Category Archives: SHOW “G”-Views

Tuned in to the New Orleans Music Show with host Murf Reeves on Monday, on December 2 around 12pm CT to hear Loose Cattle performing live in the studio! It was fun, and filled with new and old tunes that made for a joyous occassion.

Tia Wood followed her heart from the Rez to the city of Angels to make her musical dreams come true. Her powerful, soulful voice carries the spirit of her people’s songs that have echoed from her homelands since time immemorial, and the musical roots of her family tree run deep. She began singing as soon as she could talk, inspired and nurtured by her parents, siblings, and her dual Plains Cree and Coast Salish heritage. Wood believes it was inevitable that she’s now blazing her own trail as a solo artist.

A Celebration of Native American Heritage Month on the Millennium stage.

Empresarios is a Washington, D.C.–based collective of musicians and DJs who finely tuned their Tropicaliente sound over the past few years and shared this unique blend of tropical beats across the globe. With over three albums of original material and dozens of remixes already released, the Empresarios recently took the next step and launched their own label, Empresarios Musica.

Not only do the Empresarios release great music, they have also brought their live show across the U.S. and Puerto Rico. In recent years they have played great events as the Joshua Tree Music Festival, Musikfest, Landmark Festival, and the National Cannabis Festival, as well as D.C.’s Funk Parade and H Street Festival. The Empresarios have licensed their music to television networks like NBC, documentaries, films including Echo Park (2014), and video games such as EA Sports’ popular FIFA 12 (2012). Mixing together the warm sounds of the Caribbean is the specialty of the Empresarios, so get ready to dance to a fusion of reggae, salsa, hip hop, reggaetón, dub, and house. And they sure did rock the house on the Millennium Stage at the Kennedy Center on November 14th.

Live from Harlem: Trumpeter Jack Walrath is well known for his work in the groups of Charles Mingus, Ray Charles, Muhal Richard Abrams, Sam Rivers, Charli Persip, Mike Clark, and Craig Harris. Aside from playing and arranging for others, he has released 22 albums as a leader, for Blue Note, Muse, SteepleChase and other labels. As a composer, he has worked in film and television, while earning grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Mary Flagler Cary Trust, and fielding commissions for ensembles of all sizes. This concert features his engaging small group that shares a name with his 1987 Grammy-nominated Blue Note release, “Masters of Suspense.”

This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature and by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and by the Howard Gilman Foundation.

Millennium Stage
The Kennedy Center
August 16th

As a resolute preservationist, storyteller, and instrumentalist, Dom Flemons has long set himself apart by finding forgotten folk songs and making them live again. His work has been recognized with a Grammy Award®, two Emmy® nominations, and 2020 U.S. Artists Fellowship. Dom Flemons is originally from Phoenix, Arizona and currently lives in the Chicago area with his family. He has branded the moniker The American Songster® since his repertoire of music covers over 100 years of early American popular music. Flemons is a songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer, actor, slam poet, music scholar, historian, and record collector. He is considered an expert player on the banjo, guitar, harmonica, jug, percussion, quills, fife, and rhythm bones. Flemons is the host of the American Songster Radio show on Nashville’s WSM Radio. In 2022, he was awarded a degree as a Doctor of Humane Letters from his alma mater Northern Arizona University.

The songs of the GRAMMY Award-winning roots reggae ensemble Steel Pulse helped to popularize the reggae diaspora across the US and Europe. From the success of their 1978 debut single “Ku Klux Klan,” the band has addressed controversial topics of racial injustice and human rights with lyrics that remain as relevant today as they were at the beginning of their career. Hailing from Birmingham, England, the group’s 40-year revolutionary journey of clever orchestration and potent instrumental melody continues to define the magnificent power and beauty of reggae music. Their continually electrifying live performances on stages around the globe have kept Steel Pulse’s legacy alive for the next generation of artists and audiences. As part of Lincoln Center‘s celebration of Jamaica Independence Day, a jubilation of the island nation’s culture and history, Steel Pulse performed a full-length concert, featuring founding members David Hinds & Selwyn Brown and tracks from the band’s formidable catalog.

