Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz by Langston Hughes

For most of this month, Carnegie Hall has been presenting a festival called Honor! Curated by soprano Jessye Norman, it showcases the cultural legacy of African-American musicians. Norman takes the Carnegie stage Monday night, joined by hip-hop artists The Roots and the Orchestra of St. Luke's to perform the world premiere of a new piece by composer Laura Karpman called Ask Your Mama, featuring the poetry of Langston Hughes.

Karpman was going through a bookstore when she stumbled onto a little-known epic poem by Hughes, the poet laureate of the Harlem Renaissance. It was called Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz.

via: npr