Fall 2016
The National Jazz Museum in Harlem Smithsonian Affiliate
Fall 2016
A Smithsonian Affiliate, The National Jazz Museum in Harlem is a thriving center for jazz that reaches out to diverse audiences to enjoy this quintessential American music. Our mission is to preserve, promote and present jazz by inspiring knowledge, appreciation and the celebration of jazz locally, nationally and internationally. The Museum’s exhibits showcase the music’s past and present, and the important contributions from the Harlem community. Year-round public programs, including live performances, conversation series, listening sessions and educational workshops, enhance visitors’ knowledge and appreciation of jazz.
New season, new space, new museum. Written on a note next to my desk is the statement, “You can’t hang music on the wall.” I use this to remind myself that although we are a museum, the art form we are tasked with sharing comes and goes in an instant, never to be heard the same way again. As a result, in addition to providing live music experiences at The National Jazz Museum in Harlem, we are always looking for unique ways to augment and enrich your experience of hearing the music in clubs and concert halls. Our four part Harlem: Four Walls series, curated by the Museum’s Founding Director and Senior Scholar Loren Schoenberg, will dig deep into elements from our current Vibrations exhibit. In the series NYC: The Afro-Cuban Beat, curated by Larry Blumenfeld, we will explore with guests Yosvany Terry, Roman Diaz, David Virelles and others how the opening of Cuba is impacting Afro-Cuban jazz here in our city. We will also see the return of The Jazz Gallery Mentorship Series and our Harlem Speaks oral history project with Terri Lyne Carrington and Hamiet Blueitt. To close out 2016, Nate Chinen will host The Year in Jazz: A Critics Roundtable. Grown from the African-American experience, this music of people, of love, of sorrow, of joy, of pain, of family, of community, of the past, of the present and of the future has and continues to have a tremendous impact on American culture. Join us, become a member, and help support our mission to preserve, promote and present this music in all its diversity.
Ryan Maloney Director of Education and Programming
2–3
Jazz for Curious Listeners
Benny Carter’s Cashmere Coat Tuesday, September 13, 7pm Presenter: Loren Schoenberg Guest: Ed Berger
Harlem: Four Walls Series Host: Loren Schoenberg
Vibrations, the Museum’s celebrated current exhibit, explores the sounds that originated in Harlem a century ago and traces them to 2016. This series examines four of the signature elements that tell the story. A combination of music, film, expert commentary and audience interaction make this something unique to The National Jazz Museum in Harlem, and our passionately curious audience. Please join Founding Director and Senior Scholar Loren Schoenberg and his special guests. If you can, bring someone else who wants to know how Harlem became Harlem.
Before breaking the color line in 1940s Hollywood, Benny Carter was a king in the Harlem music scene. Carter biographer/ producer Ed Berger will join us as we trace Carter’s path from ballrooms and clubs to his band’s opening the Apollo Theater in 1934. We’ll share the strange story of how the Museum acquired the cashmere coat Carter wore that winter evening.
Ellington Scored Life
The Legatees
Tuesday, September 27, 7pm Presenter: Loren Schoenberg
Tuesday, October 11, 7pm Presenter: Loren Schoenberg
Jazz combines written and improvised music in a truly American way. We have taken Ellington’s hand-written manuscript for his classic “Harlem Air Shaft” and enlarged it to wall size. Join us as we use it as the entry point into his startling genius as a composer, bandleader and inspiration to an AfricanAmerican generation long before Jackie Robinson.
A previously unpublished photo of Louis Armstrong and Miles Davis is the centerpiece of a gallery of musicians who spoke to their generations about the great legacy of African-American genius. Jazz is our focus, but we also welcome other creative giants whose music intersects with it. Join us for a session exploring James Brown, Prince, Kendrick Lamar and other musical mavericks.
Mapping Harlem’s Heyday Tuesday, October 25, 7pm Presenter: Loren Schoenberg Elmer Simms Campbell drew a vibrantly brilliant map of Harlem nightspots in 1932 for Manhattan magazine. A pioneering AfricanAmerican illustrator , he created a stirring image at once well-informed and devoid of the period’s racist clichés. We will hear the music made in those clubs while learning invaluable background information from Harlem experts.
