Millions of Ohioans woke up this morning asking what the prospect of a Democrat governor for the first time in 15 years might mean for them. For one man in Governor-elect Amy Acton’s hometown of Youngstown, the answer might mean life or death.
He is Keith LaMar, a prisoner on death row whose cause inspired Freedom First, a project of activism through music that returns to LaMar’s hometown Saturday for a concert at BOP STOP.
When Catalan-born New York pianist Albert Marqués last brought his project to the Hingetown club in April 2023 (a concert I previewed here), LaMar’s scheduled execution date was only seven months in the future, adding a haunted note to his spoken word contributions delivered by phone from his cell in solitary confinement.
LaMar was given a series of reprieves. The latest, which was announced in August moved the date to Jan. 16, 2030. It’s a start, but the goal of Freedom First is to obtain his release from prison (LaMar insists that he was not present when a corrections officer was killed at the so-called Lucasville Uprising in 1993 and has evidence to prove it).
Freedom First is more of a project than a band, with Marqués recruiting likeminded musicians to join his international touring ensemble. “We always try to engage local musicians,” Marqués told me by phone last week. “We’re over 100 now.”
In Cleveland, bassist Kevin Martinez and drummer Zaire Darden will anchor a local rhythm section for the Bay Area front line of vocalist Sami Stevens and Kazemde George. “Both Kaz and Sami have been playing with us since Freedom First was grassroots, doing concerts outdoors during the BLM protests in New York in 2020 and 2021.”
Of course, the most compelling member of the band won’t be on the stand at all. “I think [LaMar] himself is an extraordinary performer,” Marqués said. “Despite being in solitary confinement and hearing the band through a phone call where the sound is terrible, the performances are incredible. And on top of that, he’s explaining his story and we are fundraising and telling people what is happening in the prisons of this country that we all pay for with our taxes.”
On Friday, Marqués and Amy Gordiejew, the manager of Justice for Keith LaMar will be in Columbus to ask Governor Mike DeWine to issue a clemency hearing in consideration of a full pardon for LaMar.
“This is somebody who is living…with no sunshine, no grass, no fresh air, 23-hours a day in basically a steel box that is the size of a parking space,” Gordiejew said. “There are several forms of clemency,” she said. “A lot of times you’ll hear that somebody was granted clemency and what they gave the person instead of death is life without parole, which is death in prison.”
Since Freedom First’s last BOP STOP concert, several things have happened: a new president with a harsh view of criminal justice, a public statement from DeWine that, “The moral justification I had for voting for the death penalty simply no longer exists,” and the ghoulish, failed attempted execution in Tennessee of Christa Pike and a midterm election that might signal a repudiation of the politics of vengeance and cruelty.
In an email he sent to me in 2023, LaMar cited the solace and inspiration he received from John Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme,” the second movement of which is “Resolution.” Could the moment of resolution finally be at hand for Keith LaMar?
Freedom First Sat., Nov. 7, 8 p.m., BOP STOP, 2920 Detroit Ave., Cleveland, Tickets $20 available here
For the most complete listing of jazz and jazz-adjacent events., look to Jim Szabo’s essential, weekly Northeast Ohio jazz calendar.
NOTE: This was written by a real human being. No artificial intelligence or large language models were used in its creation.
