Jazz is spending all day at the Schomburg Center for Social Research in Black Culture and realizing that if Black History Month was every day for 5,000 years, it still wouldn’t cover the history and accomplishments of Blacks folks.
Jazz is being Black and proud.
Jazz is rising up in the face of adversity—that Black girl in the Polo Grounds telling her daddy “I’m going to be a doctor” and him being so proud, seeing her in that white jacket and stethoscope, gon’ “girl, you bees bad.”
Jazz is all day, all night, dreams and wishes and what you make up.
Jazz is knowing why the Caged Bird Sings. Jazz Is Black Girl Magic. Jazz Is Cecil Taylor playing that back, Ornette Coleman’s plastic sax, Sun Ra forging Afrofuturism ahead of his time, sometimes they just don’t understand.
Jazz is getting it right or maybe getting it wrong?
Jazz is do or die.
Jazz is behop hip hop do wop and all-around Black music never stop!
Jazz is old school Apollo Theater, sitting next to my mother watching Pearl Bailey sitting on the edge of the stage declaring her feet hurt, Arthur Prysock in a silk suit and cigarette dangling. Jazz is Rashidah’s poetry, Otis Redding asking for Just one More Day.
Jazz is rain or shine.
Jazz is the Amsterdam News, 113 years.
Jazz is Randy Weston Roots of Africa.
Jazz is supporting a friend in need.
Jazz is stayin’ when you gotta go—going when you wanna stay, love is crazy like that cowboy. Jazz is Mommy kissing your boo-boo making it all right…
Jazz is Daddy teaching you to ride a bike.
Jazz is dat dere and where do we get air? and Daddy can I have that big elephant over dere? Jazz is Somethin Else, it’s This Here Cannonball Adderley.
Jazz is everything Greg Tate ever wrote, Jazz Is Stanley Crouch on Notes of a Hanging Judge, Jazz is Amiri Baraka’s “Black Music” and “Blues People.” Jazz is Ishmael Reed writin’ and fightin’ “Mumbo Jumbo,” Quincy Troupe Snake-Back Solos.
Jazz is Calhoun playing a dope gig at Sistas’ Place, wondering about the Cabbage, hoping it’s not bananas.
Jazz is Sonny Rollins on the Williamsburg Bridge. Jazz is bell hooks talking truth, Jazz Is Bill’s Place, Jazz is not having to say you’re cool. Jazz is Lou Donaldson’s El Dorado, Roy Haynes driving his Bricklin, Miles Davis in his Ferrari.
Jazz is live music at Jazzmobile, Lana Turner swing-dancing in an elegant summer outfit wearing a hat that only a Charlie Parker solo can explain.
Jazz is never apologizing for your Blackness, shout out to Jack Johnson
Jazz is Forever Harlem, Jazz is Harlem’s Evolution.
Jazz is Ray Charles singing “America the Beautiful” for our children with dreams, for the ancestors and elders who showed us the way through the back door to the front door to the Air Force One stroll.
It’s soul, it’s blues, gospel, R&B, it’s One Love, it’s for now and ever more Black music.
Jazz is Eternity…It’s Jazz Appreciation Month…Y’all Support.
Free live jazz happens every Thursday afternoon at the National Jazz Museum in Harlem (58 West 129th Street). Today, April 6, at 2 p.m., the drummer, arranger, and composer Ronnie Burrage and his Trio performs. The drummer refuses to be categorized—he’s a musician who loves playing great music, from straight-ahead to avant garde, having recorded with Billy Bang, Hamiet Bluiett, the World Saxophone Quartet, and Sonny Fortune. One of his first groups, the Burrage Ensemble, included Kenny Kirkland, Wallace Roney, and the Marsalis brothers (Wynton and Branford).