4–5
Lift Every Voice
Celebrating the Grand Opening of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture
All events take place at The National Jazz Museum in Harlem
Saturday, September 24, 10am–9pm
11:30am Children’s jazz story hour and scat sing along
The National Museum of African American History and Culture is the 19th museum of the Smithsonian Institution and is located at the foot of the Washington Monument on the National Mall in Washington, DC. The museum provides for the collection, study, and establishment of programs and exhibitions related to African American life, history, art, and culture. It is a place where people can learn about the richness and diversity of the African American experience; it is a place of meaning, memory, reflection, laughter, and hope.
10:00am Livestream Grand Opening Dedication Watch Party
John Coltrane Birthday Celebration 2:30pm Charles Persip Trio: Celebrating John Coltrane at 90 Presented by Jazz Foundation of America’s Gig Fund 7:00pm Teodross Avery Ph.D: Presentation and Concert celebrating John Coltrane Ongoing
Children’s jazz art projects
These events are presented in celebration of the Grand Opening of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture and in partnership with:
Smithsonian Affiliate The Charles Persip Trio is presented by the Jazz Foundation of America’s Gig Fund program, with support from New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature and the National Endowment for the Arts.
The views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this event do not necessarily represent those of the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
6–7
Tito Puente: My New York Monday, September 12, 7pm Exhibition Opening Location: Bronx Museum of the Arts
Tito Puente: My New York
In partnership with Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center and the Bronx Museum of the Arts, we celebrate the opening of our new exhibition, Tito Puente: My New York.
Harlem Celebrates Tito Puente Tuesday, September 20, 7pm Presenters: Bob Sancho, Rene Lopez and Joe Conzo To celebrate the Museum’s new Tito Puente exhibit opening in September at the Bronx Museum of the Arts, we will have live music as well as three of Puente’s closest friends to share stories of his fabled life. Producer Bob Sancho, eminent Latin jazz historian Rene Lopez and Puente biographer Joe Conzo will be joined by a special guest pianist to bring Puente’s legacy swinging back to his home – Harlem.
8–9
Jazz for Curious Listeners
New Thrones, New Kings Thursday, September 22, 7pm Host: Larry Blumenfeld Guest: Yosvany Terry
NYC: The Afro-Cuban Beat Series Host: Larry Blumenfeld
Saxophonist and bandleader Yosvany Terry, a Harlem resident who directs Harvard University’s jazz ensembles, discusses growing up in Cuba’s Camagüey province and the influence of his father, Eladio “Don Pancho” Terry, a violinist and master of the chekeré. Terry will recount his early experience in Cuba’s influential Afro-Cuban jazz group, Columna B; his collaborations with musicians such as Steve Coleman; and his own groundbreaking, New York-based groups that combine Cuban tradition with jazz and classical forms.
History, Mystery and Modernism Tuesday, October 18, 7pm Host: Larry Blumenfeld Guests: David Virelles and Román Díaz
While covering New York’s jazz scene for The Wall Street Journal and other publications, Larry Blumenfeld’s working beat increasingly focuses on Afro-Cuban rhythms and traditions, often as expressed in unexpected ways. Through conversations and listening sessions with some of New York’s prominent jazz innovators, Blumenfeld (whose previous Museum programs focused on New Orleans) will explore how Cuban musicians have developed their voices in New York City, how musicians raised here have been drawn to Cuban traditions, and how a rich legacy of cross-cultural collaboration has flowered anew.
Pianist and composer David Virelles mines traditions of his native Santiago, Cuba, while using his current home in Brooklyn as a base for some of New York’s most striking and progressive music. Since coming to the U.S. in 1999, master percussionist, scholar and composer Román Díaz has been a mentor to many musicians, key player in several ensembles and spiritual guide to wide-ranging scene. Virelles and Díaz will discuss and demonstrate the religious and ritual systems they explore for their musical collaborations and the ways in which they innovate.
Yosvany Terry
The Conversation Continued Monday, November 7, 7pm Host: Larry Blumenfeld Guest: Arturo O’Farrill GRAMMY® Award-winning pianist and bandleader Arturo O’Farrill will reflect on the journey of his father, composer Chico O’Farrill, from Cuba to Manhattan. He will discuss his own journeys in reverse, the founding and development of his Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra; the present diplomatic embrace between the U.S. and Cuba, and his dream of an expansive, borderless musical tradition.
