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Dr. Nelson Harrison
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- Pittsburgh, PA
- United States
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Dr. Nelson Harrison's Groups
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Who is Your Inspiration?
16 members
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GLOBAL JAZZ NETWORK AM...
73 members
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LADIES WHO SING JAZZ &...
29 members
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SmoothAhead Jazz Lovers
12 members
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BROADCASTERS
78 members
Welcome to the House of Bop Repute!
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Profile Information
- What is your profession?
- Musician, Songwriter, Composer, Other Jazz professional, Writer, Author, Poet, Listener, Educator
- What Instrument Do you Play?
- trombone / trombetto/ piano
- Where Are you located?
- Pittsburgh, PA
- How did you find out about TGJN?
- Tamm invited me
- About Me:
- Nelson Harrison, Ph. D. has 53 years of local knowledge as an active and versatile profession jazz musician in the Pittsburgh market as bandleader, mentor (founded the youth jazz program at Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild), composer, lyricist, producer, recording artist, educator, musical director of WQED-TV Black Horizons; national on-air host of “Jazz Pittsburgh” WDUQ-NPR. He toured internationally with the Count Basie Orchestra (1978-80) and has played an eclectic spectrum of local genres from the Pittsburgh Symphony, CLO, stage shows, supper clubs, jazz clubs, theatre, weddings, private affairs from gala society balls to birthday parties, concerts and festivals. He has had personal relationships with many of the jazz legends associated with Pittsburgh including Billy Eckstine, Earl “Fatha” Hines, Erroll Garner, Kenny Clarke, Ahmad Jamal, Stanley Turrentine, Dodo Marmarosa, Lena Horne, Roy Eldridge, Walt Harper, Harold & Jerry Betters, George Benson, Joe Harris, August Wilson, Ray Brown, Roger Humphries and John Heard to name a few. During the past 40 years he has been collecting photographs, recordings and information while performing actively in the Pittsburgh area. The applicant is a professional writer member of the Copywriters Council of America, a Registered Author (RA) with the National Authors Registry. For over 40 years he, as a jazz archivist-musician, has collected jazz artifacts by the thousands that reveal a story of a cultural tradition unsurpassed by any other city in the history of jazz. Using jazz as the nucleus of his demographic and his own career as a source of anecdotal lore and experiential reference he hopes to help make available in lasting form some of the treasures of human experience that have been enjoyed by many but shared with few that represent the glorious music and culture of Pittsburgh’s Hill District so that it may never be obliterated from the fabric of Pittsburgh’s historic tapestry. He is also the inventor of the "trombetto," a one-of-a-kind brass instrument on which he can play 6+ octaves chromatically.
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Re: Riverside OJCCD 1855-2 (RLP-274)
Can be recited or sung to "Little John" by John Hines, Prestige Music - BMI
Lyrics by Nelson E. Harrison, Timeslice Music/Mayah Publishing - ASCAP [412-441-4545] / hipbopper@yahoo.com
Little John is his name…Tenor sax and bebop is his game…
When you check out his act…
You will know he's a master in fact…
They call him the Little Giant… because he's not too tall…
But no one puts on his shoes… without feeling small.
When he straps on his horn…
You won't doubt this is why he was born…
In the sound of each note…
There's a lesson the student can quote…
The first chance I had to hear him… it was a lucky find…
He played with Thelonius Monk… and he blew my mind.
***
He established his worth…
Where du Sable had settled on Earth…
From the city of wind…
'Til the ears of the world had to bend…
A product of Walter Dyett's… Chicago legacy…
The reason he plays so well… is easy to see.
Now in France he resides…
While his music forever abides…
If you see him with Klook…
There'll be jazz fans wherever you look…
I'm talkin' 'bout Johnny Griffin… the leader of the band…
If you dig the tenor sax… then he's your man.
Author Copyright © 1998 - 2008 by Nelson E. Harrison, ASCAP PAu 2-413-092
All rights Reserved without Prejudice
Article 1 Constitution of the United States and 1-207 U.C.C.
NOTE: To hear the tune to which this lyric was written go to my audio playlist on this page.
