Keith LaMar & Albert Marquès

LIVE FROM DEATH ROW
Release Date: May 30, 2025

In 2022, Cleveland-born poet, writer and activist Keith LaMar and Brooklyn-based, Catalan pianist and composer Albert Marquès made history with the release of Freedom First, the first-ever full-length album created by an artist on death row. Now they will break new ground once more with the release of LIVE FROM THE DEATH ROW, the first-ever live album recorded by an artist facing execution on death row.

Recorded in September 2023 at ShapeShifter Plus in Brooklyn, LIVE FROM DEATH ROW captures the powerful energy of a sold-out audience witnessing history. LaMar performed live via phone from the solitary confinement cell where he has spent more than 30 years for a crime he maintains he did not commit. He is scheduled for execution by the State of Ohio on January 13, 2027.

The concert featured an extraordinary ensemble, including Nia Drummond (voice), Elsa Nilsson (flute), Milena Casado (trumpet), Caroline Davis (alto saxophone), Roy Nathanson (baritone and alto saxophone), Keyanna Hutchinson (electric guitar),  Matthew Garrison (electric bass) and Zack O’Farrill (drums).

“This band is diverse in every way—gender, race, age, nationality,” LaMar shares. “Freedom First is more than a band; it’s a movement. Through music, we amplify my voice and the voices of all those sentenced to death in the United States. This is a fight for our collective liberation.”

Since 2020, LaMar and Marquès have toured the world with their project Freedom First, collaborating with a rotating roster of international musicians in cities across the United States and abroad. Despite his confinement, LaMar performs his spoken word poetry in real-time via phone from the Ohio State Penitentiary. The Freedom First project has received extensive media coverage, including features in The New York Times, WNYC, Rolling Stone, Democracy Now!, Le Figaro (France), El Diario - El Pais (Spain) and Time Out (Barcelona), among others. 

LaMar’s conviction stems from the 1993 Lucasville Prison Uprising, an 11-day standoff that left the State of Ohio desperate to assign blame. With physical evidence compromised by law enforcement mishandling, prosecutors leaned on incentivized informant testimony to convict LaMar, suppressing exculpatory evidence—including confessions from the actual perpetrators. Tried before an all-white jury in a rural Ohio community, LaMar was sentenced to death. More details about his case can be found at keithlamar.org. Additionally, artist Molly Crabapple’s award-winning video offers an in-depth visual account of his story.

During his time in prison, LaMar became a student of jazz, especially drawn to John Coltrane and A Love Supreme. “John Coltrane saved my life,” LaMar said. “Had it not been for A Love Supreme, I'm sure I would have lost myself [in prison]. I listened to it every day, and it rewired something in me, changed the circuitry of my brain and opened me up in a way that allowed me to view things (most especially myself) through a broader lens. I needed that, to free my mind, in order to keep living and breathing.”

As explained in a 2022 piece on the case and Freedom First in The New York Times, LaMar came to the attention of the jazz community after talking to Mother Jones in 2020 about the case and his experience filling his time in solitary confinement. Brian Jackson, a jazz musician who frequently collaborated with Gil Scott-Heron, then reached out to LaMar. Together, they created a podcast about music and justice which attracted more attention. Over the past five years, the jazz community has rallied around LaMar, presenting numerous concerts to benefit the Justice for Keith Lamar campaign and advocate for his freedom.

FREEDOM FIRST is part of Marquès’ larger initiative Ampl!fy Voices, which aims to create music with individuals affected by state-sponsored violence and censorship, ensuring that their stories are heard.

MORE ABOUT LIVE FROM DEATH ROW

The album opens with “I Woke Up This Morning,” a gospel hymn powerfully delivered by operatic soprano Nia Drummond. Originally composed by Reverend Robert Wesby while jailed during the Freedom Rides, the song is a Civil Rights anthem. The track concludes with the stark, pre recorded message that precedes calls from the Ohio State Penitentiary. Marquès asks: “Keith, can you hear me?” LaMar’s response, “I can hear you”, ignites a wave of applause, affirming the extraordinary nature of this live recording.

Marquès’ original composition, “The Journey,” follows, symbolizing LaMar’s perseverance and renewed hope after his execution date was pushed from November 16, 2023, to early 2027. The track weaves contemporary jazz, hip-hop, and spoken word, culminating in a soaring flute solo and an electrifying trumpet passage that echoes Miles Davis at his most expressive.

“Calling All Souls” revisits a piece from FREEDOM FIRST, celebrating the artistic kinship between LaMar and Marquès. The composition blends blues, avant-garde jazz, and Afro-Cuban rhythms in tribute to John Coltrane, climaxing in a fevered call to collective consciousness.

A stirring rendition of Coltrane’s “Alabama” appears next, with bassist Matt Garrison channeling his father, Jimmy Garrison, anchor of the John Coltrane Quartet. The piece, composed in response to the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church which claimed the lives of four black girls – Addie Mae Collins (14), Cynthia Wesley (14), Carole Robertson (14), and Carol Denise McNair (11) – takes on haunting new depth in LaMar’s hands, his voice serving as both a lament and a battle cry.

Samora Pinderhughes’ composition “Transformation” follows. Described by the composer as “part meditation on being Black in America and part command for society to give Black Americans justice,” this powerful piece is a spotlight for Nia Drummond. Drummond’s emotive refrain, “We want justice,” leads into a searing saxophone solo by Roy Nathanson that amplifies the song’s urgency.

The protest-driven “Tell ‘Em The Truth” layers intricate jazz phrasing with poetic invocations, culminating in a call to protect future generations from the systemic injustices LaMar has endured. The piece ends with a gorgeous dialogue between Caroline Davis on alto saxophone and Milena Casado on trumpet, as LaMar implores listeners to tell children the truth about the world and the dangers ahead.

Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit,” a searing indictment of racial violence, gains added poignancy in LaMar’s spoken introduction, underscoring the parallels between historic lynchings and the modern death penalty.

Nazım Hikmet’s poem “On Living”, was written in 1948 while imprisoned for his activism. With great reverence, LaMar intones this brilliant poem from death row exactly 75 years later, finding new resonance as delivered from death row, bridging past and present struggles for freedom. The piece was the first collaboration between LaMar and Marquès, originally created during the COVID-19 lockdown. Performing it live was a full circle moment for both Marquès and LaMar, as they have grown from two strangers collaborating with an ocean in between, to close friends and bandmates.

The album closes with a powerful trio of compositions: Coltrane’s “Acknowledgement,” where LaMar intones “a love supreme” across state lines alongside Davis’ fervent playing; “The Drowned and the Saved,” inspired by Primo Levi’s Holocaust reflections of the same name; and Kamasi Washington’s “Truth,” an exuberant jam session affirming the enduring power of justice, music, and collective resistance. “When you are innocent, nothing matters more than the truth,” reflected LaMar.