Drummer Phil Young is a son of Harlem, born and raised. It can be said he’s underrated, but what does that even mean? During his six-decade career and counting, he has exemplified himself as a prominent drummer, having performed with Freddie Hubbard, George Benson, Dizzy Gillespie, and many more.
Young started his project Phil’s House of Blues at Harlem’s Silvana (300 West 116th Street) four years ago as the COVID pandemic was finally starting to lessen. “After being stuck in the house for almost two years and not really playing, this was an opportunity to re-hone my craft. I saw the restaurant was up for music and it would be a setting not to be judged,” said Young. “I felt I could work with a band that I wanted to work with, something that was my own. Silvana, located in the restaurant’s downstairs basement remind me of those old speakeasy jazz clubs.” Prior to the pandemic, the Phil Young Experience with Patience Higgins enjoyed a nine-year residency at Harlem’s Lenox Sapphire.
Phil’s House of Blues happens every Monday night from 7-10 p.m. Patrons will be happy to know there is no admission, so if the hat is passed around, please be generous! Phil’s often features special guest vocalists along with his regular trio or quartet. “I’ve toured Europe and lived in Brooklyn, but Harlem is my community,” said Young. “I try to do things that will provide a place for people to relax and enjoy music. This restaurant provides me that platform.”
After a winning performance at Amateur Night at the Apollo Theater, Young was invited on tour by the great bluesman Bobby “Blue” Bland. At age 15, his mother gave him permission but demanded that Bland have her son back in early September for school.
Young’s swinging melodic flow made him an invaluable artist across genre boundaries, having played with legendary R&B groups like Shep and the Limelites, The Drifters, The Coasters, The 5th Dimension, and Chuck Jackson; sitting in the Broadway pit of such plays as “Don’t Bother Me I Can’t Cope;” and projecting his hard boppin’ rhythmic flow on the jazz scene with Freddie Hubbard, Mary Lou Williams, Carlos Garnett, Dizzy Gillespie, Art Farmer, and an inspiring five years with his mentor Stanley Turrentine.
Young’s family roots have run deep in Harlem since 1939, when his grandfather, Sam Young Sr., first opened Carolina Flowers on 144th Street and 7th Avenue. It was a generational family legacy that Phil successfully operated with pride for 25 years.
“I was born in ‘48 so I grew up around the shop. I was happy running it but felt like something was missing, I was being pulled away from music — I saw friends win big awards and I thought, ‘I need to get back to work!’ After 9/11, I lost corporate accounts, having redirected the business from being a community business under my grandad to become more corporate-focused. We worked with Chase Bank, Transit Authority, and various corporate businesses. It was the oldest flower shop in New York City.”
Young played the Club Baron with Arthur Prysock and Smalls Paradise with Brook Benton. “I saw Harlem at its best and I’m always looking to capture that vibe,” said the drummer. “We are experiencing fear through ignorance but we can come together through the music. People come to Silvana to connect with each other and talk. We have to live our lives fearlessly!” For more info, visit jazzgeneration.org.
The travesty over the renaming of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is raising a higher “fire burn and caldron bubble/ Double, double toil and trouble,” since its puppet board of directors renamed the institution the Trump Kennedy Center. A decision made during a board meeting on Dec. 18, 2025, which has been criticized as lacking transparency and procedure.
The aforementioned famous quote is from Shakespeare’s play “Macbeth.” It represents the bold and dark character of Macbeth as he prepares to drink the potion that will grant him power. However, in this persistent saga of the U.S. president, he dismisses power potions in favor of illegalities, a stacked Supreme Court, killer ICE agents, and a depraved house of lies and innuendoes.
Beyond adding his own name to the performing arts institution, formerly known as the Kennedy Center and named after the 35th President John F. Kennedy, Trump also installed Richard Grenell, his onetime envoy for special missions, as president of the center. Trump had previously complained about “woke” programming and “drag shows” performed there, as stated in USA Today.
The law explicitly prohibits the board of trustees from making the center into a memorial to anyone else and from putting another person’s name on the building’s exterior.
A legal battle over the name of the Kennedy Center is now heading to federal court. Rep. Joyce Beatty, a Democrat and ex official trustee of the institution, has sued President 47 and the center’s board over a vote to rename it the Trump Kennedy Center. Filed in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., the lawsuit asks a judge to void the board’s action and order the removal of Trump’s name from the building’s façade and all official materials.
Shonda Rhimes has since resigned from the center’s board of trustees, while Ben Folds and Renée Fleming stepped down as artistic advisors. Numerous artists continue to cancel their Kennedy Center performances since the president returned to office, including Issa Rae, who canceled a sold-out show; the Washington National Opera, which left the venue after 55 years; cast members from a performance of “Les Miserables;” Bela Fleck; Lin-Manuel Miranda canceled touring production of “Hamilton;” Chuck Redd; The Cookers; and the Brentano String Quartet with Hsin-Yun Huang. Additionally, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater is forgoing its yearly residency at the Center this year and will instead perform at DC’s Warner Theatre.
Stephen Schwartz, composer of “Wicked,” also announced that he had canceled plans to host a gala at the historic institution. “It no longer represents the apolitical place for free artistic expression it was founded to be,” Schwartz said in a statement to Newsday. “There’s no way I would set foot in it now.”
It is easy to see the current president as the evil baron, but he is America’s manifestation, the dark shadow that has always resided in the openness of American culture, cloaked in detestable robes of institutional racism and white supremacy.
Such appalling political antics began long before this president, dating back to the horrendous conditions of slavery for which the Confederate army willingly gave their lives; Trump’s predecessor, President Woodrow Wilson; the attempted annihilation of Native Americans; segregation; lynchings; the KKK; George Stinney Jr.; Emmet Till; civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner murdered by the KKK. After the careless killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, one may ask what is the difference between the deplorable slave catchers and ICE agents?
This attack on American society, history, and culture is much larger than Trump; it is the system he represents. Let’s not be distracted. Stay focused, analyze, and strategize!