Tuesday, March 19, 2024
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Tag: jazz

Curtis Family C-notes hits big stage!

With ongoing love transfusions for humanity the Curtis Family C-notes brings their unifying musical activism to feed the soul, and from Day One of the pandemic, accompanied by food for the body from Mother Brown’s.

‘My Friend Fela’ doc, a definitive view of a man on...

This is a very important film for today’s times. Fela was a political Black revolutionary who used music as his sole weapon to address injustices perpetrated by the government, mostly in his country of Nigeria.

Wanda’s Picks for August 2019

by Wanda Sabir ‘Ubugqirha: A Healing Beyond the Western Gaze’ Dr. Zethu Cakata, visiting scholar from South Africa, is giving a workshop and talk on “Ubugqirha: A Healing...

St. John Coltrane Church celebrates 50th anniversary in San Francisco

Since its inception in 1969, the Saint John Coltrane African Orthodox Church (SJCAOC) has been dedicated to the spiritual artistry of its namesake, the great American jazz musician and composer, whose instrument was the saxophone.

West Coast Premiere of ‘Jazz,’ based on Toni Morrison’s book, Marcus...

“Jazz,” adapted by Nambi E. Kelley from Toni Morrison’s novel, is a tragic composition. Performed across a series of lyrically connected (woven) tapestries: colors, sounds, fractured memories … missing people, guns (bullets) falling tears, treetops, wild woods, sharecropped promises, fire terror, unclaimed bodies … too many bodies to count … love.

Aretha Franklin, the radical Queen of Soul

After gracing the planet for 76 years, Aretha Franklin joined the ancestors Thursday, Aug. 16, 2018. President Obama: “Aretha helped define the American experience. In her voice, we could feel our history, all of it and in every shade – our power and our pain, our darkness and our light, our quest for redemption and our hard-won respect. May the Queen of Soul rest in eternal peace.”

Wanda’s Picks April 2018

On the 50th anniversary of Dr. King’s assassination, Wednesday, April 4, we need to stop and reflect on the many landmark movements which began 50 years ago … like hip-hop. For the Oakland Museum of California to showcase this culture in an exhibit entitled “RESPECT: Hip Hop Style and Wisdom” now through August 2018 is to elevate this conversation and its creators to a level unprecedented.

‘Harlem of the West – The San Francisco Fillmore Jazz Era’:...

From May through August, three floors of black and white jazz photographs are on display at the African American Art & Culture Complex. They depict Harlem of the West, the San Francisco Fillmore jazz era that was bustling from the 1930s through the 1950s. Jazz was “king” and the Fillmore music scene was alive and flowing from end to end in the African American community.

Richmond youth debut annual theatrical production, ‘Richmond Renaissance,’ May 6-7

RYSE debuts its third annual production at El Cerrito High School Performing Arts Theater on May 6 and 7. “Richmond Renaissance” is an original play written and performed by Richmond youth. Set in AnnaBelle’s, a Black-owned juke joint in 1940s North Richmond, Richmond Renaissance counters the often negative Richmond narrative of poverty and violence by highlighting the community’s wealthy cultural past as an epicenter for blues, jazz and zydeco.

Cuban poet Nancy Marejon speaks on Black culture on the island

Block Report Radio interviews legendary Cuban poet Nancy Marejon about Black culture in Cuba after the revolution. She talks about Cubanismo and African pride, she talks about contemporary Cuban painters, musicians of the past, Jazz, and more. If you would like to hear more from the Block Report, you could tune in regularly to BlockReportRadio.com.

The Black Lives Matter Poem

Do Black lives matter? I challenge everybody on planet earth to retrace their roots; you will find that the more you go back, the more you get Black! Because Mama Af Ra Ka gave birth to humanity. And Africa is the only continent rooted in the earth, that doesn’t float and oscillate. Afrika is the breadbasket of the world. Free Afreeka, for humanity’s sake! Black lives gave birth to civilization, science, mathematics, music, art, poetry and medicine.

