Benjamin Koppel

White Buses – Passage to Freedom

Cowbell Music

Often music is the best conveyor of stories.  And, if there were justice in the music world, Danish saxophonist and composer Benajmin Koppel’s White Buses – Passage to Freedom would accrue the kind of publicity that Silk Road Ensembles’ American Railroad (that amplifies the untold stories of African American, Chinese, Indigenous, Irish, and other communities in the creation of North America’s railroads) has. Koppel’s masterwork sets to music the rescue operations organized and coordinated by the Red Cross during WW II freeing 20,000 concentration camp prisoners from Nazi extermination camps via the White Buses which drove the prisoners to safety in Denmark and Sweden. Koppel interviewed some 32 survivors whose testimonials (serving as “pull quotes) are interspersed with 33 brief instrumental tracks with Koppel’s alto as the lead voice supported by the top shelf ensemble of Grammy-nominated Thana Alexa (vocal), Five-time Grammy winner Antonio Sanchez (drums), Uri Caine (grand piano), Scott Colley (bass), soloist from the Danish National Symphony Orchestra Henrik Dam Thomsen (cello), and Soren Moller (keys).

This is a story that should not be forgotten much like 2022’s album from fellow Danish musician, harmonica master Lee Oskar’s Never Forget, who as the son of a holocaust survivor composed his musical memoir detailing his family’s story, his journey, and making the statement of never forgetting this horrific event. The enclosed booklet for White Buses – Passage to Freedom details the story as written by historian Dr. Bo Lidegaard, the author of Countrymen – The untold story of how Denmark’s Jews escaped the Nazis, of the courage of their fellow Danes – and of the extraordinary role of the SS (Knopf 2013).

The story unfolds like a play. The accompanying music is understandably both haunting and celebratory, the former evoking horrific conditions and the latter nodding to freedom. In the verbal pieces, we begin with a gentleman saying, “there’s a devil under the skin of any human being – beware, it never gets out! In “Two Birds in a Nest” we hear a female voice (presumably Alexa) explaining how she found two birds in a nest and at them alive to survive.  By the end, though these testimonials are gleeful expression touting the ‘fantastic miracle.’ Throughout, Koppel’s playing is incredibly emotional (i.e. “Die Danen Raus’), ranging from deeply melancholic, anguished to triumphant (“A Fantastic Miracle”), framed beautifully by this talented cast of musicians where Thomsen the cellist is the second major soloist. Caine and Colley get their turns as well, the latter in “I Was Terrified” as a prime example and the former’s stately turn in “The Planes in the Sky” and his dramatic playing on “The Goodbye.” The two play a compelling duet on “Rumours.”

The voices are first-hand, reminding us of history most of us would choose to forget or “block out” in some way, as commemorated somberly in the final musical passage, “The Golden Carriage.” Along the way though we move through the chronic fear in the chilling camp environments to the excitement surrounding the rescue missions and ultimately freedom – a story of human triumph over hate.

This is an important recording by any measure but is not the kind that you will likely play repeatedly but if you play it from end-to-end just once, you will never forget it. That’s the purpose – to remind us how humans can be both abjectly cruel and kindly merciful. The album coincidently comes at an apropos time as we endure a Holocaust-like crisis in Israel and face an election here in the United States that has its own fascist overtones. Koppel’s message is to be seriously heeded.

• Jim Hynes

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