When composer and veteran jazz trumpeter Hannibal Lokumbe talked
with troubled teens at St. Paul’s Totem Town and Minnetonka’s Hennepin
County Home School in recent weeks, he asked them to try to turn their
lives around by getting in touch with who they are. He suggested they
start by researching their family histories and keeping a journal.

When Lokumbe wanted to tell the story of his own journey, he
decided to do it in music. He composed a musical memoir called “In the
Spirit of Being” that will receive its world premiere Sunday at
VocalEssence’s annual “Witness” Black History Month concert at St.
Paul’s Ordway Center.

And a very interesting history Lokumbe has had. It began on a
Texas farm, where a barefoot boy (“I didn’t wear shoes for the first
eight years of my life,” he said) went on to address a lot of the anger
he felt about racism and discrimination by channeling it into music. He
moved to New York City and became an acclaimed jazz trumpet player named
Hannibal Marvin Peterson, best known for his work with bandleader Gil
Evans and his own recordings with cellist Diedre Murray and saxophonist
George Adams.

Since becoming Hannibal Lokumbe, he’s found new audiences in
classical concert halls with ambitious long-form compositions that
incorporate elements of both jazz and classical. Like his oratorio,
“Dear Mrs. Parks,” which VocalEssence performed at the 2007 “Witness”
concert. Lokumbe calls the piece being premiered Sunday – “In the Spirit
of Being” — a musical autobiography, but it’s more about the process of self-discovery, represented by four veils.

“Life is a series of veils that are pulled away, making it clearer
and clearer who we are,” he said last week. “You can move from place to
place, but you can’t have a veil removed from your eyes and be the same
person. One of the veils in my piece is called ‘Struggle,’ another
‘Metamorphosis,’ because I was able to see what I could not have seen
had I not struggled. There’s always struggle, but it’s what you do with
it.”

That theme comes through in the conversations with young men in
juvenile detention facilities with whom Lokumbe visits wherever he
travels.

“The young brother I was talking to today, his biggest battle is
with anger,” Lokumbe said. “He had a bandage on his hand where he struck
the wall instead of hitting the counselor. He went on to explain his
life and history, and it became very clear why he was so violent. I let
him know that I understood his situation. I also saw violence as a way
out until I met music. I told him that, once I started learning my
history, the true history of my ancestors, that removed a veil of anger
from me. Because I realized: ‘Ah-ha! I am not who this country has said I
am.’

“Today, I gave some of the young men some lifework. Not homework,
but lifework. I asked them to contact the oldest living member of their
family, interview them, ask them about their job, their dreams. Some of
them say that they never thought of doing such a thing. And this is why
there’s so much hemorrhaging in the heart and soul of people. They’re
missing the guidance of elders. They need to learn about the heroes in
their own families.”

Who: The VocalEssence Chorus with conductor Philip Brunelle,
singer Tonia Hughes, the Macalester College Percussion Ensemble, the
Ramsey School Performing Arts Magnet Children’s Choir and a jazz quartet
featuring trumpeter Hannibal Lokumbe

What: “Witness,” featuring Lokumbe’s “In the Spirit of Being” and traditional music from Africa

When: 4 p.m. Sunday

Where: Ordway Center for the Performing Arts, 345 Washington St., St. Paul

Tickets: $40-$10, available at 651-224-4222 or vocalessence.org