Every year at Carnival, hundreds of artists from across the Caribbean country of Trinidad and Tobago submit songs and compete to be crowned either the International Soca Monarch or the winner of the Carnival Road March. Their tracks glorify the sweet sound of soca, a regional fusion of funk, calypso, electronic dance, reggae, zouk, R&B, dance pop and whatever tunes are moving the crowd on the date of the festival. Lincoln Center celebrates the enduring spirit and joy of soca music with an unforgettable show from Trini Carnival legend and crossover star Patrice Roberts. One of the genre’s most prominent female voices, Roberts has been entertaining island audiences for nearly two decades as a luminary in Carnival competitions, including a 2006 Road March victory with Machel Montano. Her hit “Mind My Business” is the most streamed soca song in the world. This Summer For The City event was absolute Fire!!

Etran de L’Aïr (or “stars of the Aïr region”) welcomes you to Agadez, the capital city of Saharan rock, and the name of their 2022 album. Playing for over 25 years, Etran has emerged as stars of the local wedding circuit. Beloved for their dynamic repertoire of hypnotic solos and sun schlazed melodies, Etran stakes out a place for Agadez guitar music. Playing a sound that invokes the desert metropolis, Agadez celebrates the sounds of all the dynamism of a hometown wedding. Etran is a family band composed of brothers and cousins, all born and raised in the small neighborhood of Abalane, just in the shadow of the grand mosque. Sons of nomadic families that settled here in the 1970s fleeing the droughts, they all grew up in Agadez. The band was formed in 1995 when current band leader Moussa “Abindi” Ibra was only nine years old. From the days of the Trans-Saharan caravan in the 14th century to a modern-day stopover for Europe–bound migrants, Agadez is a city that stands at the crossroads, where people and ideas come together. Understandably, it’s here where one of the most ambitious Tuareg guitar has taken hold. Agadez’s style is the fastest, with frenetic electric guitar solos, staccato crash of full drum kits, and flamboyant dancing guitarists. Agadez is the place where artists come to cut their teeth in a lucrative and competitive winner-take-all scene. Guitar bands are an integral part of the social fabric, playing in weddings, baptisms, and political rallies, as well as the occasional concert. Whereas other Tuareg guitarists look to Western rock, Etran de L’Aïr play in a pan-African style that is emblematic of their hometown, citing a myriad of cultural influences, from Northern Malian blues to Hausa bar bands and Congolese Soukous. It’s perhaps this quality that makes them so beloved in Agadez. “We play for the Tuareg, the Toubou, the Zarma, the Hausa,” Abindi explains. “When you invite us, we come and play.” Their music is rooted in celebration, and invokes the exuberance of an Agadez wedding, with an overwhelming abundance of guitars, as simultaneous solos playfully pass over one another with a restrained precision, forceful yet never overindulgent.

Under the direction of Jason Moran, Kennedy Center Artistic Director for Jazz, Betty Carter’s Jazz Ahead is an international two-week jazz residency performance and composition project discovering and presenting the next generation of jazz greats.

Betty Carter’s Jazz Ahead identifies outstanding, emerging jazz artist-composers (in their mid-teens to age 25) and brings them together under the tutelage of experienced artist-instructors who coach and counsel them, helping to polish their performance, composing, and arranging skills.

The two-week residency program—for which there is no tuition or application fee—includes daily workshops and rehearsal with established jazz artists and culminates in three concerts in the Kennedy Center Justice Forum, which will be livestreamed. The Kennedy Center will provide participants with lodging at a local hotel and per diem to cover meal expenses.

Betty Carter, who possessed one of this era’s most extraordinary voices, was devoted to jazz education. Her Jazz Ahead program, which she brought to the Kennedy Center in 1998, has helped launch the careers of several of today’s stars, including Cyrus Chestnut, Kendrick Scott, Jason Moran, Jazzmeia Horn, Nate Smith, Arco Iris Sandoval, and Matthew Whitaker, among others.

