A year after Children of the Fire, the self-released suite with strings that is now a collector's record, Hannibal Marvin Peterson took a smaller version of his Sunrise Orchestra to Tonstudio Bauer in Ludwigsburg. Two days, 1 and 2 July 1975, produced by Joachim-Ernst Berendt, engineered by Kurt Rapp and Martin Wieland for MPS.
The band is the core Hannibal kept for years: Diedre Murray on cello, Michael Cochrane on piano, with Stafford James on bass, Thabo Michael Carvin on drums, percussion and voice, and Chris Hart on bells. Hannibal plays trumpet, koto and sings.
Five pieces. Murray's The Rabbit is a short modal piece with quick cello and trumpet solos. Cochrane's Revelation is modal with an Afro-Latin pulse. Erroll Garner's Misty is the ballad. The Voyage, on which the band moves to percussion and Hannibal to koto, is a portrait of the Middle Passage. Soul Brother - In Dedication to Malcolm X runs almost fourteen minutes and would stay in his book (he recorded it again with George Adams in 1984). The New York Times once called him the Muhammad Ali of jazz trumpet players; MPS quotes the line in its notes.
Japanese CD edition from Solid's MPS series.
