Longtime Harlem resident and well-known performer Sista Zock brings the storied Minton’s Playhouse (206 W. 118 Street) to life with her perspective on the music that made the club a national shrine, from its stimulating bebop creativity to its sizzling jam sessions.
On Feb. 23, from 6:30 p.m.–8 p.m., Sista Zock will take you on a journey of musical and cultural expression. She will be accompanied by an ensemble with such notables as guitarist Bruce Edwards, trumpeter Sharif Kales, bassists Lonnie Plaxico and Stanley Banks, baritone saxophonist Jason Marshall, trombonist Frank Lacy, and drummer Russell Carter, with poet Baba Don and special guests saxophonist Patience Higgins and drummer Victor Jones.
Sista Zock is an expressive dancer who plays a role in keeping the jazz heartbeat of Harlem alive. Join her, along with her large ensemble, as they embark on a journey of living theater where music and storytelling converge in celebration of Black History Month (year).
For tickets, visit mintonsnyc.com or call 212-529-3397.
The bassist, vocalist, composer, and songwriter Esperanza Spalding is an intriguing artist whose creativity revels in a swinging persistence of awareness that explores all aspects of this music. Her boundless, ever-exploring work entwines various combinations of instrumental music, improvisation, singing, composition, poetry, dance, therapeutic research, and storytelling.
The inventive artist and multi-Grammy Award winner, with her many musical facets, will be in residency at the Blue Note Jazz Club (131 W. 3rd Street) from Feb. 18–Mar. 2, with two shows each night (8 p.m. and 10:30 p.m.). As of this issue, her featured guests or band info was not available, but be assured that each night will be a lively endeavor.
In 2024, Spalding released a collaborative album, “Milton + Esperanza,” with Brazilian singer Milton Nascimento. That same year, she was featured on the “Odyssey” album by the London-born saxophonist and composer Nubya Garcia, who also believes in boundless travel.
In 2021, her “Formwela 12” paid tribute to dancer and choreographer Carmen de Lavallade and the Dance Theatre of Harlem — the song’s release was accompanied by a short film that featured Spalding’s band, a quartet of dancers, and de Lavallade, who contributed as choreographer and dancer. During that period, Spalding also collaborated with composer and jazz improviser saxophonist Wayne Shorter on his operatic work “Iphigenia” (his interpretation of the ancient Greek myth), which premiered in 2021 — she wrote the libretto.
Through her Songwrights Apothecary Lab, Spalding continues to collaborate with practitioners in various fields relating to sound, healing, and cognition to develop music with enhanced therapeutic potential.Through her many varied projects, from acoustic to fusion, opera to healing, we can be sure new music will be in the making.
For reservations, visit bluenoteny.com or call 212-475-8592.
The 2025 celebration of Black History Month and International Reggae Month also celebrates the centennial of one of America’s most defiant civil rights activists: novelist and playwright James Baldwin.
On Feb. 21 (7:30 p.m.), the Apollo Stages at the Victoria (W. 125th Street) will present a premiere screening of Horace Ové’s short documentary “Baldwin’s Nigger,” which captures a vigorous conversation between Baldwin and Dick Gregory, who resigned from his comedy career to become a full-time activist in civil rights. Together, they engage a group of West Indian students in London, discussing a range of topics from the state of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement to the perils of false consciousness.
Ové was a Trinidadian-born British filmmaker based in London, England, who earned a somewhat controversial reputation documenting racism and the Black Power movement in Britain through photography and in films such as “Baldwin’s Nigger” (1968), “Pressure,” and “Dream to Change the World” (2003).
This documentary illustrates that, as author, lecturer, and educator bell hooks noted, “America’s white supremacist patriarchy” under the current administration is quickly shifting to a chartered dictatorship with only a frazzled frame of democracy for reference. The current political crisis reflects the continued relevance of Baldwin’s concepts and complete understanding of this country we call America.
Baldwin’s works, such as “Nobody Knows My Name,” “Notes of a Native Son,” and “The Fire Next Time,” have remained a reality of truth for Black America in this 21st century. The activist never saw America as a land of milk and honey, but more of a complacent racist society that refused to admit its wrongs or make substantial improvements. As the native of Harlem stated, “Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
After the screening, there will be a conversation with Baldwin scholar and historian Dr. Rich Blint.
For tickets, visit apollotheater.org.