Los Angeles-based composer and musician Tali Rubinstein began playing the recorder when she was in the second grade. Her talent, distinctive style, and personal expression have made her the world’s greatest interpreter of that often underestimated instrument. She has put her virtuosity to work in fields as diverse as Latin pop, modern jazz, Hindustani ragas, contemporary classical, and children’s songs. In addition to her years of international touring, Rubinstein has performed at the Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center and Birdland Jazz Club. She has played alongside David Borza, the Israeli Andalusian Orchestra, Anat Cohen, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Alejandro Sanz, Mariza, the Manila Symphony Orchestra, Tomatito and Paco De Lucia’s band. Rubinstein and her band’s Lincoln Center headliner premiere showcases and celebrates music from her entire repertoire, including her most recent album, 2023’s Mémoire, produced by the multiple GRAMMY Award-winner Javier Limón.

Live From New Orleans The Jazz Foundation of America Presents: Buckwheat Zydeco Jr. and The Legendary Ils Sont Partis Band. Jazz Foundation of America presents live weekly concerts free to the public from the New Orleans Jazz Museum.

Carrying on his Father’s legacy and band, “Buckwheat Zydeco Jr.” now leads the bands in his legendary father’s footsteps. Growing up at his Father’s side while he played festivals with a host of rock and pop musicians, including Eric Clapton, Paul Simon, U2, Willie Nelson, Robert Plant and Keith Richards, Buckwheat Zydeco, Jr. carried the Louisiana standard of Zydeco music throughout the country. The Legendary Ils Sont Partis Band derived from the Late Great Stanley Dural also known as Buckwheat Zydeco. This Grammy and Emmy Award Winning band has performed over 2,500 shows and a host of television appearances. (David Letterman,CBS Morning News, Good Morning America to name a few). The Creole cousin of jazz, Zydeco music will have you up dancing in the isles, in your kitchen, in your living room, no matter your age or abilities; it’s family-festive music.

Live From Harlem, The Jazz Foundation of America Presents: Mamiko Watanabe Trio with Santi Debriano and Billy Hart. Jazz Foundation of America presents live weekly concerts free to the public from the New Orleans Jazz Museum.

Born in Fukuoka, Japan, pianist Mamiko Watanabe started with the piano at age four and began exploring composition at age 7. In 1999, she received a scholarship to attend the Berklee College of Music where she received several awards for Jazz composition and piano. She was a semi-finalist at the Montreux Jazz Festival Solo Piano Competition in 2002 and 2003, and in 2003 she received the DownBeat Student Award in the Jazz Soloist Category. After moving to New York, she could often be found performing at venues like the Blue Note, Dizzy’s Club at Jazz at Lincoln Center, The Kennedy Center, Jazz at the Kitano and more. Mamiko has toured Europe and Japan and has performed with jazz greats such as Joe Lovano, Kevin Mahogany, and Bobby McFerrin, while releasing five albums as a leader. This performance features the same band that is on her newest release, Being Guided by the Light–a superlative trio featuring bassist Santi Debriano and NEA Jazz Master Billy Hart on drums.

Live Tonight on Millennium Stage: Leyla McCalla finds inspiration from her past and present, whether it is her Haitian heritage or her adopted home of New Orleans. McCalla—a bilingual multi-instrumentalist, and alumna of Grammy Award®–winning African American string band, the Carolina Chocolate Drops—has risen to produce a distinctive sound that reflects the union of her roots and experience. McCalla’s music is at once earthy, elegant, soulful, and witty—it vibrates with three centuries of history, yet also feels strikingly fresh, distinctive and contemporary. The music sonically blends New Orleans influences and Haitian rhythms, with lyrics sung in English, French, and Haitian Creole. McCalla’s widely acclaimed collaborative project, Songs of Our Native Daughters (Rhiannon Giddens, Amythyst Kiah, Leyla McCalla, and Allison Russell), released via Smithsonian Folkways in 2019. The album pulled influence from past sources to create a reinvented slave narrative, confronting sanitized views about America’s history of slavery, racism, and misogyny from a powerful, modern Black female perspective.

