Happy Jazz Appreciation Month! This month, we’re celebrating jazz as a living art form with our Soundoff Sessions at Café Erzulie on April 9 and 16, and with the launch of Samora Pinderhughes’ Healing Project Magazine tomorrow, April 2, at the Brooklyn Peace Center.
People often try to categorize, define, and restrict jazz to suit their own purposes. But I like this sentiment from Langston Hughes, from a talk he gave at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1956: “Jazz is a great big sea. It washes up all kinds of fish and shells and spume and waves with a steady old beat, or off-beat.“ In just the first few months of JGI’s work, we've found that bringing jazz into community spaces—churches, bars, colleges and community centers—causes all kinds of inspiring moments to wash up ashore.
Read on to see what’s swimming in the JGI waters.
— Kyla Marshell
Join us tomorrow evening at the Brooklyn Peace Center for a free night of poetry, conversation, and the launch of the Healing Project Magazine’s debut issue, “Call and Response.” At this last satellite event of February's Voices of Healing and Liberation concert, we'll hear from the Healing Project’s founder, pianist and interdisciplinary artist Samora Pinderhughes; poet and Lincoln Center Artist-in-Residence Mahogany L. Browne; prison-abolition activist and peer mentor Willie Kearse; and others.
Brooklyn Peace Center
23 Marcus Garvey Blvd.
Brooklyn, NY
We’re continuing to highlight some of the joyful, stirring, uplifting moments from our Voices of Healing & Liberation concert from this past February. Check out the carousel below to see more, and subscribe to our YouTube channel where full performances will be available soon. There’s already a video from JGI Bamboula’s Alice Coltrane tribute this past January in New Orleans featuring Brandee Younger, Sita Michelle Coltrane and the Xavier University of Louisiana Opera Workshop.
JGI Listings Calendar
Check out JGI New York’s new Listings Calendar, highlighting our picks for best jazz shows around New York each Monday through Sunday, curated by our listings editor Hank Shteamer. This week’s picks are Tomeka Reid at The Stone, and the Randy Weston Centennial Celebration at Dizzy’s. Visit the JGI New York’s Instagram page for the full listings.
April Soundoff Sessions: Drummer Michael Shekwoaga Ode & Saxophonist Ben Sherman @ Café Erzulie
Join us next Thursday, April 9 at Café Erzulie for the Soundoff Sessions, JGI’s biweekly series highlighting NYC’s finest musicians followed by an open jam session. DJ Late4Dinner opens the night with an all vinyl set followed by drummer Michael Ode, and the open session.
The Soundoff Sessions continue on Thursday, April 23 featuring tenor saxophonist Ben Sherman and his band.
Doors at 7PM, Late4Dinner at 7:30, show at 9, session at 10:30 for both events.
The Jazz Generations Initiative cultivates creative futures in jazz performance and scholarship by celebrating the music's past and keeping its present rooted in community. Backed by a grant from the Mellon Foundation, and support from the Jazz Foundation of America, we’re most excited to be working with you: the audience, the artists and community that we’re bringing together around this music in New York, New Orleans and in the digital sphere.