Dr. Nelson Harrison's Photos
Dr. Nelson Harrison's Videos
Dr. Nelson Harrison's Blog
OUR BRAINS on MUSIC: THE SCIENCE *
NEW YORK TIMES
June 30, 2009
Television Review | 'Nova: Musical Minds'
By MIKE HALE
“Musical Minds,” the season premiere of “Nova” on PBS, is based on the neurologist Oliver Sacks’s most recent book, “Musicophilia,” a collection of case studies of people whose brains have unusual relationships to music, cases in which, as Dr. Sacks puts it, “music gets them going to an extraordinary degree.” A one-hour program can’t approach the depth and texture of Dr. Sacks’s book, but it does… Continue
June 30, 2009
Television Review | 'Nova: Musical Minds'
By MIKE HALE
“Musical Minds,” the season premiere of “Nova” on PBS, is based on the neurologist Oliver Sacks’s most recent book, “Musicophilia,” a collection of case studies of people whose brains have unusual relationships to music, cases in which, as Dr. Sacks puts it, “music gets them going to an extraordinary degree.” A one-hour program can’t approach the depth and texture of Dr. Sacks’s book, but it does… Continue
Posted on June 30, 2009 at 2:45pm —
IAJE FILES FOR BANKRUPTCY AS OF TODAY - CANCELS 2009 CONVENTION
Dear IAJE Family,
It is with a great sense of loss that I inform you that despite drastic efforts to cut expenses and raise emergency funds, the IAJE Board has voted to file for bankruptcy under Chapter 7 of the Federal Bankruptcy Law. I want to thank profusely those who responded with their generous donations and offers of assistance following my last communication. While over 250 individuals contributed just over $12,000, this, along with the many other efforts and contributions of IAJE staff… Continue
It is with a great sense of loss that I inform you that despite drastic efforts to cut expenses and raise emergency funds, the IAJE Board has voted to file for bankruptcy under Chapter 7 of the Federal Bankruptcy Law. I want to thank profusely those who responded with their generous donations and offers of assistance following my last communication. While over 250 individuals contributed just over $12,000, this, along with the many other efforts and contributions of IAJE staff… Continue
Posted on April 18, 2008 at 5:12pm —
Musicians take social networking into their own hands
By Jennifer NetherbyFri Mar 28, 10:17 PM ET
50 Cent has more than 1 million friends on MySpace, but if the rapper ever decides to leave the social network, he'll be leaving behind those friends, too. So like a growing number of artists, he's started his own social networking site.
On Thisis50.com, fans can create profiles and friend lists just like on MySpace, but 50 Cent has direct access to the site's users and their e-mail addresses.
More and more acts, from Kylie Minogue to Ludacris to th… Continue
50 Cent has more than 1 million friends on MySpace, but if the rapper ever decides to leave the social network, he'll be leaving behind those friends, too. So like a growing number of artists, he's started his own social networking site.
On Thisis50.com, fans can create profiles and friend lists just like on MySpace, but 50 Cent has direct access to the site's users and their e-mail addresses.
More and more acts, from Kylie Minogue to Ludacris to th… Continue
Posted on March 30, 2008 at 10:00pm —
About
MEMBER NOTES
Dear Tamm E:
Just a note to tell you that it is nice to read about you!!!
You share so much great info about others and about the music, but nice to know that you are WAILIN' yourself and getting appreciation!!
Global Jazz Network is a really important way for all of us to keep hooked up and informed and to SLOWLY BUT SURELY SPREAD THE MESSAGE AND THE PHILOSOPHY of what Jazz is in its many different forms and what the styles are/is all about.
Just played for Paquito's honoring and received gold medal
John Faddis, save Brubeck, James moody and a bunch of KILLER YOUNG players and we all played and spoke about Paquito and jazz and all fine music
and Roberta Gamborini, who was excellent.
wish you had been there!
Through you, Donald Harrison hooked me up with Pittsburgh Jazz info and I feel like i am living there just reading about all the great happenings.
As Fall is here, I am back to my normal insane schedule, but wanted to write you back BEFORE The STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS goes into effect. I am my own secretary, so I am dedicated but SLOW!
And I can't fire myself as my own secretary or I might get hit with an Age Discrimination Lawsuit (in case I decided to sue myself for clerical incompetence).
As of this moment, a new documentary film is being made about me, to be released a few months after my 80th birthday, which is coming up next year Nov. 17, 2010. (12 months from now).
