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TODAY'S ARTISTS


Winard Harper


Winard Harper

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Drummer Winard Harper is passionate about jazz. "This music is powerful," he says. "It can do a lot of good for people. If they'd spend some time each day listening to it, we would see many changes in the world."



Come Into the Light

Come Into the Light





The EDGE


In Memory Of

Lena Horne,

1917 - 2010

Stormy Weather



Hank Jones,

1918 - 2010

Willow Weep For Me, a 1994 Carnegie Hall performance



Benjamin Hooks,

1925 - 2010



Gene Lees,

1928 - 2010



Dorothy Height,

1912 - 2010



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Think About It


"To some will come a time when change itself is beauty, if not heaven."

- Edwin Arlington Robinson, 1869 - 1935



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Today's Gift Idea

Lithographs and Giclees by Barbara Freeman

Chet Baker

 


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Recently Published


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James Gavin, author of Stormy Weather: The Life of Lena Horne

Lena Horne

Stormy Weather, by Lena Horne


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Larry Tye, author of Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend


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David Robertson, author of W.C. Handy: The Life and Times of the Man Who Made the Blues

W.C. Handy

St. Louis Blues, by W.C. Handy's Memphis Blues Band


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If you could have dinner with three people, who would they be?

Among those participating in the twelfth edition of Reminiscing in Tempo: Memories and Opinion are Gary Bartz, John Scofield, Billy Cobham and Esperanza Spalding

Gary Bartz


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Graham Lock and David Murray, co-editors of Thriving on a Riff: Jazz and Blues Influences in African American Literature and Film and The Hearing Eye: Jazz and Blues Influences in African American Visual Art

The Death of Bessie Smith, by Rose Piper


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In the twenty-seventh edition of Great Encounters, David Robertson, author of W.C. Handy: The Life and Times of the Man Who Made the Blues, tells the story of Handy's first recording session, and his meeting with James Reese Europe

W.C. Handy
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Marybeth Hamilton, author of In Search of the Blues

Leadbelly


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Trudy Carpenter is the winner of the Jerry Jazz Musician Short Fiction contest. Her story is called "Bumps Out Then Bumps Back "


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Jazz: Through the Life and Lens of Milt Hinton: An online photo exhibit



Milt Hinton

Laughing At Life, by Milt Hinton


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Ben Ratliff, author of Coltrane: The Story of a Sound

John Coltrane

Giant Steps


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Ralph Ellison biographer Arnold Rampersad, on the complex life of the author of Invisible Man

Ralph Ellison


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In cooperation with The Jazz Image author Lee Tanner, Jerry Jazz Musician presents "Masters of Jazz Photography," this month featuring the work of Jerry Stoll

photo of Pee Wee Russell and Gerry Mulligan by Jerry Stoll


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Up From New Orleans: Life Before, During and After Katrina -- A conversation with transplanted New Orleans musicians Devin Phillips and Mark DiFlorio

Devin Phillips


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An Online Story of Jazz in New Orleans, with an introduction by Nat Hentoff

Jelly Roll Morton

New Orleans was a free and easy place, comments by Jelly Roll Morton


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Now in the Art Gallery

The Art of James Allen



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Test your wits! Subscribe to Quiz Show, which is delivered to your desktop every other Friday .



Play Quiz Show

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Heroes...We all had them. For years, we have been asking the guests we interview to talk about theirs. You can read them at our Heroes page. Now, we invite you to write about the person you recall being your own childhood hero. All submissions are published...



Willie Mays


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Coming Soon

Interviews with Stormy Weather: The Life of Lena Horne author James Gavin, and Robin D.G. Kelley, author of Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Genius



...ensure you won't miss any of this (and much more in the works) by subscribing to our newsletter.

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"The political and commercial morals of the United States are not merely food for laughter, they are an entire banquet."

- Mark Twain




JJM

 



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Jerry Jazz Musician Home Page
Jazz/Jerry Jazz Musician/"9 23 99: Coltrane Notes on the Millenium," a poem by Michael Harper



Photo by Lee Tanner

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9 23 99: Coltrane Notes on the Millenium

by Michael Harper




"Alabama"
no protection still

that is not churchdriven
James Weldon Johnson's alternate tune

steep archival research
in playback of the melodies

wrested in church of the beloved
(no simple timeline in melodies

hummed at the vortex of a bomb
Birmingham     television hoses as carnival

reminiscent of Sharpeville)
what is African in us subliminal

as you discovered the soprano
which Miles saw that you had

when in France the makers of instruments
wanted to give him something     French

your kiss of the fluid accents
like no sorcerer ever heard in the vedas

mistaken in byplay as prayer
the intense registers of praise

high up in the registers
of salvation         all-knowing dross         in this world

if gnosis         is not forgiveness
already granted in the penultimate hour

(what does a black man on a foreign instrument
have to teach the world other than intentional suffering)

I would trust the pieta as parlance
in the free gift faithfully offered

as your compositions
transcribed yet unrecorded

in the vigor of a practice session
as the reed enables the passages of praise

all technical mastery
layed at the feet       of the high mode



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Alabama, by John Coltrane



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John Forasté © Brown University


About Michael Harper



     Michael Harper is one of America's most celebrated poets, having received honors and appointments from artistic organizations and academic institutions across the country, ranging from National Book Award to a Guggenheim Fellowship. He is much sought after for poetic readings, guest lectureships, and visiting professorships, and served as the Poet Laureate of Rhode Island from 1988 to 1993, and as Kapstein Professor of English at Brown University.

     His poetry is highly influenced by the music he loves: jazz and blues sound through the lines and often appear as inspiration, metaphor or rhythm in individual poems. His poetry is filled with references to his past; history, experience, and family are strong inspirations which reverberate throughout his work. His ancestry, to which he refers frequently, is filled with fascinating and inspirational individuals. Paraphrasing Ralph Ellison, Harper once said: "Relatives are people that you are born into, and have no choice about them. Ancestors are people you choose." His ancestors live on and their voices can still be heard in the lines of his verse.

- From Brown University Library



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The Jerry Jazz Musician Poetry page


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