Burrage is a multi-instrumentalist, proficient on percussion and vibraphone, but he seems to be holding back on a great asset: his singing ability. As a youngster, he was a member of the St. Louis Cathedral Boys Choir, and he later sang with the Soul Flamingos and Fontella Bass, so just remember singing is yet another facet to his perfected arsenal.
“Live From Harlem” jazz Thursdays is presented by the Jazz Foundation of America. Seating is first-come/first-served.
Later at 7 p.m., the National Jazz Museum in Harlem will present “Jazz and Respectability, Unlearning the Limitations through Black Feminism,” hosted and curated by Emily Springer. Question: How does respectability influence artists, and jazz in particular? This question will be explored and serve as a platform for a larger conversation about gender, race, and jazz.
The panel will include writer, poet, and activist Dr. Naomi Extra; drummer and educator Jerome Jennings; and bassist Liany Mateo.
The evening will include a live performance by Jennings, Mateo, and pianist Alexis Lombre.
For more information ,visit the website njmh.org.
On April 8, Sistas’ Place in Brooklyn (456 Nostrand Avenue), the little jazz club oasis where the sun is eternal and patrons are treated like family, will host saxophonist and composer Eric Person’s Soul Saturation, featuring pianist Brian Charette, bassist Kenny Davis, and drummer George Gray.
“This project, Soul Saturation, is a combination of my music based on my interaction and mentorship with Houston Person, who is featured on my latest CD Blue Vision (Distinction Records 2022),” said Eric Person. The music grooves with healthy doses of soul and blues.
The native of St. Louis plays alto, soprano, tenor saxophone, and flute. “The alto is first but my flute is moving up,” said Person. Over the years, he has played a variety of music with Living Colour, Chico Hamilton, John Hicks, and Ronald Shannon Jackson (who provided him with his first European tour).
“I have always been about blurring the lines and all kinds of music continues to influence me; some of it is incorporated into my repertoire,” Person said. For the last 15 years, he has enjoyed a collaboration with Houston Person under the banner Person to Person, touring together when their schedules allow.
As a band leader, Eric Person has recorded 11 CDs, eight of which appear on his independent label Distinction Records, founded in 1999. “Playing at Sistas’ is my favorite,” he said. “I wish there were more places like that.”
For reservations, call 718-398-1766.
Dizzy’s Club (60th Street and Broadway) offers a few days of required attendance beginning on April 12, with Helen Sung: “Big Band and Beyond.” Sung has established a reputation as one of the most prominent pianists of hard bop swing jazz with a soft touch that dances through ballads and heavy chords on up-tempo tunes, especially her noted Thelonious Monk arrangements. Here for one night only, she moves away from her small group configurations and into her big band debut appearance.
I met Sung some years ago when she was a youngster, playing at Cleopatra’s Needle in Manhattan. It is so good to see how she continues to blossom. In 2021, she was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, which offered her the opportunity to compose “Portraits in Jazz,” a suite of musical tributes to the jazz masters she studied with at the Herbie Hancock Institute (formerly the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Performance).
Her repertoire will include tributes from the recent suite. Her trio of bassist Vincente Archer and drummer Adam Cruz will be supported by the larger ensemble, some of whom will include trumpeters Marcus Printup and Michael Rodriguez; trombone players James Burton III and Gina Benalcazar; and saxophonists Steve Wilson and John Ellis.
Two shows at 7:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.; for reservations, visit website jazz.org.
On April 13–14, JD Allen featuring “Charlie Hunter: Americana Vol. 2” takes the stage at Dizzy’s Club. His longtime band consists of bassist Greg August and drummer Rudy Royston, with special guest guitarist Charlie Hunter. For this CD outing, Allen and Hunter are exploring the blues legacy. Allen is committed to new territory and telling stories that demand attention.
Some years ago, at a late-night jam session during the Detroit Jazz Festival, Allen was killing itnand Buster Williams leaned over and said to me, “That kid is going places.” He was so right and Allen is still soaring. You have two days to check him.
Two shows each night at 7:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.