Presidential Suite: Eight Variations on Freedom

On this unprecedented historic release, Grammy-nominated composer/saxophonist/ conceptualist Ted Nash transforms key moments from 20th century speeches on freedom into a lushly orchestrated suite of modern jazz. Nash transcribed the speeches for their actual musical pitches and created themes, placing them into contexts that embraced the speakers and the location and era of the speeches. For the recording, each track is introduced by an excerpt from the speech that inspired it, read by significant figures from the world of entertainment, politics and sports, including actors Glenn Close and Sam Waterston; civil rights pioneer Andrew Young; Senator Joe Lieberman; authors Deepak Chopra and Douglas Brinkley; diplomats William vanden Heuvel and David Miliband.

Two-disc set (disc one includes speeches followed by music; second disc includes music-only tracks).