Saw Spike Lee's "4 Little Girls" last night (for the first time) - an excellent documentary about the bombing of an all-Black church in Birmingham in 1963, in which four girls, ages 11 through 14, were killed. I had fully expected to hear John Coltrane's "Alabama" used in the soundtrack, and was not surprised when I did.
And that got me thinking about other music written specifically in response to world-events (and in some cases, released to the public shortly after those events occured).
The few that came to mind were...
"Alabama" - written by John Coltrane - in response to the Birmingham church bombing of 1963.
"Birmingham Sunday" - written by Richard Fariña, recorded by Joan Baez and first released in 1964. (It was also included in the Spike Lee documentary, and I had never heard it before tonight.) The lyrics are...
"Ohio" - written by Neil Young, recorded with CSN&Y - in response to the Kent State killings of 1970. Lyrics...
and maybe this one sort of qualifies too, kinda, though not entirely...
"Kadish (Symphony No. 3)" - Leonard Bernstein - dedicated to the memory of John F. Kennedy, though the work was substantially written before the Kennedy assassination (or at least much of it was). If I remember right, this work was really in homage to Bernstein's father (who I believe had recently passed away), or at least that is how the work was begun.
I'm sure there are others I'm forgetting - including probably several classical works in response to the Holocaust. I'm particularly interested in any other jazz-related recordings that somehow relate to world events, although any works (including non-jazz) would be interesting to hear about too.
PS: What album did the studio version of Coltrane's "Alabama" first come out on??? I can't seem to find this on-line, and I'm ashamed to admit that my copy of "Alabama" is from the 3-CD retrospective of Trane's Impulse albums.