New Yor-Uba, Then and Now Tuesday, November 15, 7pm Host: Larry Blumenfeld Guest: Michele Rosewoman More than 30 years ago, pianist and composer Michele Rosewoman’s parallel paths – jazz and Afro-Cuban folklore – merged into a compelling whole in New York through her New Yor-Uba ensemble. Rosewoman will describe the awakening that led to that group, reflect on her studies with the late Orlando “Puntilla” Ríos, and explain the cross-generational way in which she has rekindled that group’s flame.
10 – 11
Harlem Speaks
Hamiet Bluiett Thursday, October 20, 7pm
Harlem Speaks
For more than 55 years, Hamiet Bluiett has pushed the limits of the baritone saxophone while exploring a musical path that includes co-founding the Black Artists Group of St. Louis, breaking into the New York scene in the late 60s with Charles Mingus and Sam Rivers, and co-founding the World Saxophone Quartet in 1976. More recently, he has led the Bluiett Baritone Nation and the Clarinet Family.
Terri Lyne Carrington
Terri Lyne Carrington Thursday, December 1, 7pm Terri Lyne Carrington has been expanding boundaries for many years: she is a threetime GRAMMY® Award-winning jazz drummer, composer, singer, record producer and entrepreneur. Please join us for an in-depth conversation about her associations with Wayne Shorter, Dizzy Gillespie, Herbie Hancock and Stan Getz, as well as her mentorship of the new jazz generations.
The Museum’s oral history initiative, Harlem Speaks, is an interview series with musicians, authors and other individuals who reflect on Harlem’s rich history of jazz. Since its inception in 2004, guests have included bassist Reggie Workman, historian/scholar Dan Morgenstern, writer Stanley Crouch, drummer Roy Haynes, Hall of Fame basketball star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, architect Max Bond, and trumpeter Clark Terry. Our Harlem Speaks archive has more than 200 videotaped interviews.
Hamiet Bluiett
12 – 13
Book Release Party Blue Rhythm Fantasy: Big Band Jazz Arranging in the Swing Era
Considering Genius: The Life and Times of Stanley Crouch
Saturday, November 19, 12–4pm Host: Loren Schoenberg Thursday, November 3, 7pm Host: John Wriggle Jazz historian and author John Wriggle explores New York City’s vibrant entertainment industry of the 1930s and ’40s to celebrate the big band jazz arrangers who built the Swing Era sound. This book release party will include a presentation by the author, rare audio recordings, and a live ensemble performance featuring special guests.
Stanley Crouch
Stanley Crouch has long been a leading voice in American culture, as an essayist and critic who has no time for conformity. Please join us as we begin our season-long celebration of his 40+ years as one of jazz’s most staunch advocates. Crouch has mentored countless musicians and cultural critics, many of whom will participate in this series. We’ll have discussions, music, classic film and many surprises for you!
14 – 15
The National Jazz Museum in Harlem Presents The Jazz Gallery Mentorship Series Vol. 4, Ed. 1
The Year in Jazz: A Critics Roundtable
Dayna Stephens
Dayna Stephens Group featuring Patrick Bartley, Jr. Monday, November 21, 7pm Patrick Bartley Jr.
This edition of the Mentorship Series will present mentor Dayna Stephens (saxophone) and mentee Patrick Bartley Jr. (saxophone) in Harlem as part of the program’s culminating “residency” of performances. Through their performances at The Jazz Gallery, The National Jazz Museum in Harlem, Falcon in upstate New York and SEEDS:: Brooklyn Arts, the mentees have opportunities to deepen their creative practice and performance skills in a way that mimics the experience of being on tour.
Thursday, December 8, 7pm Host: Nate Chinen Four leading music critics representing a range of perspectives and publications will converge in this annual critics’ roundtable, hosted and moderated by Nate Chinen, author and music critic for The New York Times. The panel will talk about the music, the artists, and the moments that shaped jazz in 2016.
