This year marks the 50th anniversary of Randy Weston’s signature recording session Uhuru Afrika, certainly a good time to reflect on that singular record in this Randy’s 84th year on the planet. And I’m happy to report that our as-told-to book African Rhythms: The Autobiography of Randy Weston, composed by Randy Weston, arranged by Willard [...]
Our series Ain’t But a Few of Us, black music writers telling their story continues with a voice from the San Francisco Bay Area. I first met Eric Arnold in 2003 on a magical journalist junket to Morocco to cover the Fes Festival of World Sacred Music, then down to the coast for the Gnaoua & World [...]
The demise of four-wall record stores has been painful to many of certain generations, myself included. Leafing through the stacks — or crate digging as it’s popularly referred to these days — is the way many of us educated ourselves about various forms of music. There are indeed survivors of this demise, stalwart record dealers [...]
The Ancient Future radio program, produced/hosted by Willard Jenkins, airs on WPFW 89.3 FM (listen live at www.wpfw.org), Pacifica Radio for the Washington, DC metro region. Artist Tune Album title Label Adonis Rose Lil’ Liza Jane Untouchable House Swing Louis Armstrong Basin Street Blues (CDR compilation) Leroy Jones Bourbon Street Parade Mo’ Cream Columbia George [...]
Baltimore has a significant jazz history. Deep in Mid-Atlantic region jazz presenting lore is B’more’s historic Left Bank Jazz Society. People in the Baltimore-Washington area still speak fondly of their now-legendary presentations, with their BYOB good-time atmosphere, coupled with the true joy-of-jazz. Some of those singular LBJS presentations were preserved on CD by the late Joel [...]
Part one of Twin Cities-based writer Pamela Espeland’s conversation with the kinetic New Orleans-based clarinetist Evan Christopher (scroll down for pt. 1 or find it filed under That’s What They Heard for January ’10) left off with the artist commenting on his jazz education in his native California and his earlier leanings towards perhaps — [...]
Our contributor to this latest installment of the series Ain’t But a Few of Us — black music writers telling their story — is Twin Cities-based writer Robin James. I first met Robin at an IAJE conference and later worked with her as part of the short-lived Jazz Journalists Association mentoring program for young African-American writers [...]