And Then There Were The Ladies of Jazz

March is Women’s History Month which is a month to celebrate the remarkable women in history who have used the utmost limits of their naturally remarkable power to showcase their extraordinary talents.

On March 10, 2018 from 2PM to 3:30PM at the Roosevelt Public Library located at 27 W Fulton Avenue in Roosevelt, NY, I am excited to bring to you, “And Then There Were the Ladies of Jazz” which is a jazz show dedicated to some of the greatest women of jazz to ever share their talents with the world. This show will celebrate the lives of the first lady of song, Ella Fitzgerald, the pathos and tone of Billie Holiday, the operatic voice of the Divine One, Sarah Vaughan and the amazingly talented, Carmen McRae with music hosted by Stephanie Jeannot and her Jazz Quartet with special guest performances by JAzz E Matt, Dalthannette Munlin and Stacey Haughton, just to name a few.

These phenomenal women of jazz were newsmakers of their day. They tokenized the genre of vocal jazz with their memorable voices that just simply melted into the masses. They had global influence with their contributions to the culture.

For me, every time I listen to them strike a note, their voices generate happiness and heal my heart in scission, every time I listen to them sing. They embody the actual skill of what jazz singing is all about.

And while the tremendous struggle for equality was being fought, they were making progress by forcing a shift of mindset and helping to change legal, unjust and immoral Jim Crow establishments; many of which integrated so that these women would be allowed to showcase their talents at these establishments, becoming ambassadors of acceptance of people of color as human beings and creating a sense of belonging in places where blacks originally were not before.

Each, in their own way, showcased virtuosic musicianship and impacted the future with their influence that seemed to resonate in the hearts and spirits of multitudes of people across cultures. With this is mind, "And Then There Were the Ladies of Jazz" will feature meaningful moments in celebration of these women who transformed the world with their technical prowess. This show will focus on the profiles of these remarkable innovators who showed their strengths to the world not only as people of color but as women.

Trumpeting the Musically Gratifying Dizzy

When I think of his creative energy, the sparkle and grace in his playing and the volcanic personality he had, I can’t help but smile about Dizzy Gillespie.  

I feel as if the emotion was embedded in me though. No matter what, his name comes up, I start clapping enthusiastically inside and I can’t help it.

Musically Gratifying

I may have been too young to remember him being on Sesame Street though I saw a few images and clips this week as I spent many hours of my week with this audacious interest to watch some old interviews he was a part of, a few concerts he performed in, some podcasts that featured him speaking and many other things that focused on Dizzy.

Yup, that was my station of life this week as I compiled information to put together a centennial celebration show worthy of celebrating, I guess you can say, my favorite jazz artist’s centennial birthday. What I do remember that never left my heart was seeing him on an old episode of “The Cosby Show” as he was featured as Vanessa’s music teacher. That episode always leaves me feeling so happy. Even until today. Perhaps, it is one of the reasons I became a musician myself.

Let me clarify this before I move on. Many will not consider a singer a musician because we sing and when we go to a gig, we do not carry heavy equipment that needs to be set up on the stage. 

We however carry our instruments in our body. Our bodies are our instrument. We use our bodies to produce sound and add our vocal chords to any song, over wailing musicians. Therefore, vocalists certainly are musicians.

 Trumpeting My Excitement with Purpose

This year has been a year full of jazz great’s centennials with this year celebrating the 100 years of the first lady of jazz Ella Fitzgerald, Lena Horne who was the first black person to have a major contract with MGM studios, The genius of modern music better known as Thelonious Monk and John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie who was one of the founding fathers of the Afro-Cuban and/or Latin jazz tradition and a major figure of the bebop and modern jazz movement who remained an outgoing and tireless ambassador for bop throughout his life; just to name a few.

Dizzy had this creative edge that was unbeatable. Everything he performed came out of his horn with an outpouring of emotion. He had a keen sense of humor that could make a person laugh until tears fell out of their eyes.

He is most noted for enlivening the world of jazz with his iconic “swollen cheeks” and for blooming those flirtatious, race horse tempos and complex syncopations out of his up-angled trumpet. He is also known for his quirky humorousness on the stage which was one of the reasons why while in his first ever band, the Frankie Fairfax band, he gained his nickname Dizzy. Stanley Crouch called him, “one of the most influential players of his horn in the history of the music.”

“Music is An International Language” (Dizzy Gillespie)

As a jazz musician, Dizzy became a beacon of human possibility with jazz being an integrator of races as well as what gave people of color an identity. I found it amazing how music can bring people together. I experienced it on my first ever musical tour which occurred last year around this time in Russia. 

