“We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence then is not an act, but a habit”
(Aristotle)
I am always looking for a good
topic to base each episode of my show on. I spend some time making a frantic
effort to allow the blanket of the non-stop flow of music that you find on Jazz
on the JNote, to have a concentration of focus so that as the show barrels
ahead, the music can fuel the momentum of the topic at hand.
The main theme of every episode of Jazz on
the JNote is jazz, identity and race, as was my college thesis, which was how this
radio show started back in June of 2015. The show was a way to help me to conduct research as I sojourned to write 30 pages on jazz and how it helped to implement an identity and political tongue for people of color.
And so, in trying to keep each episode as new as possible
without too many repeats being aired, as each week progresses, not only
do I do an extensive search of “today in jazz history,” but also one on “today
in black history” and then narrow down my search to one particular area of
focus from the information populated, which caused the most overflow of words to hit my blank page.
Here are a few of the things that I
found:
Some
of This Week’s Jazz Birthdays
Henry Threadgill – February 15, 1944
Randy Crawford – February 18, 1952
Nancy Wilson – February 20, 1937
Nina Simone – February 21, 1933
It
Happened This Week in Jazz History
Mahalia Jackson recorded “Come
Sunday” with Duke Ellington – February 12,
1958
Nat King Cole Died – February 15, 1965
Bessie Smith made her first
recording “Downhearted Blues” - February 16, 1923
Thelonious Monk Died – February 17,
1982
Billie Holiday recorded “Lady in
Satin” – February 18, 1958
It
Happened this week in Black History
February
12, 1793
The First Fugitive Slave Law was
enacted by congress
February
12, 1900
First black secretary of the NAACP,
James Weldon Johnson, wrote the lyrics to, “Lift Every Voice and Sing” for an
Abraham Lincoln birthday celebration
February
12, 1908
NAACP founded in NYC following the
race riot of 1908 in Springfield, IL, with a mission to ensure the political,
educational, social and economic equality of rights of all persons and to
eliminate race-based discrimination. It was founded by bold and daring pioneers
sociologist WEB DuBois, lawyer Archibald Grimke, civil rights activist Henry
Moskowtiz, suffragists Mary White Ovington and Mary Church Terrell, labor
reformer William English Walling, social and political reformer Florence
Kelley, and journalists Charles Edward Russell, Oswald Garrington Villard and
Ida B Wells all joining forces to eliminate race prejudice and to lead
grassroots campaigns for social justice, equal protection of the law, equal
opportunities and voter mobilization.
February
14, 1817
The man for whom Carter G Woodson based
Black History Week around when it first became a notable time of celebration, Frederick
Douglass, was born
February
17, 1891
A black inventor, A C Richardson, invented
the patent for the churn
February
17, 1902
The first black person to ever be
invited to sing in the White House, Marion Anderson, was born.
Focus for February 18, 2018
It didn’t happen this week in black
history but rather this month . . . On February
1, 1978, Harriet Tubman became the first black woman to be honored with a
US Postal stamp, and after a more extensive acquaintance with this heroine’s brilliant
history, the topic of discussion based on the Fugitive Slave Law and the US
Postal Stamp, became my focal point.
Harriet
Tubman
“A woman does not run among thorns for no reason;
either she is chasing a snake
or a snake is chasing her.”
– (African Proverb)
This week, we celebrate the unwavering
faith of Aramanta Ross, better known to the world as Harriett Tubman. She was also
coined by many as Black Moses because she risked her own life out of stern
necessity to rescue her people from their place of struggle, judgment and no
justice in which they dwelt at the risk of harsh punishment, lashings to the
skin or even assassination by lynching or beheading. She was more than just a noble and brave, dedicated
humanitarian but a respected leader in her own right.
This week’s episode is dedicated to
Harriet Tubman's fugitive steps in her endeavor to help her people to pilot away from the south, guided by the steady light of the north star to freedom. Please join us as we celebrate her life and incredible story.
Here
is How You Can Listen
Tune in Sunday February 18, 2018
7:30PM EST WNYE 91.5FM (NY, NJ, CT)