Since 2001, the Jazz Foundation of America has produced an annual gala called “A Great Night.” This benefit concert is always one of the best nights of the year in New York City. It brings together all-time legends and unknown gems from the worlds of jazz, blues, rock, and soul.

“A Great Night in Harlem” Gala
The Apollo
253 West 125th Street, NYC
Thursday, March 28, 2024
CONCERT 8:00 PM

Honoring:
Richard D. Parsons
Musical Director:
Steve Jordan

Chuck D.

Bob Weir

Ruthie Foster’s ninth studio album represents a new high-water mark for the veteran blues artist—a collection of songs possessing pure power, like a tidal wave of musical generosity. Healing Time finds Foster pushing her boundaries as a singer and songwriter more than ever before, creating a truly live-sounding atmosphere with the help of her band, who sound refreshingly loose and lived-in throughout these 12 songs. We’ve all been in need of some healing in recent times, and Foster’s latest provides a guide for how to move through the world with equal parts compassion and resolve. Friend of the proGram Ruthie Foster did a sweet little solo set to celebrate Women’s History Month on the Millennium Stage of The Kennedy Center. She made the crowd feel as light as a perfect Spring day, with humor and grace and a whole lotta great music.

Live Tonight on Millennium Stage:
Sawani Mudgal & Khushal Sharma – Hindustani Vocal
Sibasankar Satapathy – Tabla & Mardal
Sujith Naik – Flute
“Shāshwat”—Eternal. Such are the music and values of the legendary musician Pandit Kumar Gandharva. An offering of music to the musical genius for the milestone of his birth centenary, Shāshwat celebrates Gandharva’s exemplary life and musical legacy.
Pandit Kumar Gandharva’s timeless music bridged dualities, assimilating the best from tradition and modernity, from both classical and folk traditions. Kumar-ji lives on in the hearts of disciples and rasikas, through the sheer bliss of his art.
Kumar-ji’s unique compositions are played by his prashishyas (grand-disciples): Sawani Mudgal and Khushal Sharma. Their guru, Pandit Madhup Mudgal, is a prime disciple of Pandit Kumar Gandharva, and the guru passed on a rich legacy that carries forward through them.

Caught on March 2nd live on Millennium Stage at the Kennedy Center: Washington Performing Arts: Men and Women of the Gospel Choir (MWOTG) has celebrated the heritage of gospel music and its related genres with vibrant, dynamic performances in venues across the nation’s capital for 30 years. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Theodore Thorpe III, the choir is dedicated to presenting this American art form at its highest artistic level, performing contemporary and classic works of African American heritage including gospel standards, hymns, anthems, and other choral repertoire. As a resident ensemble of Washington Performing Arts, the choir has shared the stage with a wide array of artists, including Richard Smallwood, Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, the late Edwin Hawkins, the late Walter Hawkins, Ramsey Lewis, and Sweet Honey In The Rock!!

Gone to church.

Musician & WWOZ radio host Cole Williams is in the vanguard of a powerful movement of direct action in the city of New Orleans, defending the rights of unhoused people.

In recent years New Orleans housing activists created a political space for people to come together. Following frequent street demonstrations at City Hall, activists succeeded in getting the City to provide emergency housing in empty hotels. Now grassroots activists are renovating City-owned blighted houses with unhoused people by their side. Organized by The Greater New Orleans Citizens Relief Team (GNOCRT), they are asking the city government and those individuals with construction skills to assist in this dramatic and impactful Project.

Cole Williams is leading this struggle with deep community participation and her powerful songs of love and struggle. Her new album with the Cole Williams Band, “Give Power to the People” puts them in the tradition of Gil Scott-Heron, creating songsthat reflect the everyday experiences and hopes of Black people all around the world. These songs are anthems of the Movement for Black Lives and certainly for people struggling to make sense out of this dangerous and hopeful moment.