i'm going to be a judge for the jazzmobile jazz vocal competition this year. it's happening on monday july 26th at gospel uptown - a wonderful venue right above 125th street on adam clayton powell blvd. and yes, the food is kind of amazing.
i think it's a great idea that they include a vocalist on the panel each year and i'm honored and somewhat floored that they chose me. God knows i'm going to take my duties very seriously.
and hey, vocalists - it's not too late to audition for this! they will see you on thursday, june 10th from 3:00 PM - 8:00 PM at the Harlem School of the Arts, 645 St. Nicholas Avenue, NY, NY 10030 (between 141st & 145th Street). *If they are not able to audition all singers registering by 7:00 p.m., a second day of auditions will take place on Friday, June 11, 2-5pm.
more details as they develop.
Showing posts with label jazzmobile jazz vocalist competition. Show all posts
Showing posts with label jazzmobile jazz vocalist competition. Show all posts
Monday, June 07, 2010
Monday, January 18, 2010
Saturday, June 21, 2008
yes, it's true!
on thursday night -- juneteenth! -- i won the jazzmobile 2008 jazz vocalist competition. more details and photos of me with that oversized check later. in the meantime, you can read all about it here.
what a great way to start the summer!
what a great way to start the summer!
Saturday, June 14, 2008
good news!
the good news is, i'm one of four finalists that have made it to the 3rd round of the jazzmobile jazz vocal competition. i just found out that one of the judges may be hard bop drummer grady tate. what many people don't know is that aside from his definitive jazz drumming style and the countless albums he's recorded with basically everyone, he has another discography as a baritone. i was first acquainted with his work as a part of schoolhouse rock! via mathematics rock! singing two "numbers" for them: one for six ("i got six! that's all there is!") and another for nine ("naughty number nine").
who says television is bad for kids? schoolhouse rock! still rocks.
i wanted to post this on my music blog when i wrote about what happened at round 2 but it wouldn't let me youtube these videos.
here's i got six!
this one is naughty number nine
who says television is bad for kids? schoolhouse rock! still rocks.
i wanted to post this on my music blog when i wrote about what happened at round 2 but it wouldn't let me youtube these videos.
here's i got six!
this one is naughty number nine
Saturday, May 31, 2008
next: round two
good news: i made it past round one in the jazzmobile jazz vocal competition and i'm still in the running. round two happens on june 12th at 7:30pm. i've got a little time to get it together. more details later, when i get some sleep and get more work done.
Friday, May 30, 2008
round one begins...
way too busy getting ready for the jazzmobile jazz vocal competition to blog at length here, so i did it over there. at present, i'm practicing the piano and vocalizing and trying to figure out what i'm going to wear. i haven't lost that winter weight gain yet, so nothing in my closet fits the way it's supposed to and that's pretty aggravating but whatever. not that i was going to show up in a glitter glove or anything but i'm kind of giving up on any spectacular visual effects i may have had in mind. i just want to sing my soul and go home.
it's a sunny blue sky beautiful day. there's a cafe/coffee shop near the venue that reminds me of the mission district in san francisco. i'm probably going to check in early -- interestingly enough, we will perform in the order that we arrive -- and then go have some sort of makeshift high tea at that mission district spot until show time.
i'm very much interested in hearing what the other vocalists sound like and who the judges are. as luck would have it, the mistress of ceremonies for the evening -- alyson williams, an r&b and jazz crooner who holds the distinction of being the first woman signed to def jam in the 80s -- is someone that i actually know and have worked not too long ago. we did the wiz with george faison at the arena theater in houston texas a few years back. (she was evillene. i was addapearle. it was fun.)
mostly, this will be fun. for some strange reason, i keep forgetting how much fun it is to simply sing.
it's a sunny blue sky beautiful day. there's a cafe/coffee shop near the venue that reminds me of the mission district in san francisco. i'm probably going to check in early -- interestingly enough, we will perform in the order that we arrive -- and then go have some sort of makeshift high tea at that mission district spot until show time.
