Remembering the Life of Ana Grace
“Love wins,” is how Jimmy Greene concludes the liner note essay he’s written for his new recording, Beautiful Life. That’s a powerful statement coming from a man whose daughter’s life was taken in the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre two years ago. But Jimmy is a man of faith, and his salutation is a ringing testimonial to the purpose that’s guided him in creating this moving memorial. “Much attention has been paid to the way in which my precious Ana died, but this album attempts to paint the picture of how she lived–lovingly, faithfully, and joyfully.”
I wrote about what I witnessed of Ana on a memorial blog in December 2012, In Memory of Ana Grace Marquez-Greene. Four months earlier, in Welcome Home, Jimmy Greene, I wrote about how grateful and expectant the jazz community of Greater Hartford was when the Marquez-Greene family moved back to Connecticut after they’d spent three years living in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
What the saxophonist has now created is a work of lyrical beauty, depth, and love. He notes that it’s a humble offering to the hope that the Marquez-Greene family’s loss, and what many recognize as the graceful way they’ve sublimated their grief, might stir society in a new direction, away from violence and towards peace and understanding. Beautiful Life includes six Green originals, including “Ana’s Way,” which recounts aspects of Ana’s six years of life and celebrates her indelible aura. “Ana had a way about her,” sings Kurt Elling and the Linden Christian School Early Years Choir, the church choir that Ana and her brother Isaiah sang with when they lived in Winnipeg. The album begins with a medley of “Saludos” (Spanish for “greeting”) and “Come Thou Almighty King,” which is played as a duet by Greene on tenor sax and Pat Metheny on guitar. It concludes with a tape recording of Ana singing and Isaiah playing piano on the famous hymn by Charles Wesley. You’ll never hear it, or sing it, quite the same way again.
Renee Rosnes, Christian McBride, and Lewis Nash are heard throughout Beautiful Life. Cyrus Chestnut and members of the Hartford Symphony Orchestra accompany Latanya Farrell on Jimmy’s splendid setting of The Lord’s Prayer. The collection of ten songs also includes duets between Jimmy and pianist Kenny Barron on “Maybe,” one of Ana’s favorites from Annie, and Lionel Bart’s, “Where Is Love.” Greene notes that Jackie McLean “showed me the melody of “Where Is Love” in 1990, on the first day we met at the Artists Collective [of Hartford]. I was 15 years old and decided on that day music would be my life’s work.”
Greene adds, “Within this recording is an assertion that, despite the seemingly unbearable weight of our loss, there is still lots of beauty all around and much to be thankful for in this life. I’m grateful that my dad reminded me of this fact in the days after Ana was killed because from that moment, my focus gradually shifted from outward to inward, eventually resulting in this recording.”