been resolved happily. The protagonist, who may have been sleep-talking during her nightmare (“jones jones jones jones” at minute 6:11) wakes up in the heart-wrenching "Pov Piti”.
On “Pov Piti”, it’s immediately clear that, whether what the protagonist was conscious or not during whatever she just experienced, her life is much more cruel than any nightmare could be. The harrowing first minute and thirty seconds of the track are a sonic manifestation of this realization. Over ominous strings and horns, Roberts’ eerie, lyric-less babble slowly morphs into blood curdling screams. The screams are followed by hymn-like lines from Roberts’ sax, which are accompanied by background vocals fit for a spiritual - the combination quickly turns the previous air of despair into one of perseverance. This instrumental backing sets the tone for the formal introduction of the main character: Marie Thérèse dite Coincoin.
In Gens de couleur libres, Roberts takes the listener through various stages of Coincoin’s life. Although born a slave in 1742, Coincoin would eventually be set free and grow to be a key businesswoman and founder of a community of free people of color in Louisiana. In “Pov Piti”, Roberts plays Coincoin and describes the horrors of her early life, her voice bobbing and weaving through the story with different timing and inflections as if it were a sax itself. The spoken-word section of the song ends with Coincoin revealing that despite the horrors she just described, she is “only 16 - there will never be any pictures of me”. “Pov Piti” lets the listener know early on that Roberts' riveting spoken word and singing are extremely important aspects of the record.
Although after listening to “Pov Piti” it’s clear that Roberts’ voice is capable of shocking feats of aggression, it is also capable of being unsettling in completely different contexts. On the mostly acapella “Libation for Mr. Brown: Bid Em In…”, she sings from the perspective of a slave auctioneer. The detail here is disturbing - the lines cover the current price of bidding, the woman being sold and the auctioneer’s inhuman reactions to her fear (“don’t you mind them tears that’s one of their tricks, five-fifty’s the bid now who’ll say six?”). Near the end of the track, Roberts switches and sings from the black perspective. The notable conflict between the lyrics, how she sings them and the music itself creates an unforgettable atmosphere. “You can brand me, you can reprimand me, you can hang my mister, you can drown down my sister” Roberts sings. Despite the weight of the subject matter here, her tone is playful and defiant - what makes the performance so memorable is how the melody and overall musical presentation do not agree with the lyrical content. Roberts sings lines filled with the highest levels of cruelty as if she is going through a much more lyrically typical blues-tinged jazz number. The end, with the inclusion of the band and Roberts’ repetition of “all you got to do is bid me in” could even be described as catchy, but a second of thinking on what is being discussed here will most likely discourage the listener from humming or singing along.
Like the vocals here, the instrumentation - especially the tone of Roberts’ alto sax - is stunning throughout Gens de couleur libres. The large and varied ensemble shines in the all instrumental “Song for Eulalie”, with a relentless first two minutes featuring some great work from the musical saw (Lisa Gamble) and prepared guitar (Xarah Dion). There is a hectic environment as the instruments shimmer, rise and fall in the background while the horns and strings play the main themes before briefly giving the saw and guitar’s beautifully sinister notes the spotlight. The track then falls into a period of spooky minimalism, only to spark back to life with a gorgeous, moving burst of instrumentation at the 4:24 minute mark.
“Kersaia”, which follows "Song for Eulalie", and “I Am” are two thrillingly passionate tracks which vocally continue Coincoin’s story from “Pov Piti”. Similarly to “Pov Piti”, the sax lines that Roberts uses as motifs on the first half of “Kersaia" and the second half of “I Am” have a very religious-chant-like quality to them and are often supported by background vocals. How she arranges these “chants” is brilliant, with the beginning of “Kersaia” having the saxophonist leading with one melodic-phrase, then having the rest of the band pick it up and use it as a counterpoint to the next phrase she introduces. Instrumentally after the spoken-word section of the piece, it briefly consists of free-jazz conversations from the horns before surprisingly morphing into an upbeat, 1920s jazz-style romp.
