Juneteenth Music

 This, from Bandcamp.com:

On June 19 (from midnight (PT) June 19 to midnight (PT) June 20), we’ll hold our annual Juneteenth fundraiser, where we donate 100% of our share of sales* to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund to support their ongoing efforts to promote racial justice through litigation, advocacy, and public education.

This annual fundraiser is part of our larger, ongoing commitment to racial equity, and we’ll continue to promote diversity and opportunity through our mission to support artists, the products we develop, those we promote through the Bandcamp Daily and Bandcamp Radio, how we work together as a team, who and how we hire, and our relationships with organizations local to our Oakland space (some of which we’ve highlighted below).

We hope you’ll help us spread the word about the upcoming fundraiser, and thank you for being a part of the Bandcamp community!

Ethan Diamond
CEO & Co-Founder of Bandcamp

Here's a few suggestions:

Trombonist/tubaist, composer, and educator Bill Lowe has created this work partially based on Jean Toomer's groundbreaking 1923 novel "Cane" as well as a musical biography.  The program also includes compositions from Frank Foster whose Big Band the trombonist performed with months after moving to New York City and Bill Barron who was not only a fine composer but a Professor of Music at Wesleyan University when Lowe was a Visiting Artist-in-Residence (Author's note: Professor Lowe taught in the Graduate Liberal Studies Program and was my first teacher when I went there to get my Master's Degree). For this album, Lowe organized the Signifyin' Natives Ensemble featuring Taylor Ho Bynum (cornet, flugelhorn), Hafez Modirzadeh (alto saxophone, percussion), Luther Gray (drums), Ken Filiano (bass), Kevin Harris (piano), and the impressive young vocalist Naledi Masilo.  

Here's "Karintha" one of the three tracks from the "Cane Suite":

Go to https://billlowe.bandcamp.com/album/sweet-cane to hear more and purchase the album.

Here are several more suggestions (both of which I purchased):

The Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra – "60 Years" (self-released) – This, hopefully, is the first of numerous retrospectives of the six decades of music created by the PAPA, founded in Los Angeles. CA, by pianist and composer Horace Tapscott. It's a great story of perseverance, creativity, promise, and self-determination.

Listen to "The Ballad of Deadwood Dick" recorded in 1995:

Go to https://panafrikanpeoplesarkestra.bandcamp.com/album/60-years to find out more and to purchase the album.

James Brandon Lewis/Red Lily Quintet – "Jesup Wagon" (TAO Forms) – This impressive album has been out for several years and should be in everyone's collection. Based on the life and work of American botanist George Washington Carver, tenor saxophonist Lewis created the music with an impressive ensemble including long-time associate Chad Taylor (drums, mbira), Kirk Knuffke (cornet), William Parker (bass, gimbri), and Chris Hoffman (cello).  Powerful story, powerful music!

Listen to "Fallen Flowers":

For more information, go to https://jamesbrandonlewis.bandcamp.com/album/jesup-wagon.