2007 · Album
Ota Benga of the Batwa
Recorded 2007 · Cadence Jazz Records · Produced by David Haney
Priester's Unexpected Turn Toward History and Witness
A trombone-and-piano conversation that refuses easy answers about exploitation, identity, and who gets to tell whose story.
By 2007, Julian Priester had spent decades as a sideman and collaborator—Herbie's fusion projects, Sun Ra's cosmic experiments, the Art Ensemble's expansionist vision. This album stands apart: it's the rare moment when Priester stepped fully into his own conceptual space, using a real historical atrocity as his subject. Ota Benga, the Congolese man displayed in the Bronx Zoo in 1906, is not incidental to the music here. The title announces intention. Paired with David Haney on piano, Priester doesn't soft-pedal the subject into abstraction. The trombone voice—always capable of growl and resistance—becomes a vehicle for something closer to testimony than soloing. The interplay between trombone and piano is restrained, almost conversational, which makes the weight of what's being addressed feel heavier, not lighter. There's no spectacle, no fusion pyrotechnics, no pretense that music can resolve what cannot be resolved. Haney matches Priester's clarity with sparse, intentional voicings—space matters as much as notes. This is a mature artist using his instrument to sit with a difficult history rather than transcend it. The record didn't reach wide audiences and remains known mainly to committed Priester followers, but it's the clearest statement of his artistic conscience on record. Not his most technically flashy work, but perhaps his most necessary one.
Who's playing
David Haneypiano
Julian Priestertrombone
Where next?
More by Julian Priester
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