The film will end with the videoing of the big 80th birthday bash at Symphony Space in NYC and then have snippets of films from the past, with all kinds of fun stuff from the 50's thru today.
It will be called "David Amram: The First 80 Years"
Fortunately, I don't have to edit the hundreds of hours of footage or do new music the score, since the film maker, Larry Kraman is also the founder of Newport Classics recordings and knows all my symphonic as well as operatic, theater, film and jazz and world music work, so I am in good hands!!
The same people at Newport Classics Recordings are also making a Spoken Word series for I-Tunes, with me reading from my three books Vibrations, Offbeat: Collaborating with Kerouac and Upbeat: Nine Lives of a Musical Cat.
And they are also recording some of my chamber music compositions and a new jazz record,
Next Spring my opera "12th Night", with libretto by Joe Papp (all words of Shakespeare), is having its eighth production and being FILMED!! Even most dead composers aren't that lucky!!!
This last five weeks I have appeared all over the country at concerts of my music, conducting and playing, doing spoken word with music, jazz, folk and world music festivals, film festivals and readings from my books.
Just the first week of October, I played Lowell Celebrates Kerouac festival in Lowell Mass, then the at midnight , following my last concert there , drove all night to Lagaurda Airport to catch the early Sunday mornng flight for the annual Farm Aid Concert in St Louis, where i played with Willie Nelson's band. The next morning (Monday the 5th , I flew bck to NYC in tme for my monthly concert at Cornelia Street in Greenwich Village.
The next night (Tuesday the 6th) the memorial at Symphony Space for Frank Mccourt, and the next day Wednesday the 7th) the celebration of the new authorized biography of Thelonious Monk with members of his family and musicians I have known since I first arrived in NYC in 1955!!
The 11th i flew off to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates,( i got at least get a few hours sleep) and tried to catch up on over 200 e-mails during the 13 hour flight, before arriving there and performing a concert of global music in conjunction with the score I composed for Teri McLuhan's new documentary feature film The Frontier Ghandi.
Then back in the USA in time to do programs centered around a performance of my Saxophone concerto Ode to Lord Buckley, in Loudoun Virginia ..
Then I went off to Toronto Nov 1st for a concert and appearance at the Diaspora Film Festival .
Now i am back at home hiding out composing and writing!
I am starting my fourth book "David Amram: The First 80 Years", (the same name as the new doc film being made about me), which will be finished at the end of next year and will end, like the film, with the monstro birthday bash concert for my Big 80... 12 months from now....(Nov 17 2010) in New York.
And every day, still finding time to continue composing a new orchestral work, having been doing it while on the run, and now every minute when I can hide out at the Farm in between travels.
And performing whenever possible with my three kids, each of whom have their own bands.
So as the BIG 80 approaches twelve months from now, (2010) while I may be still shy, I am not yet the retiring type.
Most of my ever-changing my schedule info. when i can get my elderly secretary (unfortunately myself) to type it up, is posted on my web page www.davidamram.com under Upcoming Events.
And my e-mail amramdavid@aol.com is always the best way to reach me as I carry my laptop with me everywhere, and Facebook, MySpace, etc., is hard to deal with and not always reliable!
You might find it fun to access an old performance of my 1971 Rondo a la Turca on the Internet for FREE!!!
The person who is conducting the Chicago Symphony and playing the middle eastern flute (who looks like my grandson) is actually a much younger looking me in 1977, recording for a PBS network TV show about my music. Pepper Adams and Jerry Dodgion are also playing.
In 1977, most of members of the Chicago Symphony who appear on the recording of this performance had never heard, much less ever played, very much music from the Middle East, and since I write everything out on paper accurately to indicate the way it should be played, that's what they were playing, and they actually began to sound like the Radio Beirut Orchestra, and suddenly as the piece went on, they started feeling something different than they had ever felt before, as they played.
It is really fun to watch their faces as they started getting ingo the old time magical groove that Middle eastern music creates and takes you into.
During the first few minutes of the piece, you can see the musicians all playing up a storm but looking as if they were thinking that I was an alien from another planet in outer space, and had brought some extra terrestrial music with me for them to play.
