The National Jazz Museum in Harlem presents Jazz for Curious Listeners with Christian McBride Tuesday, December 8, 2009 and Geg Tate Monday, December 7, 2009

[WASHINGTON DC JAZZ NETWORK]

The National Jazz Museum in Harlem
104 East 126th Street
New York, NY 10035
212 348-8300
www.jazzmuseuminharlem.org
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National Jazz Museum in Harlem Events

December 7 - 11, 2009

Jazz for Curious Readers:



GREG TATE

Put aside Monday and Tuesday evenings for two outstanding events at the National Jazz Museum In Harlem. Acclaimed author/cultural critic Greg Tate appears as our JAZZ FOR CURIOUS READERS Monday. His original and at times provocative take on contemporary culture is well-known internationally. This is a rare chance to engage in a dialogue with him in an intimate setting. Tuesday’s JAZZ FOR CURIOUS LISTENERS continues our month-long celebration of our co-director Christian McBride. We’ll be showing rare film of Mr. McBride with a wide variety of jazz greats. Don’t miss this one.


Monday, December 7, 2009
JAZZ FOR CURIOUS READERS
Greg Tate
7:00 – 8:30pm
Location: NJMIH Visitors Center
(104 E. 126th Street, Suite 2C)
FREE | For more information: 212-348-8300 or register online


Greg Tate was a staff writer at The Village Voice from 1987–2003. His writings on culture and politics have also been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Artforum, Rolling Stone, VIBE, Premiere, Essence, Suede, The Wire, One World, Downbeat, and JazzTimes. He was recently acknowledged by The Source magazine as one of the ‘Godfathers of Hiphop Journalism’ for his groundbreaking work on the genre’s social, political, economic and cultural implications in the period when most pundits considered it a fad.

His published interviews include dialogues with Miles Davis, George Clinton, Richard Pryor, Carlos Santana, Lenny Kravitz, Sade, Erykah Badu, Wayne Shorter, Joni Mitchell, Lisa Bonet, Samuel R Delany, Ice Cube, Dexter Gordon, Betty Carter, King Sunny Ade, Chuck D of Public Enemy, Cassandra Wilson, Jill Scott, Wynton Marsalis, Branford Marsalis, Ornette Coleman, Henry Threadgill and Vernon Reid of Living Colour.



Tuesday, December 8, 2009
JAZZ FOR CURIOUS LISTENERS
A Month With Christian McBride: On Film
7:00 – 8:30pm
Location: NJMIH Visitors Center
(104 E. 126th Street, Suite 2C)
FREE | For more information: 212-348-8300 or register online


Come witness Christian McBride, co-director of the National Jazz Museum in Harlem, on film, with his own bands, as well as with legends such as Sonny Rollins and Herbie Hancock. If you do you’ll see for yourself that the most awe-inspiring thing about Christian McBride is that his prowess as a player is only half of what makes him such a respected, in-demand and mind-bogglingly busy individual, taking time out to share with the audience of the museum.

The portrait is completed by a mere mid-thirty-something man who carved out time to speak at former President Clinton’s town hall meeting on “Racism in the Performing Arts.” He holds Artistic Director posts at the Jazz Aspen Snowmass summer program and the Dave Brubeck Institute at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, CA. McBride participated in a Stanford University panel on “Black Performing Arts in Mainstream America.” He’s hosted insightful one-on-one “jazz chats” in Cyberspace on Sonicnet.com. He also scribed the foreword for pianist Jonny King’s book, What Jazz Is (Walker & Co., New York).

2005 witnessed his adding two more prestigious appointments to his resume. In January, he was named co-director of The Jazz Museum in Harlem. Christian has been focusing on a longtime concern: exposing jazz to young people.

Past Events

Jazz for Curious Readers
Greg Thomas
October 5, 2009
Jazz critic and broadcast journalist Greg Thomas has been a consistent presence at the National Jazz Museum in Harlem for five years. He's co-producer of the Harlem Speaks public program as well as a marketing and education consultant working in collaboration with Executive Director Loren Schoenberg and Co-Director Christian McBride. In addition to booking and interviewing jazz artists for Harlem Speaks, Thomas has moderated several Saturday Panels, led Jazz for Curious Listeners sessions on Jon Hendricks and Dr. Billy Taylor as well as an overview of the profound insights of the cultural historian and novelist Albert Murray, author of The Hero and the Blues, Stomping the Blues, and many other works on blues and jazz, for Jazz for Curious Readers.

Thomas got bit by the jazz bug in the late '70s while in high school, and began playing the alto saxophone, clarinet and flute in various classical and jazz ensembles there. In college, where he minored in Music, he continued pursuing jazz as host of a music show and member of the Hamilton College Big Band. Thomas had the great honor of playing first alto sax chair when living legend Clark Terry came to play a concert on April 17, 1984. In a recent interview with fellow jazz journalist Willard Jenkins, Thomas described the experience of sharing a melody line with Terry as "an epiphany, a mystical experience of musical ecstasy."

His byline has been featured in numerous publications, including All About Jazz, Salon.com, London's Guardian Observer, American Legacy, Africana.com, Savoy, BlackAmericaWeb.com, New York's Daily News, The Black World Today, Callaloo, among others, for instance, Harlem World magazine, for which Thomas was founding Editor-in-Chief.

Thomas has taught jazz education on behalf of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and at the Thurgood Marshall Academy and the Frederick Douglass Academy for the Jazz Museum's Harlem Speaks Education Initiative.

JAZZ IT UP!

He's been a member of the Jazz Study Group at Columbia University since 1999. Thomas hosts a monthly jazz radio program on WBAI-NY and an online jazz series, Jazz it Up!, which has garnered a viewership of nearly 3 million since its launch in 2007. His objective is to share his love and passion for jazz on as many media platforms as possible to reach current and new audiences for the music.



Visitors Center
104 East 126th Street, Suite 2C
Monday through Friday 10 a.m. - 4 p.m
close to 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 trains to 125th Street



We’re waiting for you! Yes, that’s right. Our new Visitors Center is now open Monday through Friday (10 a.m. – 4 p.m.) and chock full of books, CDs and DVDs for your perusal. There is also a first-class exhibit of photos on the walls, so we hope you will come up and see us and also spread the word to any other curious folk who want to spend some time getting jazzed in Harlem.

Also, to find audio and video clips, event summaries, program updates and photographs galore from our previous events, venture here:

www.jazzmuseuminharlem.org

GEORGE V JOHNSON JR
Executive Director & Founder
Washington DC Jazz Network
240.691.3868

Exploring America's Classical Music with the Great "Little Jimmy Scott"
Tuesday, December 15th 5:00 pm EST
"The George V Johnson Jr Show"


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