Author's posts
Soundtrack to the Struggle: Gary Bartz
It’s 1970, and saxophonist Gary Bartz forms his Ntu Troop. Named for the Bantu word for“unity,” this new group extended Bartz’s pioneering “soul-jazz.” Its music was a new kind offusion that melded hard bop, soul, funk, free jazz, and Afro-Cuban folk polyrhythms. Itsmessage was staunchly pro-African and anti-war. Bartz saw a direct connection between the …
Talking Pictures 2-19-25
“Dexter: Original Sin” (2024 Paramount+) and “Shrinking” (2023 Apple TV) with Hollis Monroe, Phil Brown and Monica Schmidt.
Soundtrack to the Struggle: Current Struggle
It’s June 1 st , 2020, and Jazz singer and activist Aaron Myers joins thousands of demonstrators inWashington, DC’s Lafayette Square. “I saw people running,” he related. “I started coughing andcrying.” Myers couldn’t think why security forces fired tear gas. Then he saw governmentofficials walking to a nearby church for a photo op. At that …
Soundtrack to the Struggle: Folk Studio
Teaching the world through jazz. It’s 1961, and football star Harold Bradley, Jr. founds a cultural nexus. Two years earlier, Bradley left a championship NFL career to study art in Italy. The sports world thought he was crazy, but those who knew Bradley knew he loved painting more than football. He acquired a basement workshop …
Soundtrack to the Struggle: Pullman Porters
At the turn of the 20th century, the phenomenon of the Pullman Porter caught the public’s imagination. A journey on a Pullman car summoned up images of romance and adventure. In a rigidly segregated society, Pullman Porters were probably the only African-Americans that most of white society ever truly interacted with. But there is an …
Soundtrack to the Struggle: E. Simms Campbell
It’s 2016, and Yale University acquires a priceless piece of the Harlem Renaissance. In 1932, young artist E. Simms Campbell drew his “Night-Club Map of Harlem,” a who’s-who illustration of the neighborhood hotspots. Drawn cartoon-style, we see Cab Calloway singing at the Cotton Club. There’s Glady Bentley’s Clam House, with Gladys tickling the ivories in …
Soundtrack to the Struggle: Al Hibbler’s March to the Sunrise
Al Hibbler, a jazz vocalist who captivated generations of music lovers with his unique vocal style, was born blind on August 16, 1915, in Tyro, Mississippi. He was the first black singer to have a radio program in Little Rock, Arkansas in the 1930s. In the early 1940s he joined Jay McShann’s orchestra as a …
Soundtrack to the Struggle: Big Jay McNeely and the Photograph
Every picture tells a story … or two. It’s 1951 Los Angeles, and photographer Bob Willoughby works in his darkroom, listening to the radio. The disc jockey promotes a jazz concert that night at the Olympic arena. The concert starts at midnight. Intrigued, Willoughby packs his camera and heads for the show. What he finds …