And then as the piece progresses, you can see, as well as hear, that by the end of the piece, the idiom of this music got them excited enough to be actually enjoying playing it!!
And playing it really well!
That's what music, like film, novels, poetry, painting, dance, language and good HOME COOKING does for all of us.
It takes you to that place from where it comes, and makes you feel that you now have a new home in a new part of the world.
I send cheers from that endless road and wish you joy and energy for all you do
David
I was just saying that you knocked this out of the park with TGJN. We have needed something like this for so long and I am telling my friends about this. I said that it is sort of like a myspace for jazz but it is actually so much more. This is real. The people here truly love jazz and we know people like that are not your average people.
I have felt for a long time that straight-ahead jazz has been slipping away from us. I have hope now that there will be a resurgence (or shall I say an insurgency:-) to bring this baby back full force!
You just knocked it out of the park. Thanks again.
xoxo,
Janie
Events
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Mel Brown Quartet
March 25, 2009 at 8pm to March 27, 2013 at 11pm – Jimmy Mak's
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Workout
December 3, 2009 from 9pm to 11pm – Casale Monferrato
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Luigi Ruberti Quintet
December 4, 2009 at 9pm to December 6, 2009 at 12pm – Naples
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“Grazie”
December 17, 2009 from 6pm to 9pm – Ivrea
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Tish Oney - The Peggy Lee Project
January 10, 2010 from 7pm to 8:15pm – The Triad
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Jazz On Edge Volume 2
February 6, 2010 from 6pm to 10pm – Garden Theatre
Birthdays
There are no birthdays today
JAPAN JAZZ NETWORK
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A Tour Of America's Belgrades
The name Belgrade still rings for many with memories of the recent civil war in Yugoslavia. But now a Serbian film crew is touring some small towns in the U.S. that share the name — gathering material for a documentary. So far, they've been to Belgrade, Minn., and Belgrade, Mont. Host Melissa Block caught up with the team as they drove toward Belgrade, Neb. She talks to the film's director, Miodrag Kolaric.'Weird Al' Yankovic's Ode To The Trashmen
According to Yankovic, The Trashmen's legacy extends well beyond its status as the best surf band ever to come out of Minneapolis. With its 1964 hit "Surfin' Bird," the group distilled rock music to its essence.They Might Be Giants Sings About Science
In Here Comes Science, the band They Might Be Giants tackles the scientific process, plasma physics, the role of blood in the body and the importance of DNA, all in song. Band members John Linnell and John Flansburgh discuss the album and play some science tunes. Originally broadcast Sept. 25, 2009.BlakRoc: The Black Keys Do Hip-Hop
The Black Keys are known for their stripped-down, blues-inspired music. But in a new project called BlakRoc, they are breaking into the world of hip-hop and collaborating with rappers like RZA and Pharoahe Monch.Loudon Wainwright Looks 'High' For Inspiration
Loudon Wainwright's new double album, High Wide and Handsome: The Charlie Poole Project, is a tribute to the old-time country banjo player who died in 1931. The singer-songwriter explains the motivations behind the project — and why Poole was such an influential country pioneer.Cadenzas: Ladling The Gravy On Classical Music
Commentator Miles Hoffman talks turkey about the classical cadenza. Just as a flavorful gravy enhances any holiday turkey, cadenzas are tasty solos composers write to spice up their concertos.'40/40' Celebrates The Carpenters' 1969 Debut
Forty years after siblings Richard and Karen Carpenter signed with A&M Records, Richard Carpenter is releasing a 40th-anniversary compilation CD, Carpenters: 40/40. The two-disc set includes 40 tracks with hits including "Top of the World" and "We've Only Just Begun."Corb Lund: Boot-Kickin' Canadian Cowboy
Why Corb Lund's wry storytelling and driving tempos aren't better known outside of his native Canada is a mystery. His new album, Losin' Lately Gambler, could change all that, and bust some south-of-the-border stereotypes about Canadians in the process.Dvorak's Symphony For A 'New World'
