Fred Moten on the Odyssey of Improvisation
1990s to Today
Matt Sakakeeny on New Orleans Brass Bands
Matt Sakakeeny is an ethnomusicologist and journalist, New Orleans resident and musician. This talk is on a thriving brass band tradition, in New Orleans today young black Americans continue to perform, listen, and dance to jazz. Brass band musicians are celebrated as cultural icons for upholding the proud traditions of the jazz funeral and the second line parade, yet they remain subject to the perils of poverty, racial marginalization, and urban violence that characterize life for many black Americans.
Amiri Baraka's "Blues People" at Fifty : Robert O'Meally
Robert O’Meally discusses his contact with Baraka as a student and his subsequent engagement with his writings. O’Meally focuses on Baraka’s liner notes to jazz LP albums, arguing that they too are an important and distinctive form of jazz writing. He discusses the notes to, and music within, 1960s albums by soul jazz tenor saxophonists like Willis “Gatortail” Jackson and Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis.
Yusef Komunyakaa and Billy Bang: A Concert and Conversation Part II
Yusef Komunyakaa and Billy Bang: A Concert and Conversation Part I
Columbia Jazz Ensembles at Miller Theatre Featuring Bobby Porcelli
New York native Bobby Porcelli is one of Latin and Afro-Cuban jazz's most accomplished flutists and alto saxophonists. Bobby Porcelli has earned his stellar reputation through years of performing with the biggest names in Latin music. He joined the Tito Rodriguez Orchestra in 1963 and later the Machito Orchestra in 1965. Porcelli began playing with Tito Puente during 1966 and continued on with Puente for over 30 years. He is the only lead alto sax player to have played steadily with the "Big Three" from the Palladium Era (Puente, Machito, and Rodriquez).
Franya Berkman on Alice Coltrane
Alice Coltrane was a composer, performer, guru, and the widow of John Coltrane. Over the course of her musical life, she synthesized a wide range of musical genres including gospel, rhythm and blues, bebop, free jazz, Indian devotional song, and Western art music. Franya Berkman's book, Monument Eternal: The Music of Alice Coltrane (Wesleyan University Press, 2010), illuminates her music and explores American religious practices in the second half of the twentieth century. The talk by Dr.
Jazz Festivals and Cosmopolitan Vernaculars: Part II
Part II of this talk by Dr. Anne C. Dvinge of the University of Copenhagen includes an exchange between Dr. Dvinge and CJS Director George E. Lewis on the further questions her work raises. For Part I, click here.
Jazz Festivals and Cosmopolitan Vernaculars: Part I
As jazz continues to migrate across national, ethnic, and cultural borders, jazz festivals function as physical and symbolic spaces where the dynamics between the vernacular and the cosmopolitan are put into play. In this talk, Dr. Anne C. Dvinge of the University of Copenhagen takes a closer look at jazz festivals, and specifically the Copenhagen Jazz Festival, as manifestations of this double sense of the cosmopolitan and the vernacular, where jazz enters into dialogue with local music cultures.
The String Trio of New York Performs at Columbia University
The String Trio of New York includes James Emery, guitar; John Lindberg, bass; Rob Thomas, violin. Since its formation in 1977 on the Lower East Side of New York City, the String Trio of New York has performing disctinctive acoustic improvisations and compositions for this instrumentation. This performance took place on May 9, 2014 at Columbia University’s Prentis Hall. The piece is the first movement of a suite entitled “River Orion,” and is called Aquarian Waters.
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