Chanticleer - Our American Journey

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Music reviews of Our American Journey

Music Review: THE UN-COVERED WAGON
Rating: 5 Stars

One of the first epic Western films "The Covered Wagon" (Paramount, 1923), based on Emerson Hough's novel, portrays the pioneers crossing what they saw as an open territory free-for-the-taking. But obviously, there were other people already living in this so-called "untamed wilderness" -- The Indians.

I am struck by how one-sided this American expansion is continually portrayed, not only for the old B/W era, but in today's America too. America creates and sustains an unenlightened legacy of trampling across the continent for it's own uses. Sanctioned by all sorts of religious dispensations where a glorious "end of time" reigns care-free and supreme, like protective salvation, this ratified conquering is highly prevalent even today.

I wrote the "Un-Covered Wagon" in order to uncover an alternate view -- that America was never empty nor free for the taking at all. The American continent has always been filled with others, people, stories and history, and has been known as intimately as a familiar footpath shared daily by humans and animals alike -- long before America existed. To reveal this musically, I super-imposed a racist hymn, "Faith of Our Fathers," one half-step apart in tuning from an Indian background to create a new way of hearing that hymn. Chanticleer performs this difficult passage flawlessly and the effect is spooky and surreal. The end of the work calls for three different Indian singing styles to be super-imposed upon each other, and all can be heard clear as a bell in Chanticleer's spectacular performance. I am deeply proud of both the work and Chanticleer's performance of it.

"Un-Covered Wagon," as music and message, urges us to reconsider the seasoned and intelligent tradition of keeping good familial relationships with the earth -- that may in fact suit us better -- and to finally strip that out-dated chuck wagon called progress. Life is for sharing, not controlling.

With Respect,
Brent Michael Davids
Mohican Nation

Description of Our American Journey

Classical CDs

• Music > Styles
• Miscellaneous
• New Age
• Pop
• Soundtracks