The Bohemian composer claimed that "everyone who has a nose must smell America" in his Symphony No. 9. But rather than serve as a musical postcard from abroad, Dvorak's Symphony From the New World ultimately serves as more of a fond look back toward home.Tori Amos: From 'Sin' To Holiday Joy
For the first time in her career, Amos plans to release a collection of holiday standards. Following the release of Abnormally Attracted to Sin, released this past May, Amos makes a surprising shift to holiday gaiety on her 11th album, Midwinter Graces. Hear her perform a session from World Cafe.Rossini, Riley And Remixes: New Classical CDs
From sensuous-sounding Chopin to a radical remix of Terry Riley's IN C, NPR Music's Tom Huizenga and All Things Considered host Guy Raz spin a wide assortment of new classical CDs.Rakim: The MC Reveals His 'Seventh Seal'
The renowned rapper has finally issued his seventh album — his first in 10 years. Here, he reflects on the early breakthroughs that earned him his living-legend status, and talks about delivering a conscious message in his new work.Blues Man Joe Bonamassa, Real-Life Guitar Hero
Blues musician Joe Bonamassa started playing with B.B. King when he was 12. He's performed on stage with Eric Clapton and averages about 200 shows per year. His new DVD is called Joe Bonamassa, Live From the Royal Albert Hall. Host Scott Simon speaks with Bonamassa about living with the blues and how he got his nickname, "Smokin' Joe."A Magazine, Reborn: 'Vibe' Is Back In 2010
By Jess Gitner Past covers of Vibe. Chris Brown will be the cover boy for the relanuched Vibe's first issue. (courtesy of Vibe) Len Burnett helped launch Vibe, a hip-hop music magazine, back in 1993, and he's just launch...Imelda May: Madly In Love With Rockabilly
Irish singer Imelda May is a walking, talking, singing embodiment of the 1950s. She wears leopard-print sweaters, tight bad-girl jeans and her hair in a ponytail. Although May has won numerous awards in 2009, her music harkens back to a style that was popular in the '50s: rockabilly.© 2009 Created by THE GLOBAL JAZZ NETWORK on Ning. Create a Ning Network!
Comment Wall (44 comments)
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Sunny Greetings,
Kurt
www.kurtlindved.dk
Visit European Music and Song Concepts for Professionals
FURTHERMORE, I WOULD LIKE TO EXTEND A INVITATION TO JOIN AND MORE IMPORTANTLY PARTICIPATE,SHARE YOUR KNOWLEDGE AS BROADCASTERS AND HELP CREATE A PLACE WHERE GJN MEMBERS CAN GO TO FIND INFORMATION THAT WILL HELP IN THE PURSUIT OF A BETTER COMPREHENSION & MORE KNOWLEDGEABLE APPRECIATION OF JAZZ.
Check out BOOKS & VIDEOS ABOUT JAZZ & BLUES on THE GLOBAL JAZZ NETWORK:
http://theglobaljazznetwork.ning.com/group/bookvideosaboutjazzblues?xgi=0rQihhb
THANK YOU IN ADVANCE WITH THIS MATTER,
JAY LEWIS
I will be back in touch with more info in the near future and look forward to getting this party started!
Janie
Keeping Jazz Live!
Wali
Hope you and yours are doing well. I am now with Comcast for Telephone, Internet and Cable. I'm now in the fast lane! Keep on playing great music, and being a great guardian for JAZZ! Talk to you later.
David Hardiman,
www.freewebs.com/davidhardiman
Find more videos like this on The Global Jazz Network
Airborne the Musical Peacemakers of Contemporary Jazz "Winds of Change" Video
www.airbornejazz.com
I am so honored that you took the time from your busy schedule to respond as you did. For convenience I have posted the other 3 excerpts of the "Metaphysics" interview on my page that you can see when you have a minute.
I believe we are kindred spirits though you are an older, wiser, more experienced one of such from whom I could learn much. I was a personal student of Chief Fela Sowande in the 70s. He served on my dissertation committee as well and we presented together at several national and regional conferences during that time.
I know Congressman Conyers and I am grateful to him for coming to my assistance in June with the full force of his offices to help me retrieve Freddie Redd's passport from the State Department so he could perform in Paris between July 22-26, 2008. Freddie turned 80 in May and he has been living in relative obscurity for quite a few years. We became friends in 2002 initially over the phone and then we met in person a few months later when I was performing at the First Annual Global African Music Festival at UC Santa Cruz in April 2002 with Karlton Hester and Donald Byrd. I have written lyrics to 8 of his tunes so far, the first one being "The Thespian" before we ever met. His performances in Paris were outstanding and I'll be posting reviews on his page on this network (which I maintain for him) very soon. He calls me every day to keep in touch with the cyber world. Do you know him?
