Howard Wiley and the Angola Project featuring Faye Carol
12 Gates to the City
www.howardwiley.com
By George W. Harris

Saxist Howard Wiley threw down a musical gauntlet with last year’s aggressive and passionate The Angola Project, which detailed the injustices in the infamous Louisiana prison. Here, on his follow-up, Wiley delivers a 13-song suite which continues the saga, much like a Ken Burns documentary. Penning originals, and mixing them with the famed field recordings from the library of Alan and John Lomax, as well as stories from his own visit to the pen, Wiley combines straight-ahead, free, R&B, gospel and rap. There’s a 3 movement piece that melds chain-gang rhythms with howling horns and lilting wordless voices, while the torrential outpouring of Wiley’s sax on “Endless Fields” feels like a chase scene from Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Grand Canyon wide in its ambitious scope, the disc closes with a penetrating spoken track by former Angola inmate Robert King, who delivers a message of despair and hope. The liner notes naïvely hope that Obama’s presidency will renew our faith in the Constitution and open up an honest dialogue about race. Maybe Wiley’s next project will address the present administration’s abysmal failure of its promise, and Wiley’s linking of the Black Panthers with “real democracy” flies in the face of the recent video of the New Black Panthers intimidating people at the voting booth.