In the spoken-word portion of “Kersaia”, Coincoin, who is now 25, describes her rape by her then master (“the laws of the land say that I must submit but the laws of my body confuse me”) and her wish to not have his children (“bought and sold to bear the fruit of a seed that I do not wish to plant”). There are chilling descriptions of her unforgiving reality (“I have seen so much but have experienced less than most dogs”), but despite this, she endures. In what is one of the stand-out spoken-word lines from Gens de couleur libres, Coincoin alludes to her uncertain ancestry due to being born as a slave and asks where her savior is, eventually beginning to think that maybe, she can save herself:
How will rectify in my soul once I meet my maker
black man - red man - brown man - white man where is my savior
where is my savior where is he where is she perhaps it is me
The spoken word ends with Coincoin declaring herself the “beginning of the female hustling spirit, hustling to survive so that others may strike to be something more than me”, which is exactly where the listener finds her on “I Am”.
“I Am” is the conclusion of Coincoin’s story, with “How Much Would You Cost” working as a relatively short and uplifting musical epilogue. “I Am” opens up with some extremely interesting collective improvisation, with the band combining to create an extremely dark and twisted soundscape - a great setting for the alto sax and piano in particular to express themselves. About three minutes in, the intense primal screams of “Pov Piti” return, somehow reaching even higher on the scale than before. In “I Am” we find Coincoin, with “15 children - ten of them [by her master]”. After having “laid down” with her master for 19 years, she is left by him when “he decides to marry that widow who has my name but not my face”. However, it is clear that this was not the typical master-slave relationship, as when he leaves her for the widow he sets her free and he gives her 67 acres of land.
The 67 acres of land are the start of Coincoin’s community of free people of color. As soon as she is free, the “female hustling spirit” she spoke of in “Kersaia” takes over. Coincoin works the land to gain enough money to buy back all of her children that she can find. When she finishes buying back her family, she continues buying other enslaved Africans, who she describes as “cousins, mothers, brothers, uncles, aunts, [and] daddys”. The story here makes this arguably Roberts’ most compelling spoken-word performance of the record, with her frantic and determined voice being more than fitting for this content. Together, the community builds a church for people of color “where the white folks had to sit in the back” and prospers. Coincoin ends the song describing her family as the “wealthiest set of coloreds this side of the river called Cane”, having such success that the 67 acres of land ended up being turned into 1200.
Coincoin’s inspiring story ended with her death 1816, was reborn musically through Matana Roberts’ Coin Coin Chapter One: Gens de couleur libres in 2011 and it’s December 2017 as this is being written. Looking back at how this stands out in the sea of jazz albums released during this decade, it would not be surprising if the record goes on to obtain a cult-classic-like status in the future. There is great strength in its singularity - those who finish Gens de couleur libres hungry for another album like it will be searching in vain. Despite the temptation to immediately reference past socially-charged works like Max Roach’s Freedom Now Suite, the two projects are radically different in execution, narrative and musical scope. Whether she is singing morbid mantras over languid strings (“Lulla/Bye”) or celebrating life by asking her audience (the album was recorded live) to reflect on human worth (“How Much Would You Cost?”), the experimental saxophonist is consistently fascinating - instrumentally and vocally - throughout the album’s 62 minute run-time. It would be foolish to suggest that Gens de couleur libres, with its emotionally and musically heavy content, is an album for everybody, but those who are up for the journey may unearth a rare gem.
Personnel: Matana Roberts (alto sax, clarinet, voice, composer, arranger), Jason Sharp (baritone sax), Jonah Fortune (bass), Thierry Amar (bass), Nicolas Caloia (Cello), David Payant (drums, vibraphone), Hrair Hratchian (doudouk), Xarah Dion (prepared guitar), David Ryshpan (piano, organ), Lisa Gamble (musical saw), Fred Bazil (tenor sax), Brian Lipson (bass trumpet), Josh Zubot (violin), Marie Davidson (violin) and Gitanjali Jain (voice).