I had the opportunity to meet Machito in 1979 when he came through Pittsburgh and I was playing with Kenny Clarke (see my profile picture) standing between them). Billy Eckstine was also a close personal friend. He spent most of his last 2 years of life in Pittsburgh living with his niece.
I am so in tune with the spirit of your work and I wish I could have been there in Denver although I watched the Convention on TV. As a college student I spent the entire day at the "March on Washington" with Jesse Jackson and four other of my fraternity brothers.
I am glad you liked the poem for Johnny Griffin. The tune that inspired it and to which it was written (Little John) is posted on my audio playlist on this network. If you like, I'd like to send you my book of 88 original bop lyrics for your enjoyment. Altogether I have written 124 original lyrics so far to bebop standards. I was featured soloist with the Pittsburgh Connection Big Band (organized and led by David W. Sanford) at the 2007 IAJE Convention in NYC where I debuted my trombetto and also sang my lyric to Dizzy Atmosphere.
You are cut from the same cloth as Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn with your prolific output and the hours you keep. Of course when the Muse finds a favorite, rest is just a slightly slower rhythm of creativity. :-))
I am very close personal friends with Ahmad Jamal and David Baker if you run into either of them. Joe Harris also a close friend who is alive and in great physical shape at almost 82 here in Pittsburgh. I'll make sure you see him if you come through Pittsburgh. He presented a concert in April with a quartet that featured Sean Jones on trumpet and Roger Humphries, who was in the audience, almost fell out of his seat in amazement.
Onward and upward in the service of music, light and love! Darkness is simply the absence of light.
Bird lives,
Nelson
thank you for the fine information you have let me now about. i wish it could be broadcast on network tv and AM radio!!
te music, (and your poem about Johnny Griffen and all your writings) are really fine and a breath of fresh air as well as blow for mental health!!
i hope to get vack to Pittsburgh again an look forward to meeting you (a playing with you) when i do.
I'm back from a week in Denver, hiding out again at the farm working around the clock on my new piano concerto for its upcoming premiere. My series of concerts for the Democratic National Convention took place August 22-28, where I was designated as the composer-in-residence. It was a real honor to have been a small part of the historic week in Denver.
My opening concert at the convention Sunday, August 24th was called...................
"Outside of Convention- From Fanny Lou Hamer to Martin Luther King to Barack Obama: How the Civil Rights Movement changed American politics"
This gala event, (free to the public in Denver as well as to the delegates and their families) was sponsored by Nation Magazine, the Democratic National Convention, the Denver Public Library and PBS, (both the English and Spanish speaking stations) who taped my opening concert as well as other events, including the August 24th program at Convention Center, which took place at the Convention Center the night before the opening of the convention. Over a thousand people came, and it couldn't have been any better!!
My musical contributions included my Three Songs for America, settings of speeches by John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy for bass voice and orchestra, written 40 years ago for PBS. The singer, operatic bass Steven Taylor was really exceptional. It was the best performance that the piece has ever received.
For the second piece on the program, I conducted the Colorado Children's Chorale (a killer 100 voice prize winning choir) in three pieces for children's chorus for which I composed both the words and the music, dedicated to three great musicians I have played with over the years. They are Native American master musician and actor Floyd Red Crow Westerman, jazz innovator Thelonious Monk and ambassador of Afro-Cuban music, band leader Machito. I conducted the chorus, accompanied by my Denver-based trio.
We also performed the premiere of a new piece "You are somebody Too" for which I composed both the words and music, based on the "I am somebody" statement of Rev. Jesse Jackson in a version which I conducted with the children's choir, based in part on the use of phrases by the people of Denver who were interviewed on the street by sociologist Dr Audrey Sprenger, for a film she created for the convention as well as for the Denver Public Library, documenting their statements ("I am a cabdriver, i am a student, i am a Bronco's fan, I am a future doctor, i am a proud father....etc)
All of these statements were sung and chanted, with audience participation, as a call and response, accompanied by my jazz trio, with special guest Jose Madera, leader of the Latin Giants of Jazz.
