A fierce talent on the local jazz scene, trumpeter Feven Kidane presents a very special set of original music inspired by the documentary Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat… music which seeks to connect with the film and embody a learning spirit, remembrance, and decades-old shared grief.

Feven explains, “this film gives me mixed feelings. not mixed as in “i’m half in”, but mixed in the fact that the content itself is so emotional that my horn will have to work extra hard. mixed in the fact that its honesty hurts me. this film has me enraged, inspired, and activated. it gives me hope for a united Blackness, but upset by constant thwarted plans for its achievement.”

For this occasion, Feven’s band consists of Quincy Mayes on keys, Bernie Arai on drums, and Milo Johnson on bass.

About Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat:
Artfully juxtaposing archival news reports, investigative interviews, and jazz, Johan Grimonprez’s essay film takes a fresh look at the notorious events in the wake of Congo’s independence in the early 1960s, culminating in the assassination of the country’s first democratically-elected leader, Patrice Lumumba. It’s a film about the deceit at the heart of colonialism, and about how jazz (Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Max Roach) figured into the politics of the Cold War and Black Liberation.