‘American Dreamers’ album hope on wax

‘Immigrant Song’

SBy Malina Saval

aba Nafees, a DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival) recipient and PhD candidate in mathematical biology at Texas Tech U, understands all too well what it’s like to live under the threat of deportation in Trump’s America. Born in Pakistan, Nafees immigrated to the States with her parents when she was 11 years old, settling in Fort Worth, Texas where her grandparents, aunts and uncles already lived. Now, at age 26, Nafees’ DACA status expires in May, and her parents, both nearing 60, are facing deportation proceedings.

“It’s really stressful,” Nafees tells Variety. “It’s not a good situation, especially since my parents now have health problems. My older sister became a US citizen last year and was sponsoring them. The challenge now is making sure ICE doesn’t get to them before they are able to secure their green cards.”

Nafees is one of 53 Dreamers from 17 States and 17 countries featured on “John Daversa Big Band: American Dreamers (Voices of Hope, Music of Freedom),” a new jazz album celebrating the diversity, talent, perseverance and patriotism of DACA recipients in America. “American Dreamers” is not only rife with revamped recordings of iconic anthems ranging from Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song” to “America the Beautiful” to James Brown’s funkinfused “Living in America,” but a clarion call to all citizens promoting the richness, beauty and critical importance of multiculturalism and its role in strengthening and emboldening our country’s ever-shifting societal fabric.

The brainchild of entertainment attorney and philanthropist Doug Davis, “American Dreamers” was sponsored by Troy Carter, former global head of creative services at Spotify, and relied on donated studio time at U of Miami, NYU and the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music. (Doug, Clive’s son, is a board member and his sister is a professor at the Institute.) There’s also a documentary in the works about the making of the record.

Sehgal

Experience

“It’s an experience that was hard to capture,” says Davis of what it was like to put the album together. “There was one dreamer, he was a dishwasher in Chicago, and he talked about the first time he lived in a house, with the eight other members of his family. His life didn’t exactly work out the way he wanted and he couldn’t afford guitar lessons. And then on [“American Dreamers”], for eight days he’s playing with this big band, living his dream and playing his music and there’s no way that’s not going to be a highlight of his life.”

Grammy Award-winning composer Kabir Sehgal, who produced “American Dreamers” with Davis, is the child of immigrants, and sought with the album to create a work of art that was an antidote to the current climate of xenophobia, hatred and fear in America.

“My parents came from India many years ago, and while I was born and raised in America, I grew up knowing how important and integral immigrants were to the American experience,” says Sehgal. “I am deeply deeply about the rhetoric here in the States, and I thought we can get angry or we can create another vision of what we want America to be like. Music was a way to shed humanity of dreamers.”

The choice to make a jazz record (as opposed to, say, rock or R&B) was not only an aesthetic one, but symbolic, says Daversa, a Grammynominated composer, arranger and jazz trumpeter of international renown who chairs the studio music and jazz department at U of Miami’s Frost School of Music.

“Jazz exists as the soundtrack of the downtrodden and persecuted and has been at the forefront of social justice,” he says. “Jazz lends itself to interpretative performances. Jazz allows the dreamers to be artistes. I hope that people listening to this album understand that dreamers are patriotic Americans – just like we are. I hope the patriotism comes through and what, whatever a person’s preconceived notions were, that we can change them through music and shed a light on this in a way that people hadn’t looked at before.”

Crisis

Not every Dreamer on the record – which includes spoken-word interstitials in which each one shares about his backstory – is a professional-caliber musician, but all of them have something to say to the American people about the nation’s current immigration crisis.

“I hope people can listen to it and forget about what people’s backgrounds are and just think about the music and the beauty in it,” says Nafees, who sings and plays piano on a couple of tracks. “Forget about immigration, forget about some people being undocumented. Listen to it as music, as humans do. That’s the goal, that people build a connection to the album and then, hopefully, it will help them understand this is a human issue.”

“The ‘American Dreamers’ project was more than just a recording session, it was an outlet for me to speak out as an undocumented immigrant through a medium that has carried my life,” adds Denzel Mendoza, who was born in Singapore and has been playing trombone since the sixth grade. “The project carries a message about the stark reality behind the lives of the undocumented youth, a community that I and hundreds of thousands of others have been a part of for most of our lives. We have been living in the shadows for too long. This project provides such an opportune moment to educate others about how difficult this reality is for us. The music on the album is incredible and the message behind the music is powerful. I want people to understand that wholeheartedly: love your neighbor as much as you love yourself.”

Senator Kamala D. Harris, who got an advance preview of the album, is already singing its praises, and plans to share its collective message of inclusion with her colleagues on the congressional floor.

“Music has always been tied to the fight for justice,” says Harris. “During the Civil Rights Movement, Nina Simone and John Coltrane performed what became anthems for freedom. (RTRS)