Congressman John Conyers was honored for his work in civil rights, interviewed in a discussion with John Nichols, editor of Nation Magazine, about the progress over the past sixty years of everyone's civil rights in America. Congressman Conyers is also a lifetime supporter of jazz as a national treasure (as well as his being someone who truly appreciates the symphonic masterpieces of European culture and how they relate to jazz as music which endures)
We ended the evening with my "Theme and Variations on Amazing Grace" which I performed on my Irish double D penny whistle, followed by the grand finale with my trio playing Now's the Time by Charlie Parker, honoring the early civil rights slogan "Our moment is Now," with audience participation.
I performed at a series of concerts for radio station KUVO in Denver with some outstanding musicians which was simultaneously broadcast by WWOZ in New Orleans, and at one of the late night jam sessions afterwards played with Hugh Masekela, whom I hadn't seen in forty years.
I also appeard at Red Rocks (a gorgeous amphitheater which holds 14,000 people). i was a guest artist with the bands of Jerry Jeff Walker and Willie Nelson, Earlier that day I presented a program for teachers and students at the Denver Academy, showing how the principles of musical construction in countries around the world could be used to teach geography, linguistics, social studies, history and developmental skills in all disciplines, and how a no more walls approach towards music (and life) helps us all in adapting to a global culture.
And between all the hectic activities, I worked in my motel room on my piano concerto. Composing into the wee hours every night kept me from getting into trouble!!!
I am now in relative hibernation, except for playing with Willie Nelson and his band for Farm Aid September 20, a few local engagements, and going to Iceland to perform for the world premiere of the film for which I composed and conducted the score "The Frontier Ghandi," created by Teri McCluhan, (Marshall McCluhan's daughter). The film will then be screened at the Lincoln Center in NY.
Other than this, I have a stretch of five weeks to work around the clock on my piano concerto, which will be premiered January of '09 in San Jose California.
I wish you extra energy in all you do, as well as joy and inspiration.
Best cheers always.
THEY CAN'T STOMP US OUT!!! Creative music and those who make it are here to stay!!!
David
P.S.
Here is a copy of the opening program for the Democratic National Convention. I wish you could have been there, it was standing room only and a real thrill to do. Eventually it will be on PBS and You Tube
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The National Democratic Convention, Nation Magazine, Rocky Mountain PBS and the Denver Public Library present
FROM FANNY LOU HAMER TO BARACK OBAMA
A CELEBRATION IN WORDS AND MUSIC OF CIVIL RIGHTS In AMERICA
Representative John Conyers
Composer/conductor/multi-instrumenallst David Amram
Nation Magazine Editor John Nichols
The Colorado Children's Chorale
August 24th
Convention Center
Denver Colorado
5-7 pm
FREE ADMISSION
l. Three Songs For America for Baritone and Orchestra......................................David Amram
(Composed for National Educational Television 1968)
a. John F. Kennedy
b. Dr. Martin Luther King
c. Robert F. Kennedy
Steven Taylor vocalist
ll. Three songs for Young People. (1996) .........................................David Amram
a. Rabbit Song For Floyd Red Crow Westerman (based on traditional Lakota round dance melody Mastinchila Wachipi Olwan)
b. Summer Song For Thelonious Monk
c. Son Montuno For Machito
The Colorado Children's Chorale, Deborah DeSantis Artistic Director
Conducted by the composer with the Amram jazz trio.
interview with Representative John Conyers and John Nichols
Music Honoring Jesse Jackson's Legacy
Variations on Amazing Grace- (2002) .................Amram (based on Traditional Spiritual)
David Amram Irish double D whistle
I am Somebody for chorus and jazz ensemble (2008).............Amram
(Based on Jesse Jackson's words and statements recorded by people from Denver. Composed for the Democratic National Convention 2008 )
Now's the Time (1945)---------------------Charlie Parker
Honoring the civil rights motto "The time is Now," The music by Parker and his colleagues, who were at the vanguard of the civil rights movement.
The David Amram Trio
Tony Black drums
Artie Moore bass
David Amram piano, French horn, flutes, percussion and scat vocals
Special guest Jose Madera, leader of the Latin Giants of Jazz, congas and Latin percussion
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