16 – 17
Jazz for Curious Listeners
Beyond Category: Nina Simone Tuesday, December 6, 7pm Host: Jeff Lieberman
Beyond Category
Nina Simone was a rare musician who could bring together elements from many musical sources and integrate them into her own unique style with sincerity, musicality and grace. Simone documentarian Jeff Lieberman (The Amazing Nina Simone), together with musicians who performed with and were close to the often misunderstood musical and cultural icon, will spend an evening celebrating her legacy. Clips from the documentary plus rare audio and video will be included in the presentation.
Beyond Category: Kendrick Lamar Tuesday, December 13, 7pm Host: Brian “Raydar” Ellis
Ellington fought all his life against labels imposed on his music. His highest superlative was to call something “beyond category.” In our Vibrations exhibit, the Museum highlights several individuals who, like Duke Ellington, defy categorization. Inspired by the vibrations set in motion by Ellington and others, this series examines those musicians whose music resists labels and speaks to current generations while honoring the legacy of previous generations.
Revive Music hosts an intimate discussion with Berklee College of Music songwriting professor of Hip-Hop Brian ”Raydar” Ellis and special guests discussing the impact of Kendrick Lamar’s widely successful album “To Pimp A Butterfly” among other notable records. The discussion will focus on how jazz inspired the making of the album, and how the album has influenced jazz musicians all over the globe. Brian “Raydar” Ellis
18 – 19
The National Jazz Museum in Harlem
58 W 129th Street (East of Malcolm X Blvd / Lenox Ave) New York, NY 10027 For more information: 212 348 8300 info@jmih.org jazzmusueminharlem.org — Major support for The National Jazz Museum in Harlem is provided by the following foundations: Charles O’Malley Charitable Lead Trust Ella Fitzgerald Charitable Foundation Institute of Museum and Library Services Koret Foundation Hyde and Watson Foundation Malka Fund of the Jewish Communal Fund National Endowment for the Arts New York City Department of Cultural Affairs New York State Council on the Arts Sandpiper Fund Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone These programs are supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council. And many individual donors Thank you! — Photo Credits: Ed Berger, Tracy Collins, Richard Conde, Salvatore Corso, William Gottlieb. Design: Remake, New York
20 – 21
September 12
Fall 2016 Season Calendar
October Tito Puente: My New York
13 Harlem: Four Walls – Benny Carter’s Cashmere Coat (LP) (CS)
6 NYC: The Afro-Cuban Beat – The Conversation Continued w/ Arturo O’Farril (CS)
20 Harlem Celebrates Tito Puente (R) (C)
11 Harlem: Four Walls – The Legatees (LP) (CS)
22 NYC: The Afro Cuban Beat – New Thrones, New Kings w/ Yosvany Terry (CS)
18 NYC: The Afro-Cuban Beat – History, Mystery and Modernism w/ David Virelles & Román Díaz (CS)
24 Lift Every Voice: National Museum of African American History and Culture Celebration (C) (LP) 27 Harlem: Four Walls – Ellington Scored Life (LP) (CS)
20 Harlem Speaks: Hamiet Bluiett (CS) 25 Harlem: Four Walls – Mapping Harlem’s Heyday: E. Simms Campbell (LP) (CS)
November
December
3 Book Release Party – Blue Rhythm Fantasy: Big Band Jazz Arranging in the Swing Era w/ Jon Wriggle
1 Harlem Speaks: Terri Lyne Carrington (CS)
7 NYC: The Afro-Cuban Beat – The Conversation Continued w/ Arturo O’Farril (CS) 15 NYC: The Afro Cuban Beat – New Yor-Uba, Then and Now w/ Michele Rosewoman (CS)
6 Beyond Category: Nina Simone w/Jeff Lieberman (CS) (LP) (F) 8 The Year in Jazz: A Critics Roundtable w/ Nate Chinen (R) 13 Beyond Category: Kendrick Lamar w/ Brian “Raydar” Ellis (CS) (LP)
19 Considering Genius: The Life and Times of Stanley Crouch (R) 21 Jazz Gallery Mentorship Series w/ Dayna Stephens and Patrick Bartley, Jr. (C)
C = Concert CS = Conversation Series F = Film Screening LP = Listening Party R = Roundtable Discussion *programs subject to change
58 W 129th Street New York, NY 10027