'Troubled Water' by Margaret Bonds is on CD 'West of the Sun', Released Yesterday by Joel Fan

[Margaret Allison Richardson Bonds (1913-1972)]

Troubled Water by Margaret Allison Richardson Bonds is included on a CD released yesterday, West of the Sun, Music of the Americas. The pianist is Joel Fan, of Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Ensemble. The CD is Reference Recordings RR-119 (2009). The New York Times reports on a CD release party held April 13, 2009:

NYTimes.com

MUSIC REVIEW | JOEL FAN
To Woo the Widest Public, a Pianist Goes Clubbing
By ALLAN KOZINN
Published: April 14, 2009
“The pianist Joel Fan took over Le Poisson Rouge on Monday evening to celebrate the release of 'West of the Sun,' his new collection of music of the Americas for Reference Recordings.” “If you amplify too much, as he did, the piano takes on an unnatural glare and boominess.

“That said, his playing was the picture of textural clarity in Ernesto Nazareth’s 'Vem Cá, Branquinha,' which he played with the sparkle and rhythmic suppleness of a jazz improviser. He brought similar qualities to two works that quote folk themes, Villa-Lobos’s Chôro No. 5 ('Alma Brasileira'), with its gauzy bass and gracefully singing melody, and Margaret Bonds’s 'Troubled Water,' a set of bravura variations on the spiritual 'Wade in the Water.'” [Margaret Allison Richardson Bonds was an African American composer, pianist and musical director who was born in Chicago in 1913 and died in Los Angeles in 1972. She is profiled at AfriClassical.com, where a Works List by Dr. Dominique-René de Lerma can be found]