Jazz Flowering Within Like Sunflowers in A Garden

It is amazing to me that as I delve more and more into the culture of jazz, love for it grows more and more within me like flowers in a spring garden.


First it was an appreciation for the sounds of the musical art form. Then it became a desire to sing like Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald. Then I started singing the songs that they sang not realizing that it was more than just an art form but identifying who you are, your experiences and your life through the music, like jazz musicians have been doing since the beginnings of what Miles Davis calls "the only cultural contribution that America gave to the world which came from African Americans." And now, it is a deep fondness for the culture. 

I started to study Jazz, wanting to know about it which has become a case study for me for my undergraduate thesis and I came across a wonderful read. "The Culture of Jazz" by anthropologist Frank Salamone which offers an anthropological look of the musical genre and culture and is a very interesting and enjoyable read starting from the beginnings of jazz and providing background information as well as historical events and accounts that occurred in the history of jazz. I love discovering more about different aspects of icons of jazz's attitudes. This book is a walk through history and I love it. 

But what I am loving most is reading and seeing all these throwback accounts and images of pianist Danny Mixon and vocal stylist Marion Cowings, and to have shared a stage with Mixon and gained vocal instruction from both Cowings' vocal workshop and at jazz mobile makes me feel honored. Loving this book! 

I am also appreciative to follow in the footsteps of so many of the jazz greats of the past and to sing some of the wonderful standards and popular songs that make up the cornerstone of the jazz repertoire; which gives me deep pleasure to invite you out to

A Spring Affair
Hosted by the Medgar Evers Jazz Ensemble
at Medgar Evers College
1650 Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn, NY
(Corner of Bedford Avenue & Crown Street)
on
Thursday, March 31, 2016
6PM to 7PM


I am a member of this awesome group and will be singing with them and hope that you will join us this evening, and perhaps the sounds that oscillate from this group will uproot in your heart like sunflowers and keep the sunshine beating within you. 
Look forward to seeing you there!