The metaphor at the center of Henry Dumas’ short story “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” is the Afro Horn, an instrument so mythically potent that it simultaneously unites and empowers the African diaspora through the sounds of jazz.

Francisco Mora-Catlett and his New York-based jazz ensemble, AfroHORN, draws from the metaphor of theAfro Horn an imperative to explore, intone, and celebrate African cultures and their expressive, artistic, and political possibilities.

“The music is African; not African-inspired, not African-derived, not African-influenced,” Mora-Catlett pronounces emphatically, “it is African.”

Avant-garde cries of pleasure-pain, moments of soulful introspection, and densely interlocking rhythms all come together, illustrating the unity of African expression central to Mora-Catlett’s ideology.

In the 1960s, Dumas was stimulated by conversations taking place around blackness within the Harlem-basedBlack Arts Movement. Although he was influenced by artistic figures including Amiri Baraka and Sonia Sanchez– Dumas was particularly inspired by Sun Ra. At its heart, the movement was about reclaiming blackness; about wresting it from the margins and placing it front-and-center. No apologies. No qualifications.

Mora-Catlett was born to an African American mother and a Mexican father. His parents, Elizabeth Catlett andFrancisco Mora, were both prominent artists. Mora-Catlett first encountered Dumas’ writings during his time with Sun Ra’s Arkestra in the 1970s.

For an AfroHorn jazz performance Mora-Catlett brings together: Aruan Ortiz on piano, Alex Harding on baritone saxophone, and soprano saxophonist Sam Newsome. Mora-Catlett, himself on drums, is augmented by the master Afro-Cuban percussionist Roman Diaz. Together, they explored the musical connections between the Caribbean, America, Africa, and Latin America – highlighting moments of congruency between each other.

Mora-Catlett’s project is a musical metaphor for the middle passage: a nexus, a site of negotiation, a place that unites the diaspora through a shared experience of in-between-ness. 

This performance is made possible with the support of Jazz Road, a national initiative of South Arts, which is funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation with additional support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Tickets: $25 advance / $30 day of show