Trumpeter and composer Alonzo Demetrius addresses prison reform with his working band of Yesseh Furaha-Ali/ts, Daniel Abraham Jr/p-key, Benjamin Jephta/b and Brian Richburg Jr/dr, mixing musical and social messages.
Spoken messages by radical Angela Davis and famed prisoner-writer Mumia Abu Jamaal add to the direction of the melancholic “Expectations” and soft ballad of “Mumia’s Guidance” respectively, which dark echoes hinting at the loneliness of prison life on “The Principle” and sounds of protest on “G.O.O. Interlude”. The Mumia Abu Jamaal at The Berklee College of Music is filled with moments of passion, anger, calls for reform and despair. One wishes there were hints of hope and answers.