Mali Obomsawin - "Odana"
Photo via Facebook The new single from Mali Obomsawi is one of the most unique and powerful pieces of music we've heard in a while. "Odana" combines traditional Abenaki culture with jazz. It starts off a brass band which is inspired by the marching bands Jesuit priests would bring to reservations. It then evolves into a seventeenth century Abenaki ballad done in free jazz. Obomsawi has crafted a compelling and important song that I'm hardly doing any justice with my description. Mali Obomsawin explains her new song much better than I can: "The first song, 'Odana', looks to the reservation community where I’m enrolled. Odana is a Wabanaki word for ‘the village’ – and Odanak, the name of our Abenaki reservation in southern Quebec, means 'at the village.' Writer unknown, this ballad is a homage to this home that our ancestors founded in the late 1600s. "'Odana' tells the story of those ancestors who fled to modern-day Canada to escape bi...