‘From Africa to Coltrane’ in Schools

Healdsburg Jazz Celebrates Black History Month

By Christian Kallen

At Alexander Valley School on Tuesday morning, Destiny Muhammad filled the new multipurpose room with the ethereal sounds of her harp as over 100 K-5 students listened quietly to an instrument it’s probably safe to say most of them had not heard before: They are too young for New Age music or the Marx Brothers.

As she played a series of evocative hymns and jazz meditations, Muhammad took time to mention that the oldest representation of a harp is in Egyptian hieroglyphs of the building of the pyramids—making a harp, like the banjo, a descendant from African instruments.

Then she turned to the assembly of youngsters in the room and answered their questions on everything from the weight of the harp, to how many strings it has, to how does she keep it tuned, to its name (Paloma, answered the musician).

“The important thing is to get them engaged,” said Gayle Okumura Sullivan, current executive director of Healdsburg Jazz, of the Tuesday morning assembly at the school. “The students got so much from it. I loved the quote from, I think it was a first-grader, ‘I am so inspired!’”

Muhammad is presenting “From Africa to Alice Coltrane” to primary school students from Cloverdale to Roseland this week. She’ll reprise the program in a free family matinee at the Raven on Feb. 25, this time as a trio with drums and upright bass. That same night, two more concerts round out Healdsburg Jazz’s February offerings.

Few local groups have