You do not even have to speak the same language and yet somehow can be on the same stage and music is the language that you and someone with a whole different set of cultures and traditions can speak to bridge the gap. It is one of the most incredible things that I ever experienced and a layer of music that I will always appreciate. 

Dizzy claimed that one of the reasons to be part of the musical exchange is that, “jazz transcends the barriers of political ideologies, of cultural, racial, ethnic and religious differences from Brazil to Senegal, from Denmark to Australia, from Senegal to Czechoslovakia, from the USA to the USSR. Jazz brings people together to smile, to enjoy and be enriched by the beauty and joy of our majestic music that elevates the human spirit. Jazz is a mirror of life and also jazz is a universal language” (Dizzy Gillespie).

“Improve Over the Years Adding Layers of Finish,

Polishing and Refining, Your Art’s Sheen

and Subtle Symmetry”

(Whitehead).

Dizzy said that as a musician, you have to keep one foot back in the past and have one foot forward into the future.  In the book Hard Bop by David Rosenthal, Dizzy admitted to learning a lot from “the first Picasso of jazz” better known by the world as Thelonious Monk; another centenarian of jazz. Dizzy was largely influenced by Roy Eldridge. Dizzy claimed that “When coming up, all trumpet players wanted to sound like Roy Eldridge.” But Dizzy certainly developed his own original sound. 

Dizzy said that “he could see somebody copying something because everybody has someone to copy and he didn’t care if he heard a guy say that he got his sound out of the air because that would be a lie. He didn’t care who the individual was and further said that no matter who you are as a musician, you definitely had a standard you studied and went by.”  This is true even for me. I find admiration in different artists and even though I started out trying to mimic what Whitney Houston and Sarah Vaughan may have done, I certainly did start adding who I am into the music and my style started to gain it’s own gossamer wings as I came out of my shell. Music like life is in a constant state of flux and we as musicians who study and practice our craft, are constantly changing.

One thing that will never change for me though is how much I like and respect Dizzy Gillespie. I am still very captivated by his energy and the more I learn about him, the more I am lured in to wanting to know and listen to more of his contributions to this world of music.

Speaking of music . . .

I have a radio show. Jazz on the JNote is a show I started while in college as I was in my final year and trying to complete my thesis which was on the topic of Jazz, Identity & Racism for which I read about 200 books to write 30 pages discussing the cultural aspects of jazz and its history. My first show featured music from my favorite jazz vocalist, Sarah Vaughan. 

Two years later, the show is still running and this week’s episode will celebrate the centennial of Dizzy Gillespie. 

Hope that you'll join me for this very special episode.  

Please visit www.theenglishconnectionmedia.com or http://mixlr.com/the-english-connection-media/  this Sunday evening, October 22 at 7PM EST to tune in. 

Thank you so much for checking out my blog post. Peace & blessings! 

Having Your Own Song And Dance

As time passes by, it is a true thing that we improve, evolve and persist with effortless grace.

We grow and we weave into our lives, our own patterns of thought and opinion. 

Some of the things that might have touched us at the core when we were teeny boppers, no longer move us. Especially with the years of sophisticated knowledge that we have accumulated as the days passed us by, and we somehow no longer feel so attached to the cultural mainstream because we learned to have independence of mind. 

In other words, we are all works in progress and the more we age, the more we become our own intricate sidewalk ballet dance.

Aspiring Artists

As music lovers who also have braved the walk of trying to share something as personal as our own art that emerges from the depths of our soul, our taste in what we indefatigably listen to even changes over the years. We often become disconnected from the majority and it is not so important to be drawn by what everybody else is listening to, and we develop our own unique style.

I can say in truth that tradition never goes out of style. I don’t think there is a day in my life that I will ever not enjoy Haitian Compas music or Christian hymns because I grew up listening to them and fell in love with them, even before I flowered my own thoughts in my mind. These tones hung in the air for years and years and may never antiquate but some of the things I was listening to in grade school or high school are not things you will find on my Ipod or Spotify playlist, while some others are. If you are someone who addresses people through your art, then your heart may gravitate towards something else; something different than you used to love back in your history and much different that what you initially thought you’d actually enjoy.

I guess, we always have a hope that we can reinvent the wheel in some way and with our breadth of knowledge, create a budding interest in the public sphere; especially in our family and peers. I mean, what aspiring musician doesn’t want their family to think that working on their priceless art is not a waste of time and effort and worth the escapade?   

