Once heralded as a “young lion” of jazz, Avery Sharpe is now a savvy 65-year-old veteran of performing, recording, composing, and teaching. Perhaps best known for his long association with pianist McCoy Tyner, Sharpe has backed many jazz greats and has led his own groups, playing both upright and electric bass, and recorded 13 albums for his label, JKNM Records. His latest is 400: An African American Musical Portrait, which was released earlier this year. It is a brilliant, wide-ranging suite with ten tunes, all but one composed by Sharpe, that present a musical overview of the African American experience, from the arrival of the first slave ship in 1619 to the present day. In the album’s liner notes, David Adler compares 400 to Duke Ellington’s Black, Brown and Beige. It’s an apt comparison. Just as Ellington did in 1943, Sharpe has used the expressive power of his compositions to present an historical perspective that uses both words and music to communicate with — and educate — his listeners. Throughout the album, Sharpe’s bass is the central voice, whether he is playing a melody, providing subtle support, stepping forward to solo, or engaging in dialogue with the other musicians. “All music starts from the bottom,” he says. “Bass is second nature for me, and I hear things from the bottom first. I go from there.” As he began to conceive the work, Sharpe says, he asked himself, “How can I put 400 years into 60 minutes? I started thinking about how I wanted to approach that compositionally. I decided to break it up into 100-year intervals.” Those four centuries became the structural components of the suite, with each era represented by two or three pieces. The first section, Century One, begins with “Arrival,” a sort of overture featuring some of the key players who are heard throughout, including guitarist Kevin Eubanks, saxophonist/flutist Don Braden, and drummer Ronnie Burrage, who has been collaborating with Sharpe since the 1980s. After an opening instrumental theme, we hear the Extended Family Choir — a six-voice group that includes Sharpe’s brother, sister, niece, and nephew — singing “stolen from my land” in Swahili. After guitar and tenor sax solos, there is a call-and-response section with Sharpe’s bass and Tendai Muparutsa’s djembe (an African goblet-shaped drum) answering the choir, as they sing “the new world” in Swahili. The voices and instruments then unite for a closing theme. The second piece is called “Is There a Way Home” and expresses the longing of the slaves for their African homeland. “I did that tune for a play with the actress Jasmine Guy, called Raisin’ Cane, which was based on the literary work of Jean Toomer,” says Sharpe. “It’s not angry — it’s more like a lullaby.” Sharpe’s solo on the tune is like a griot’s tale, with flurries of notes, double-stops, and ascending phrases that combine to create a narrative arc. Century Two begins with �