Poet Mahogany L. Browne and pianist, composer, and producer Sean Mason have released Chrome Valley, an album that moves between jazz and spoken word to explore the Black experience in America. It is out today on The Soapbox Presents, the Harlem-based, community-centered label founded by Marija Abney.
Inspired by Browne's poetry collection of the same name, Chrome Valley is the label's debut release and the first collaboration between the two artists. Sean composed and produced every song on the record, setting ten of Browne's poems to original music.
FROM CHARLESTON TO LINCOLN CENTER
The collaboration began when Browne heard Sean playing the blues on a detuned piano at The Seashore Farmers' Lodge, a museum in Charleston, South Carolina, that holds Gullah Geechee artifacts. Months later, as Lincoln Center's first poet-in-residence, she commissioned him to compose music for a live multisensory performance of Chrome Valley at Lincoln Center, staged with dancers, projected imagery, and a cast of jazz musicians. The Soapbox Presents produced the evening, with Sean serving as its artistic director.
Browne sent him the book and asked him to choose the poems that spoke to him. "I read it front to back and picked 10 poems that spoke to me most, and that had potential to be lyricized and repurposed for composition," Sean says. After the performance's warm reception, the ensemble recorded the album at Sear Sound in New York on June 26 and 27, 2023.
TEN POEMS, TWO VOICES
Chrome Valley alternates between five of Browne's spoken-word recitations and five fully composed songs built from her verse, drawing on jazz, R&B, and gospel while staying rooted in the blues. "She trusted me with her words and gave me artistic freedom, and the pieces seemed to write themselves," Sean says.
The album opens with "Homer, Louisiana (Prelude)," a duet for voice and piano that sets its somber but resolute mood. "Trivia" sets pointed questions to a deliberately catchy melody over a groove Sean has compared to Ahmad Jamal's "Poinciana," an approach he calls "sonic irony." The lead single, "If We Praise (We Are Beautiful)," released February 23, is built around a single line from Browne's poem, which Sean turned into the theme of both the song and the album. The record closes with "Crowned," a regal processional released as the second single on March 22.
CREDITS
- Sean Mason: piano, composer, producer
- Mahogany L. Browne: spoken word, lyrics
- Russell Hall: bass
- Domo Branch: drums
- Ekep Nkwelle: vocals
- Jillian Grace: vocals
- Stacy Dillard: tenor saxophone
- Anthony Hervey: trumpet
- Joel Ross: vibraphone
- Executive producer: Marija Abney
- Recorded and mixed: Todd Whitelock at Sear Sound, New York City
- Mastered: Chris Muth
- Art direction: Mike See
- Photography: Anthony Artis
- Liner notes: Andy Gilbert
LISTEN
Chrome Valley is out now on all major streaming platforms. You can stream Chrome Valley on Spotify, and the Sacks & Co. release announcement has more on the album and its track list.
For more of Sean's music as a leader, explore his debut album The Southern Suite, released in October 2023 on Blue Engine Records with Wynton Marsalis as executive producer. Where Chrome Valley sets another writer's words, The Southern Suite is entirely Sean's own writing: a set of quintet compositions rooted in his North Carolina upbringing.