i'm very much interested in hearing what the other vocalists sound like and who the judges are. as luck would have it, the mistress of ceremonies for the evening -- alyson williams, an r&b and jazz crooner who holds the distinction of being the first woman signed to def jam in the 80s -- is someone that i actually know and have worked not too long ago. we did the wiz with george faison at the arena theater in houston texas a few years back. (she was evillene. i was addapearle. it was fun.)
mostly, this will be fun. for some strange reason, i keep forgetting how much fun it is to simply sing.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
reading and writing
between preparing for the jazzmobile vocal competition on 5/30, making that IMWS deadline for the millionth time on 5/21, rewriting work for submission today to a writer's residency at Atlantic Center for the Arts and organizing the home office, i've been more than just a little busy. as if all of that weren't enough, i'm working out every day so i can get my body back by my birthday in june. so far, i really love the boxing lessons and the conditioning, and yesterday i ran a 10 minute mile. i haven't done that in quite some time.
instead of the usual blogging hi-jinx, i thought i'd let you read the first two pages of what may grow into my first book. i'm just writing what i know and remember and elaborating on it. i'm not sure what you'd call it -- memoirs? creative non-fiction? you tell me.
i didn't fall into writing last week, by the way. my mother taught me how to read when i was 3 years old and i started writing and storytelling very soon afterwards. i never thought about pursuing a career as a writer but somehow, writing was always with me. when i crashlanded in the city, i wrote a one act play and two one person shows. i majored in screenwriting as an undergrad at the new school. sure, i was a freelance writer here and there. and i'm seriously thinking about applying for the master's degree program in dramatic writing at NYU. but that's a whole other enchilada...
actually, this book idea came out of my earliest entries as a blogger for cafe los negroes. people kept telling me, this should be a book -- and one day, the idea stuck.
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During any given Sunday morning service when I was very small, I would cry as if on cue when our bishop would begin his sermon. One would think that the music and the prayers and the praise that went up all around me for some time beforehand would lull me into a state of grace that would leave me gazing at the gigantic kaleidoscope of a stained glass ceiling that seemed to dangle just out of reach as I reclined in my mother’s lap, but no. As our bishop opened his Bible and began to read scripture, I would speak in tears. It happened with an intensity and a regularity that was disturbing. My mother’s disapproval was an ever-present threat and yet it was not enough to quiet me. A loud hasty exit that had her dragging medown a long wide aisle and the fit of violence that ensued in the ladies room was inevitable. I could not be satisfied.
instead of the usual blogging hi-jinx, i thought i'd let you read the first two pages of what may grow into my first book. i'm just writing what i know and remember and elaborating on it. i'm not sure what you'd call it -- memoirs? creative non-fiction? you tell me.
i didn't fall into writing last week, by the way. my mother taught me how to read when i was 3 years old and i started writing and storytelling very soon afterwards. i never thought about pursuing a career as a writer but somehow, writing was always with me. when i crashlanded in the city, i wrote a one act play and two one person shows. i majored in screenwriting as an undergrad at the new school. sure, i was a freelance writer here and there. and i'm seriously thinking about applying for the master's degree program in dramatic writing at NYU. but that's a whole other enchilada...
actually, this book idea came out of my earliest entries as a blogger for cafe los negroes. people kept telling me, this should be a book -- and one day, the idea stuck.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
During any given Sunday morning service when I was very small, I would cry as if on cue when our bishop would begin his sermon. One would think that the music and the prayers and the praise that went up all around me for some time beforehand would lull me into a state of grace that would leave me gazing at the gigantic kaleidoscope of a stained glass ceiling that seemed to dangle just out of reach as I reclined in my mother’s lap, but no. As our bishop opened his Bible and began to read scripture, I would speak in tears. It happened with an intensity and a regularity that was disturbing. My mother’s disapproval was an ever-present threat and yet it was not enough to quiet me. A loud hasty exit that had her dragging medown a long wide aisle and the fit of violence that ensued in the ladies room was inevitable. I could not be satisfied.
As time went on, interesting theories as to the motive for my tearful behavior were bandied about with increasing regularity amongst the congregation:
“How could she possibly know when the sermon is going to begin?”
“Where did she get those lungs? They sound like they’re bigger than she is!”
“What in the world could she possibly have to say? She just got here!”
