Global Weekends

Saluting Our Jazz Elders

Celebrate African-American History Month by honoring trailblazing artists and musicians whose outstanding contributions are reflected in various musical styles.

African Instruments and Music Parade
12:30–1 pm  Hall of African Peoples, second floor
Se’kou Ala’je’, a percussionist and composer specializing in Congolese and contemporary African music, will perform and explain the musical instruments, peoples, and customs from North Africa to the Congo. Following the presentation, he will lead a musical procession to the Kaufmann Theater.

Live Jazz and Conversation
1–5 pm   Kaufmann Theater, first floor
Robert O’Meally, co-founder of the Center for Jazz Studies at Columbia University, will host an afternoon of performances and conversations about the connections between music, the brain, and education.

New Amsterdam Music Association   1:15 pm           
Musicians from the New Amsterdam Music Association will perform familiar jazz pieces from their historic repertoire.  Conceived in 1904 as a union for black musicians who were denied admission to white-only music unions, the first members of the organization fused ragtime with the big band, setting the stage for music that came to be known as jazz. 

Joey Morant   2 pm
Trumpet legend Joey Morant, also known as “Mr. Entertainer,” has performed with Dizzy Gillespie, George Benson, Ray Charles, Paul McCartney, and Benny Goodman.  He was the featured performer at the 2009 Charleston Jazz Legends Festival and has performed around the world.

McCollough Sons of Thunder   3 pm
One of the country’s premier shout gospel brass bands, the McCollough Sons of Thunder perform African-American gospel music rooted in the black church experience. This group is under the musical direction of elder Edward Babb, a recipient of the National Endowment of the Arts National Heritage Fellowship. The group has performed at the White House, Carnegie Hall, and Apollo Theater.

Melba Joyce   4 pm
Melba Joyce, a former featured vocalist for the Count Basie Orchestra, has had a long and impressive career spanning three decades. She has performed in the company of music giants, including Louis Armstrong, Sarah Vaughn, Lionel Hampton, Count Basie, Tony Bennett, Joe Williams, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson and many others. She appeared in the Tony Award-winning Broadway show Black and Blue and has performed in almost every major city in the world. In 2008, the Central Park Conservancy presented Joyce with a special award for creating and producing their first Women’s Jazz Festival.

 

Download Program (PDF)

For more information on jazz and jazz education, visit:
jazz.columbia.edu
amjazzin.com
jazzstudiesonline.org
jazzmuseuminharlem.org
hopkinsmedicine.org/press_releases/2008/02_26_08.html

This program is co-produced with Community Works and New Heritage Theatre Group. Support for Global Weekends is made possible, in part, by the May and Samuel Rudin Family Foundation, Inc., the Ford Foundation, the Tolan Family, and the family of Frederick H. Leonhardt.