Our Own Song and Dance

Not every upbeat, catchy tune is for everybody. And though many may be enamored by a tune created more than 800 miles away doesn’t mean that you have to be grounded in love for it. But it is also important to know that the boisterous sounds of today are not the only things that should gain our appeal. If it is, it may be time to expand your knowledge of music.

Maybe you can balance between some of the new and the old. Take a step back and clamor to the sounds that paved the way for what music we have been blessed to listen to today. It is not uncommon at all to fall in love with an antique sound and to be transformed by it.

I can honestly say that I am very influenced by many artists; both of yesterday and today. It is a thrill to my heart to have access to such great music. It was a rude awakening to me to come to find that it was mostly the music of the past that generated motivation in me. Call me an old soul but, the artists of the past seem to have abundant strength and stamina to be able to reach for the stars with every element of their being to be where they worked so hard to be, and it is very encouraging.

For instance, less than 100 years ago, there were no microphones. Singers like opera singer Marion Anderson had to use her own body mechanisms to create a beefy sound with her voice and sing over orchestras of more than ten or more pieces with marvelous intensity. We have the crutch of a microphone and rely on its mechanics to create the solution of sound in a venue. Not saying it is a bad thing because it is such a wonderful thing that we have it a little bit easier, but, that type of power that these artists had; incredible.  Another example is the jazz musicians who had to face discrimination, Jim-Crowism, rejection based on race, being denigrated against because anything that came from people of color was considered savagery, and endless squabbling over prejudices, they still worked towards upward mobility and came to sit in this position of inspiration for streams of people all across the world. And to think that we might feel a little bit unenthused if we go to an open jam session that features musicians who are there more in a competitive state rather than one of a welcoming nature at a platform meant to simply share who you are. These jazz musicians had to endure it and still did what they had to do. 

 

In This Arsenal of Musical Expression

I guess I weaved in this in-depth conversation to say to young singers that they should spend time opening their ears and their hearts to some of the past musicians and singers that skillfully handled this thing called music. Not only will it increase your arsenal of musical expression, but you will find more emotional intensity and also bring more meaning to what you already do.

Listening to singers like Ariana Grande brings change to my world but I am also riding high when I listen to Minnie Ripperton hitting those amazing whistle tones. The music of Beyonce gets me feeling electric. But then I hear a song by the group Lambert, Ross, and Hendrickson, and it warps boundaries for me. Listening to Khalid sing the song “Location” works so effectively on my ears while the ecstatic flow of Donny Hathaway’s rendition of “What’s Going On” strokes the feathers of the skylark that I am. 

Ella Fitzgerald seemed to be always on point. Whitney Houston used such great dynamics. Amel Larrieux won me over when she was a part of “Groove Theory” and since I have every album of hers and have seen her in concert about five times. Faith Hill gets me feeling all tender. Renee Fleming makes my heart weep with joy. Beres Hammond’s music adds fuel to my day. Kim Burrell’s songs gives me a reason to project positivity and Betty Carter makes me want to explore newness in so many countless ways.

Lately, discovering music that I have yet to know has become a worthy pursuit of mine. I find myself absorbing information through the medium of books that leads me to discovery elsewhere. And how fortunate are we to be able to simply go to Youtube, Spotify or Apple Music, etc., to find music from artists that have paved the way, even if they are no longer with us? I have been influenced more than I could have ever imagined and I know that I have barely touched the surface. There’s so much more to discover. 

I say, let yourself be exposed to different things than what you are currently listening to. You never know how a piece of sound art can harmonize with you. You never know how much you might truly enjoy a piece of music that has been a part of this world for over 75 years or has been here even 200 years before our time. You may find that mixing things up is something you love with your whole heart. And what is better than change that leaves you swept up with ideas?

Side Note

Maybe you might be interested in checking out some of mine. I have a website which gets more into who I am, my music, and features some of my past performances and pictures from various shows I had the opportunity to perform in. 

You can check it out at http://www.jnotemusic.com

I am also on Facebook where I post different music related things including videos and upcoming events. You can check out my facebook page and if you feel inclined to like it, please do. http://www.facebook.com/jnotemusic

I am also in Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/musiqal1

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/musiqal 1

And I have a youtube page: http://www.youtube.com/sj1and0

Et Vous?

So what music do you gravitate towards? Are you a radio person? Do you find the feeling of utter peace by listening to classical music? Are you influenced by the 600 million users on Instagram who share their favorite song choices? What kind of music drives you home and leaves you feeling triumphant? Are you even a music person at all? 

Thank you so much for checking out my blogpost! Much love to you.