“Is she trying to sing -- or what?”
There were many who saw these weekly eruptions as a sign from God. After an especially noisy outburst, someone began to call me “The Wailing Prophetess.” Eventually, so did everyone else.
I can still see that church in my mind’s eye: the modest yet stately entrance; the vestibule that felt more like a reception area than a foyer; the stained glass windows and ceiling that caught the light so completely, it made me feel as though I were perched inside of a prism; the large piece of cloth that ushers would give every woman as she entered the sanctuary if she wasn’t wearing an ankle-length skirt; the paper fans that fluttered amongst the congregation on a hot day like a flock of cooing pigeons at rest, so carefully stapled to small wooden handles, solemnly advertising local funeral homes on one side with a rather formal photo of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. placed, inevitably, on the other; the sea of beautiful seasonally appropriate ladies’ hats that hovered head and shoulders above the congregation; the organ and the piano that mirrored each other in their placement in the sanctuary and augmented each other in sound, like clasped hands; the ladies dressed in white who looked more like elegant nurses than usherettes, my father, painfully well-dressed and dignified, a large well-worn Bible in his lap, tilting his head and making a face at me as I looked over my mother’s shoulder and caught his eye. The amen corner. The church mother. The visiting missionaries. The junior choir. The sacred alter before us. Jesus amongst us. All of us, praying as one and bound together as brothers and sisters -- in spirit and in truth, and as black folk.
In the parlance of the day, black people referred to each other as brothers and sisters and it was a heavy thing because of our collective history. In the church, it carried even more weight because it held its own spiritual significance. To this day, there are some that I know and remember fondly from this church that I still refer to in this way. Even as I pass black folk in the street, I hear myself say these words in such an effortless unaffected way. Somewhere in our collective being, we know that once upon a time, when all we had was God and each other, our unity meant everything. And although we may not have known it when I was little, it still mattered a great deal. We are a family.
All those tears. Where did they come from?
“How could she possibly know when the sermon is going to begin?”
“Where did she get those lungs? They sound like they’re bigger than she is!”
“What in the world could she possibly have to say? She just got here!”
“Is she trying to sing -- or what?”
There were many who saw these weekly eruptions as a sign from God. After an especially noisy outburst, someone began to call me “The Wailing Prophetess.” Eventually, so did everyone else.
I can still see that church in my mind’s eye: the modest yet stately entrance; the vestibule that felt more like a reception area than a foyer; the stained glass windows and ceiling that caught the light so completely, it made me feel as though I were perched inside of a prism; the large piece of cloth that ushers would give every woman as she entered the sanctuary if she wasn’t wearing an ankle-length skirt; the paper fans that fluttered amongst the congregation on a hot day like a flock of cooing pigeons at rest, so carefully stapled to small wooden handles, solemnly advertising local funeral homes on one side with a rather formal photo of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. placed, inevitably, on the other; the sea of beautiful seasonally appropriate ladies’ hats that hovered head and shoulders above the congregation; the organ and the piano that mirrored each other in their placement in the sanctuary and augmented each other in sound, like clasped hands; the ladies dressed in white who looked more like elegant nurses than usherettes, my father, painfully well-dressed and dignified, a large well-worn Bible in his lap, tilting his head and making a face at me as I looked over my mother’s shoulder and caught his eye. The amen corner. The church mother. The visiting missionaries. The junior choir. The sacred alter before us. Jesus amongst us. All of us, praying as one and bound together as brothers and sisters -- in spirit and in truth, and as black folk.
In the parlance of the day, black people referred to each other as brothers and sisters and it was a heavy thing because of our collective history. In the church, it carried even more weight because it held its own spiritual significance. To this day, there are some that I know and remember fondly from this church that I still refer to in this way. Even as I pass black folk in the street, I hear myself say these words in such an effortless unaffected way. Somewhere in our collective being, we know that once upon a time, when all we had was God and each other, our unity meant everything. And although we may not have known it when I was little, it still mattered a great deal. We are a family.
All those tears. Where did they come from?
Thursday, May 08, 2008
no, i'm not kidding...
i am one of 12 finalists in the jazzmobile jazz vocalist competition. read all about it here.
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