On January 13th, 2027, the State of Ohio intends to execute Keith LaMar. Today—a few days out from his 56th birthday—he’s celebrating the release of his second album, Freedom First: Live From Death Row. A live rendition of LaMar and jazz musician Albert Marquès’ 2022 project, the album is the first known live recording from a death row inmate, recorded during a benefit concert for LaMar’s ongoing struggle for a stay of execution and, ultimately, exoneration from convictions LaMar has steadfastly maintained are wrongful. During the concert, LaMar calls in via a cellhouse phone call rigged up to speakers, orating his poetry over the improvisational stylings of Marquès’ Freedom First jazz group. The call resets several times throughout the concert; the automated voice of Ohio State Penitentiary's call collection is a stark reminder of the gravity of the poet’s situation.
Freedom First: Live From Death Row and its predecessor are real life miracles, works of art created despite the restrictive and dehumanizing conditions of the American carceral system. “The studio album was the first album in history with someone calling in live from death row to record the songs,” Marquès explains. “[The live album] is a recording of a concert we did in Brooklyn a few weeks before the day that he was supposed to be executed in 2023, so it has a very special energy. The most important thing of the live album is it captures the energy of the live audience and of Keith calling in from prison, with all the logistical challenges that presents. Not only the obvious one, but also him as a performer for the band, the delays, etc. It captures the magic thing that, as Keith says in the lyrics, is not supposed to happen.”
After a stunning live performance of the album at Northwestern University’s Gavin Hall, we talked with Marquès about the collaboration process and with LaMar about the power of jazz until the Ohio State Penitentiary forcibly cut the call. Listen to the live album and read our conversations with the poet and jazz musician below, and find more information about Keith LaMar’s case here.
How did the idea for the live album come about?
Marquès: I’m also a public school teacher in New York City. That’s what I do: empower students and people who don’t necessarily consider themselves an artist, to show them that they can also create music. So a lot of the things I’ve done in the process I learned as a public school teacher. As you witnessed during the concert, he’s extremely talented, so he doesn’t need that much help. When we released the first album in 2022, we’d done some concerts. We’ve played in South America, many places in Europe, and all over the United States. The live album was a natural next step to document this magical thing that you witnessed tonight, but not everyone can witness. I personally think it’s a historical artifact by itself, and also it does help the audience that can’t attend the concerts to imagine what it would be like.
What has Keith and your relationship with him meant to you?
Marquès: The whole thing wouldn’t exist without a personal relationship. As he says in the lyrics, there’s so much trust involved. My kids call him “Uncle.” It’s a very personal relationship, because it’s very hard to do what we do. Visiting him, going into prisons—of which I’ve been in many, now—it makes me a better human being.
Keith, what’s your writing process for the poetry?
LaMar: In terms of the music we just performed, some of that I wrote independent of the music, and Marquès matched the music to my words. But for some, he sent me these small sketches of a song, and I was able to find a complement in my CD collection and use that as a template and then write my words in and through the music. All I do is listen to music—without even realizing that this was forming in me. When the opportunity presented itself, it just kinda flowed out. I’ve been writing for a couple decades, so I do have a sense of rhythm, a sense of place. What I’m really trying to do is tell my story in as many mediums as possible to get the word out. I’ve written essays and several books, but writing music was a different assignment in the sense that it had to be paired with the music, rhythmically. So it was just about slowing down my thoughts and latching onto the key things of my struggle.
How important is it to you that your spoken word is over improvisational jazz?
LaMar: I think it’s metaphorical in the sense that my life is somewhat improvisational. I don’t know what manner of madness is awaiting me tomorrow. These concerts are beautiful, elevated, and all of that, but I experience the direct opposite in here. I think it’s directly connected to the good that’s cultivated out there. Newton said that for every action there’s an equal, opposite reaction. It’s not because I’ve done anything personal to any one guard, but they’ve converged together in attack mode on me. I’m only eating one meal [a day] right now because they’ve been tampering with my food. It’s really ridiculous, but I recognize this as being connected to all the movement that’s going on out there. There’s something about being a part of this environment for so long that the fact that I want to leave is almost like I’m breaking up with a girlfriend. She notices that I’m disgruntled, that I’m no longer happy, and the environment seems to be reacting in that sense.
We’re here at the concerts and I can feel the energy penetrating. Of course I can’t get the full impact because I’m in a different space, but I can feel it. The musicians are really a mirror of the life that I’m living in here. If I react negatively to what’s going on, then it’ll throw off the rhythm of everything. I’ll go to the hole. I could no longer make phone calls. We could no longer do what we’re doing. It would sound different, it would look different. The whole thing is to dip in and over—that’s what I mean by the metaphor. It’s the same thing I’m doing in my life. That’s essentially what’s happening, and it’s organic in every sense with Albert. He was a kid when I was thrown into the system. He’s from a whole other country, speaks a totally different language. But music, that’s the bridge. That’s the thing that equalizes everything. When he’s playing piano I’m still talking because we’re still in communication, even though he’s speaking Catalan. We’ve got a hell of a rapport, man.
What is some of your favorite music to listen to, and what do those pieces do for you?
LaMar: John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Grover Washington—all the greats. Thelonious Monk. An old man named Snoop who I reference in one of the songs turned me onto this music when I was 26, when I arrived on death row. The way he talked to me about jazz is that these aren’t sounds, these are people. This music is not just sounds coming out of the instrument, this is a ship moving through the waves. The cymbal can be likened to the sound of the waves, the snare to the heartbeat. That heartbeat is the slaves in the hold. The bass line is the rise and the setting of the sun, because this journey is gonna take more than one day. The piano is how the wind’s blowing. You can hear the wind as it interacts with the wood, the hull of the ship. All of that’s music.
That traumatizing situation for us, embedded in those slaves—they weren’t slaves yet. That’s where Snoop told me jazz came from, and Black people’s music. This isn’t just entertainment, it’s messaging. Listening to it over and over, recalibrating my emotional circuitry and reconnecting myself to the past. I don’t really try to think about it or talk about it too much, because I recognize it as a sacred thing. It’s not just my story. It’s the same seminal experience of being on the slave ship. I’m on that ship right now. This is an extension of that same story, and I’m trying to be a vehicle for that.
