The Descendants of Mike and Phoebe - 1973 - A Spirit Speaks

The Descendants of Mike and Phoebe

1973

A Spirit Speaks

Two Songs For A Boy Named Mark

01.a Little Bitty Baby

01.b Soliloquy To A Man-Child

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02. Coltrane

03. Chick Chick

04. Well Done, Weldon

05. A Spirit Speaks

06. Attica

07. Take My Hand, Precious Lord

08. Boll Weevil

09. Don't Be A Stranger

10. Too Little, Too Late

Bass [String] – Bill Lee (2)

Engineer – Ron Carran

Flugelhorn – Clif Lee

Liner Notes – Howard A. Sims

Percussion – Billy Higgins (tracks: 4, 5, 6), Sonny Brown (tracks: 1 to 8, 10)

Piano – Consuela Lee Moorehead

Vocals – A. Grace Lee Mims (tracks: 1, 5 to 7, 10)

The Descendants of Mike and Phoebe, a short-lived musical enseble from the early 1970s, was a family project led by jazz bassist and composer Bill Lee, born in 1928 in Snow Hill, Alabama. Lee, later known as Spike Lee’s father, came from a musical lineage—his father, Arnold Wadsworth Lee, was a cornet player and band director at Florida A&M University, and his mother, Alberta Grace Edwards, was a concert pianist. The group’s name honored their enslaved ancestors, Mike and Phoebe, from a Snow Hill plantation, a theme central to their work, blending personal history with African American resilience and spirituality. Lee, a seasoned jazz musician who later scored films like She’s Gotta Have It and Do the Right Thing, was deeply involved with Strata-East Records, a Black-owned label founded in 1971 by Charles Tolliver and Stanley Cowell. Known for its artist-driven spiritual jazz, Strata-East was a hub for socially conscious music during the civil rights era. Lee recorded three albums for the label, with A Spirit Speaks (1974, recorded in 1973) being the first, cut over three days at Minot Studios in White Plains, New York, with Lee producing and Ron Carran engineering.

Emerging during the spiritual jazz movement alongside artists like John Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders, A Spirit Speaks fused jazz, gospel, soul, and blues into a narrative folk-jazz opera. Recorded with family members—Consuela Lee Moorehead on piano, Cliff Lee on flugelhorn, A. Grace Lee Mims on soprano vocals, and guest percussionists Billy Higgins and Sonny Brown—the album was a tribute to ancestral roots. Its rarity, due to Strata-East’s limited distribution, made it a collector’s item, with original vinyls fetching high prices until reissues by Pure Pleasure Records in 2022 and Mack Avenue Music Group in 2025 revived its accessibility.

The album opens with “Two Songs for a Boy Named Mark,” a medley blending the tender, gospel-infused “Little Bitty Baby” with the introspective “Soliloquy to a Man-Child,” setting a familial tone. “Coltrane,” a tribute to the jazz titan, features Cliff Lee’s flugelhorn in a questing, spiritual mode, later covered by Clifford Jordan. “Chick Chick” brings chaotic joy, with skittering rhythms and percussive energy from Higgins and Brown, tempered by Moorehead’s precise piano. “Well Done, Weldon” and the title track “A Spirit Speaks” dive into hypnotic modal jazz, evoking ancestral voices, while “Attica” references the 1971 prison uprising with brooding bass and percussion. The gospel standards “Take My Hand, Precious Lord” and “Boll Weevil” are reimagined—the former as a soulful plea, the latter as lively, careening gospel. “Don’t Be a Stranger,” a piano-led ballad, offers intimate beauty, and “Too Little, Too Late,” with Bill Lee’s rare vocals, closes on a poignant note.

Critically, A Spirit Speaks is celebrated as a spiritual jazz masterpiece, praised for its ensemble interplay and adventurous vitality, earning ratings around 4.57/5. A. Grace Lee Mims’ operatic soprano vocals, however, polarize listeners—some find them enchanting, others overpowering. The album’s raw, live-in-studio feel and lack of overdubs emphasize its authenticity. More than music, it’s a cultural artifact, weaving family lore with themes of freedom and struggle, its reissues ensuring its voice endures for new audiences.