National Jazz Museum in Harlem Announces Schedule for 5/3-5/7

Monday, May 3, 2010

Jazz for Curious Readers http://jazzmuseuminharlem.org/readers.php
Randy Sandke
7:00 - 8:30pm
Location: NJMH Visitors Center
(104 E. 126th Street, Suite 2C)
FREE | For more information: 212-348-8300

Trumpeter/author Randy Sandke, author of Where the Light and the Dark Folks Meet: Race and the Mythology, Politics and Business of Jazz (Scarecrow Press, 2010), has performed at festivals, clubs, and concerts around the world and has recorded over twenty albums as a leader as well.

As a composer, Sandke has had pieces performed at Carnegie Hall, the 92nd St. YMCA, and Avery Fischer Hall at Lincoln Center. The Carnegie Hall Jazz Band performed six of his suites.

Tonight's focus, however, is on Sandke's literary achievement and insights.

Randy Sandke's previous book, Harmony for a New Millennium, details a method of exploring non-tonal harmony in the context of both composition and improvisation. He has also written scholarly articles on jazz history for the Oxford Companion to Jazz and the Rutgers University Annual Review of Jazz Studies.

In his recently published work (see above) Sandke conjoins his experience as a working musician with his scholarship to produce a work that debunks many of the hoary myths surrounding the role of race in jazz history. In what promises to be an intriguing (and perhaps controversial) discussion, Sandke will explain his thesis and why he was inspired to write Where the Light and the Dark Folks Meet: Race and the Mythology, Politics and Business of Jazz.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Jazz for Curious Listeners http://www.jazzmuseuminharlem.org/curious.php
Tuning in to Tremé: Big Chiefs and Second Lines
7:00 - 8:30pm
Location: NJMH Visitors Center
(104 E. 126th Street, Suite 2C)
FREE | For more information: 212-348-8300

Set in New Orleans, David Simon's new HBO series "Treme" picks up three months after the floods that resulted from the levee failures after Hurricane Katrina. Culture, which in New Orleans means a tight braid of music, cuisine, dance, visual art, and street life, is the primary focus of the series, as indeed it was and is the defining element of the city's identity and its recovery. Familiar faces from Simon's actors' troupe show up as fictional cultural fixtures: Wendell Pierce (detective Bunk Moreland on The Wire) plays Antoine Batiste, a trombonist we first encounter subbing with the real-life Rebirth Brass Band. Clarke Peters (detective Lester Freamon on The Wire) plays the Mardi Gras Indian Chief Albert Lambreaux, chanting out some of his best lines while beating a tambourine. The true-life heroes of New Orleans jazz figure prominently too: In addition to Rebirth, the list of musicians making cameo appearances, often in performance, includes trumpeter Kermit Ruffins, saxophonist Donald Harrison, and Troy "Trombone Shorty" Andrews, and drummer Bob French.

These 90-minute conversations, led by writer Larry Blumenfeld, who has written extensively about New Orleans since the flood, will use the HBO series to frame a wide-ranging consideration of jazz culture in New Orleans and its role in recovery. Excerpts from the show will be screened, and special guests-musicians, participants in the series, and scholars-will join in the discussion.

In Sidney Bechet's memoir, Treat It Gentle, the late, great clarinetist's real grandfather is supplanted by Omar, a fictional figure based on a folk tale, all the better to convey stirring truths about the true origins of New Orleans jazz. Real and imagined intermingLe Pointedly in New Orleans, in all walks of life. What can the fiction of "Treme"-which is named for the "Tremé neighborhood in New Orleans, long a hothouse for jazz culture-tell is about the city's real culture before and since the flood?

In our first session we will see the manner in which "Treme" plugs directly into an indigenous culture that has served as a lifeline for a New Orleans still inching toward recovery. That lifeline is extended principally by traditional jazz and brass-band musicians; the Social Aid & Pleasure Club members that mount Sunday parades; and-perhaps the most mysterious and essential group of all-Mardi Gras Indians, who dress in elaborate feathered and beaded suits four times a year. We'll consider the roots, traditions and depictions of these culture-bearers and their connections to familiar music.

Thursday, May 6, 2010

Harlem Speaks http://jazzmuseuminharlem.org/harlemspeaks.php
Wayne Escoffery, Saxophonist
6:30 - 8:30pm
Location: NJMH Visitors Center
(104 E. 126th Street, Suite 2C)
FREE | For more information: 212-348-8300

Harlem resident Wayne Escoffery is one of the most talented rising stars and in-demand sidemen on tenor saxophone in jazz. Born in London, Escoffery grew up in New Haven, Connecticut, where he sang in a renowned local boy's choir and began taking sax lessons. At 16 he attended JazzMobile in Harlem, and by his senior year in secondary school had met Jackie McLean at The Artist's Collective in Hartford.
McLean gave Wayne a full scholarship to attend The Hartt School, where he graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor's degree in Jazz Performance, and became known as one of McLean's prize pupils. He went on to attend and graduate from The Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Performance at The New England Conservatory in Boston with a Masters degree.

Since then, he has performed with a plethora of internationally respected musicians and has become known for his beautiful sound, impressive technique and versatility. As well as performing with his quartet, his group Veneration and a collaborative group with vocalist (and wife) Carolyn Leonhart, Wayne Escoffery currently performs locally and tours internationally with Ben Riley's Monk Legacy Septet, The Tom Harrell Quintet, and The Mingus Big Band/Orchestra/Dynasty.

Friday, May 7, 2010

Harlem in the Himalayas http://www.jazzmuseuminharlem.org/rubin.php
Steven Schoenberg
7:00pm
Location: Rubin Museum of Art
(150 West 17th Street)
$18 in advance | $20 at door |
For tickets: RMA Box Office http://www.rmanyc.org/harleminthehimalayas or call 212-620-5000 ext. 344

This solo piano performance marks Steven Schoenberg's first New York concert since the release of Steven Schoenberg Live: An Improvisational Journey. He's a dynamic, award-winning composer/pianist whose talents cross into musical theater, classical compositions, film scoring, children's music, and solo improvisational piano performances. Schoenberg's creativity as an improviser and composer shall be on full display as he spontaneously riffs on the Himalayan themes of the venue as well as the vibrations he picks up from the audience . . . so be a part of the experience!