Shabaka Hutchings is taking a hiatus from the saxophone after 2023, and his trio The Comet Is Coming were scheduled to play what they said was their final show at Slovakia’s Bratislava Jazz Days today (10/20). They’ve now cancelled that show in solidarity with Palestine, and following calls for a global strike for Palestine today.
“We have decided to cancel our concert tonight in Bratislava,” the trio writes. “We stand in solidarity with the global call to strike by our Palestinian brothers and sisters who are in the midst of a genocidal assault.”
“This was to be our final show,” they continue. “Our latest statement is a call for immediate ceasefire, an end to the illegal occupation of Palestine and routine violence enacted against the Palestinian people.”
In a separate post on his own Instagram, Shabaka wrote:
A genocide is happening in Gaza.
Desensitisation is a poison.
‘Balanced discourse’ a euphemism for ‘keep talking while we kill them and steal their land’They call them animals
They describe the mass killing of Palestinians as ‘a struggle between the children of light and the children of darkness’ and then bomb a hospital
And our government makes its allegiance clear, as it ha always done.Do not shut down and do not forget