Composer and arranger Earl L. Stewart is a one-man band for transcultural understanding. The associate professor of black studies, notes colleague George Lipsitz, draws on musical roots sunk in experiences like playing for soul singers’ backup bands and conducting orchestras in Houston, Boston, and Accra, Ghana.

Stewart went to Ghana on a Fulbright Fellowship to serve as conductor and composer in residence with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ghana. He had long been a student of everyday African music, a research interest that continues today as a blend of American popular music, jazz, and African folk traditions.

This approach surfaces in his recently released CD “From the Heart,” which features original instrumental compositions that celebrate love, gratitude, friendship, and other emotions. It also has what Lipsitz in his liner notes calls “startling original and innovative arrangements of familiar gospel, pop, and jazz standards…”