Welcome to the January-February 2021 issue of Black Grooves, sponsored by the Indiana University Archives of African American Music and Culture. In honor of Black History Month, we’re featuring projects that explore the Black experience across multiple musical genres.

Baritone Will Liverman presents music from Black composers on Dreams of a New Day, composer Joseph C. Phillips Jr. explores racial injustice in his new opera The Grey Land, and jazz legend Archie Shepp collaborates with Jason Moran on Let My People Go.

Other jazz selections include soprano Janinah Burnett’s Love the Color of Your Butterfly, Robert Glasper’s R+R=NOW ensemble Live, the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra Septet’s timely The Democracy! Suite; Gabriel Alegria Afro-Peruvian Sextet’s Social Distancing, and the vocalist/trumpet duo Sounds of A&R on Questions Left Unanswered.

Other new releases include composer-musicians Terence Blanchard and Leslie Odom Jr. on One Night in Miami Original Motion Picture Soundtrack; Canadian artist Dominique Fils-Aimé’s Three Little Words; blues artist Selwyn Birchwood’s Living in a Burning House and Alabama Slim’s The Parlor; genre-blending country artist Willie Jones’ Right Now; and Louisiana Creole artist Corey Ledet’s Zydeco.

Wrapping up this issue are the compilations The Ska from Jamaica and A Capella Black Gospel: Look How the World Has Made a Change, 1940-1969, plus our list of December 2020-January 2021 Black Music Releases of Note.