Hypnotic Brass Ensemble coming to SF Jazz on March 19

Hypnotic Brass Ensemble is one of the most riveting and exciting instrument-playing musical formations specializing in Jazz wit’ a splash of Hip Hop. I talked with trumpet player Gabriel “Huda” Hubert about touring extensively overseas, one of his brothers quitting the band, growing up in a polygamous household, the legalization of marijuana, their upcoming new album, “The Bad Boys of Jazz,” and more.

Wanda’s Picks for February 2016

Dr. Frances Cress Welsing (“Isis Papers”) made her transition Jan. 2, 2016. She was 80. The psychiatrist who challenged white supremacists on what she called “The Cress Theory of Color Confrontation and Racism (White Supremacy)” to look at their own melanin deficiency for what it is, “envy,” stirred and continues to stir the waters. She always stated theoretically that “Black lives matter,” way before the #blm movement.

Oakland’s Black Spirituals is a headliner at Matatu Festival of Stories

One of the most interesting musical formations of an African aesthetic that I have come across has to be the Black Spirituals. Influenced by Punk, Free Jazz, Reggae and other genres, this improvisation-based group is receiving top billin’ at the upcoming Matatu Festival of Stories this week. On Wednesday, Sept. 23, they’ll perform at the Starline Social Club in the historic spot at 645 Grand Ave., Oakland.

Greg Bridges’ jazz show is now nationally syndicated

KCSM’s own Greg Bridges is one of the legendary Black broadcasters of the Bay, with the most radio-made voice you have ever heard. His knowledge of Jazz, rolodex of contacts, unique interview style and James Earl Jones-like presence on the mic has made him the premiere Jazz disc jockey in the region. His show has been recently picked up to become syndicated nationally. Check him out in this exclusive Q&A.

Manifesto on rebuilding New Afrikan people, families and communities

I introduce this manifesto to all New Afrikans (i.e. Blacks) and any human beings who are SERIOUS about changing the inhumane living conditions that we see the people being subjected to in oppressed, impoverished communities throughout Amerika. It is crucial that we assess our conditions based on what is in our power to do, opposed to what someone can do for us.

Los Angeles’ Leimert Park Book Fair is August 1

The most exciting literary event every year for Black people on the West Coast is the Leimert Park Book Fair, held this year on Saturday, Aug. 1. It brings out a lot of community members, community heroes and sheroes, as well as Hollywood celebrities to share in the festivities. Check out the founder of the Leimert Park Book Fair and author Cynthia Exum as she tells us about this year’s Leimert Park Book Fair.

The war on Billie Holiday: The Bureau of Narcotics’ strange obsession

Jazz was the opposite of everything Harry Anslinger, the first commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, believed in. It is improvised, and relaxed, and free-form. It follows its own rhythm. Anslinger looked out over a scene filled with men like Charlie Parker, Louis Armstrong and Thelonious Monk, and he longed to see them all behind bars. In the end he scaled down his focus until it settled like a laser on a single target – Billie Holiday.

African American classical music: Renaissance woman P. Kujichagulia speaks

On Sunday, Feb. 1, 1-3 p.m., to kick off Black History Month, she will be giving a lecture called “Racism and All That Jazz” on African American classical music, aka Jazz, in the Koret Auditorium at the San Francisco Main Library, 100 Larkin St. “I’m honored to have the fabulous Yemanya Napue, percussionists Val Serrant and Sosu Ayansolo and visual artist Duane Deterville collaborate with me on this presentation,” she says.

Wanda’s Picks for September 2014

Congratulations to William Rhodes on a successful trip to South Africa, where he took a quilt created by his students at Dr. Charles Drew Elementary School in San Francisco to honor the legacy of an international hero, President Nelson Mandela, and returned with art panels from workshops conducted with youth in various townships and regions from Cape Town to Johannesburg.