African American Music - KOLUMN Magazine

Betty Wright Laid To Rest Like A Queen In Miami Hometown | BET

May 27, 2020May 27, 2020African American Music

Luke delivered an eulogy on “The Life of a Legend” for his friend. Betty Wright was laid to rest in her hometown of Miami, Florida over the Memorial Day holiday weekend. According to local television station Local 10, her family and close friends gathered at the Bethel Apostolic Church on Saturday (May 23) to send Wright off […]

Music icon Miles Davis remembered ahead of 94th birthday on SiriusXM’s ‘Real Jazz’ | The St. Louis American

May 24, 2020May 24, 2020African American Art, African American Music ...

The Miles Davis Estate and the Jazz Foundation Of America will present “A Miles Davis Birthday Celebration,” on SiriusXM’s ‘Real Jazz’ (67) this Friday, May 22 at 7 p.m. CST. The three-hour music special, highlighting the music of Miles Davis as curated by SiriusXM’s Mark Ruffin and guest DJ’s Erin Davis, Vince Wilburn, Jr. (Miles Davis Estate) and Steve Jordan (JFA), will benefit and […]

The National Museum of African American Music: Almost Twenty Years In The Making, About to Come True | Medium

May 19, 2020May 19, 2020African American Music, National Museum of African American Music

The grand opening is scheduled for Labor Day, September 7, 2020. The Museum is still planning to meet that date but keeping a close watch on COVID-19 and the need for social distancing. Should there be any changes, this article will be updated to reflect them. Be assured, after almost 19 years in the making, […]

Little Richard, Founding Father of Rock Who Broke Musical Barriers, Dead at 87 | Rolling Stone

May 9, 2020May 9, 2020African American Icon, African American Music

Pianist-singer behind “Tutti Frutti,” “Good Golly Miss Molly” and “Long Tall Sally” set the template that a generation of musicians would follow Little Richard, a founding father of rock and roll whose fervent shrieks, flamboyant garb, and joyful, gender-bending persona embodied the spirit and sound of that new art form, died Saturday. He was 87. […]

10 Women in Jazz Who Never Got Their Due | The New York Times

April 23, 2020June 16, 2020African American Music, Jazz Music

By Giovanni Russonello, The New York Times We’re often taught to think of jazz’s history as a cavalcade of great men and their bands, but from its beginnings the music was often in the hands of women. Listen to some of the greatest. Young, female instrumentalists have been establishing a firmer footing in jazz, taking […]

Why Crown Royal is telling a story of Jazz, love, and tradition | Vimeo Blog

April 21, 2020April 21, 2020African American Music, Jazz Music

What does it mean to build community through art, and uphold a tradition that goes unbroken for decades? When the team at Stept Studios pitched the Diageo brand about the story of Marjorie — a woman in Harlem who hosts a weekly Sunday Jazz concert in honor of her son’s memory — they knew she lived her […]

White Men Attack Nat King Cole During Performance in Birmingham, Alabama | Equal Justice Initiative

April 10, 2020April 11, 2020African American Music, Race ...

On April 10, 1956, African American singer and pianist Nat King Cole was performing before an all-white audience of 4000 at the Municipal Auditorium in Birmingham, Alabama, when he was attacked and knocked down by a group of white men. Before the attack, a drunk man near the front row jeered at Mr. Cole, “Negro, […]

‘Lean On Me,’ ‘Lovely Day’ singer Bill Withers dies at 81 | AP

April 3, 2020April 3, 2020African American Music, R&B ...

Bill Withers, who wrote and sang a string of soulful songs in the 1970s that have stood the test of time, including “ Lean on Me, ” “Lovely Day” and “Ain’t No Sunshine,” has died from heart complications, his family said in a statement to The Associated Press. He was 81. The three-time Grammy Award winner, who […]

‘It sounded like the future’: behind Miles Davis’s greatest album | The Guardian

February 24, 2020February 24, 2020African American Music

On the 50th anniversary of Bitches Brew, one of the contributing musicians and the director of a new documentary share their thoughts on the record [mc4wp_form id=”6042″] Guitarist John McLaughlin, who helped electrify Miles Davis’s music, describes Bitches Brew as “Picasso in sound”. Stanley Nelson, who directed a new documentary on Davis, calls it “an […]

Meet the child genius who became world’s youngest orchestra conductor at 11 | Face2Face Africa

February 1, 2020February 1, 2020African American Art, African American Music

At just 11 years old, Matthew Smith could play four instruments. He could play the guitar, drums, piano and viola. [mc4wp_form id=”6042″] But what brought the child music prodigy to the limelight was when he led Nottingham Symphony Orchestra’s performance of Johann Strauss’s Die Fledermaus in April 2017. This made him the world’s youngest conductor […]