Richard Alston performs "Troubled Water"

Here is a video of pianist Richard Alston playing “Troubled Water” by composer Margaret Allison Bonds. This selection relates to a post I wrote a few days ago about musicians of African heritage, where I linked to William H. Chapman Nyaho’s excerpted recording of the same piece. The performance here is really solid, but I’ll have to concede that the video’s sound quality is not too great. Nevertheless the piece is presented in its entirety. Don’t be fooled by the relatively calm groove set in the opening; the water reaches quite a rockin' boiling point in this virtuosic reworking of the spiritual “Wade in the Water.”



Richard Alston is Assistant Professor at Essex County College in Newark, New Jersey.