Frank London & The Elders - Spirit Stronger Than Blood

"Spirit Stronger Than Blood pays homage to some of the recordings that shaped my musical-spiritual aesthetic: Charles Mingus’s Changes 1&2, Booker Little’s Strength and Sanity, Pharaoh Sanders’s Peace and Love, Clifford Thornton’s Gardens of Harlem, Alice Coltrane’s Ptah, The El Daoud. Each of these artists, as different as they are from each other, shared a commonality of intention that set me on my life and career path. Their music is spiritual, political, romantic, at turns angry and peaceful, and inspires us to transcend and challenge the inequities of quotidian existence in order to make the world a better place, to heal the broken world (tikkun olam).

Some of the songs are inspired by Jewish texts—“Let There Be Peace” from the prayer Oseh Shalom, asking the Almighty to bring us peace; “Abundant Love” is in the Jewish prayer mode, Ahava Raba, acknowledging God’s infinite love for all of us. “Poem for a Blue Voice” is a poem by davida singer, whose partner Isabel Deconinck never let her blood cancer quash her indominable spirit. “Resilience and Resistance” are attributes that we need to get through the trials, tribulations, and indignities life can throw at us. Healing of course from disease, but also from trauma, from blind obeisance to dogma.

Spirit Stronger Than Blood. I was recently diagnosed with myelofibrosis, an extremely rare and fatal blood cancer, and dedicate this recording to my dear friends and colleagues who have passed away from blood diseases & other cancers—Lester Bowie, Thomas Chapin, Adrienne Cooper, Isabelle Deconinck, Jewlia Eisenberg, Ron Miles, and my namesake, Frank London Brown. Check out all of their work and be inspired.

Spirit Stronger Than Blood is my celebration of life, making music with my friends and chosen family".—Frank London, April 2024