[Image: Albert Marquès and Keith LaMar]
An all-star concert for Keith LaMar, who has spent almost 34 years in solitary confinement on death row in Ohio for a crime he didn’t commit. With Freedom First – Albert Marquès, Victor Pablo, and Keith LaMar; David Amram and his Loisaida Pick-Up Orchestra, featuring Adam Amram and friends; The Tompkins Trio, with Kiki Cotto, Angel Acevedo, and Ernest Gonzalez; and Bobby Sanabria with Los Pleneros de la Calle. Poets Caridad de la Luz (aka La Bruja), Marcos de la Fuente, and Tito Lespier will also be there – and there will be many more surprise guests!
This is very special event is presented by La Sala de Pepe y Foto Espacio and The Village Trip in partnership with The Nuyorican Poets Café, Loisaida Inc and Piragua Art Space. Join us in raising our voices for all of our brothers, sisters and siblings unfairly treated by the US criminal justice system and our call for prison reform and the abolition of the death penalty.
Freedom First began in 2020 as a concert series with dozens of musicians on the streets of New York, playing the jazz standards that helped LaMar survive these long decades in solitary, including him speaking live by telephone between songs.
Freedom First is also the title of LaMar’s album, released in February 2022. Conceived of and produced by Brooklyn-based, Catalan pianist Albert Marquès, it is a collaboration between an international group of jazz musicians playing both new compositions and standards, and LaMar, who recites poetry via phone and video from the Ohio State Penitentiary. Freedom First is the first album in history by an artist on death row. LaMar is scheduled to be executed by the State of Ohio in January 2027. Time flies, we can’t let this happen. There’s lots of work to do!
