The New Yorker Announces Marcus Roberts' 'Race For The White House' EP

Over at The New Yorker, Ryan Lizza spoke to jazz pianist Marcus Roberts about his new project of songs inspired by current presidential candidates: "Making America Great Again (All By Myself)" [Donald Trump], "It's My Turn" [Hillary Clinton], "I Did Chop Down That Cherry Tree" [Ben Carson], and "Feel the Bern" [Bernie Sanders]. 

Read the piece and listen to the first song "Feel the Bern" as Bernie celebrates his New Hampshire win: http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/feeling-the-bern-in-g-minor

Roberts and his band explore each candidate's character on the nonpartisan 'Race to the White House' EP. "You can't turn on the television without some daily update on these various candidates, and there just seems to be such a difference in every character," he tells the New Yorker. "They all have different personalities, temperaments, voice, rate of speed. It dawned on me that it would be interesting to try to capture a little bit of that in music. Jazz musicians, you know, we improvise, we make stuff up. We're kind of a lot like these candidates when they're at these town halls. When they're being interviewed, people ask you all kinds of crazy stuff and you've got to think quick on your feet. So I thought it would be kind of cool to try to write some music that would in some way describe these personalities."