Thursday, October 22 @ 7:00 pm
National Jazz Museum in Harlem
Join the National Jazz Museum in Harlem for a special Harlem Speaks conversation with NBA legend and Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer, Spencer Haywood. Coming of age in the late 1960s and emerging as a superstar in the 1970s, Haywood experienced a transformative period in American culture, when jazz, basketball, fashion, and social change increasingly intersected and influenced one another.
In this intimate conversation, hosted by trumpeter Nabate Isles, Haywood reflects on the music that shaped his life, his friendship with Miles Davis, and his experiences with musicians and artists throughout his remarkable career including as host of jazz radio shows in Seattle (KYAC) from 1971-75 and WRVR (New York) from 1976-78.
Through personal stories, he’ll explore the connections between jazz and basketball and how improvisation, creativity, style, and individual expression helped define both the music and the culture of his generation.
Miles 100: One hundred years after his birth, Miles Davis remains one of the most compelling figures in American music and culture. Curated by trumpeter Nabaté Isles, the National Jazz Museum in Harlem’s Miles 100 series brings together musicians, athletes, and cultural figures to explore Miles’s extraordinary legacy, restless creativity, and the people, ideas, and stories that shaped his life and work.
Spencer Haywood:
Basketball player Spencer Haywood was born on April 22, 1949 in Silver City, Mississippi. After graduating from Pershing High School in Detroit, Michigan in 1967, Haywood attended Trinidad State Junior College in Trinidad, Colorado. Haywood was selected to play on the United States men’s basketball team in the 1968 Mexico City Olympic Games and won a gold-medal for the United States. In 1969, Haywood transferred to the University of Detroit in Detroit, Michigan for his sophomore year. After experiencing racial discrimination on the University of Detroit basketball team, Haywood decided to leave college and play basketball professionally.
In 1969, Haywood played for the American Basketball Association’s (ABA) Denver Rockets. In 1970, at the age of twenty-one Haywood was voted ABA Rookie of the Year, Haywood signed with the National Basketball Association’s (NBA) Seattle Supersonics. At the time, the NBA prohibited teams from drafting players who were less than four years out of high school. Supersonics owner, Sam Schulman, and Haywood filed an anti-trust lawsuit against the NBA. The cased reached the U.S. Supreme Court (Haywood v. National Basketball Association), which ruled in Haywood’s favor. The NBA subsequently changed their policy, allowing younger players to enter the NBA draft if they could provide evidence of “hardship.” Haywood played a total five seasons with the Seattle Supersonics. He was traded to the New York Knicks in 1975. In 1979, Haywood transferred to the Los Angeles Lakers, playing for a single season before moving to Italy to play basketball for an Italian league in 1980. After returning to the United States, Haywood played for the Washington Bullets. He retired from professional basketball in 1983. Haywood published his autobiography, entitled Spencer Haywood: The Rise, The Fall, The Recovery in 1992.
Over the course of his career with the NBA, Haywood made four NBA All-Star Teams, two All-NBA First Teams, and two All-NBA Second Teams. He retired from the NBA with a total of 14,592 career points and 7,038 rebounds. Haywood was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2015.
Nabate Isles:
Nabaté Isles is a Grammy-winning trumpeter, composer, producer, and sports broadcaster born and raised in New York City. A graduate of the Eastman School of Music and New York University, he has performed, toured, and recorded with artists including Christian McBride, Sting, Yasiin Bey, Robert Glasper, Dianne Reeves, Gregory Porter, Angélique Kidjo, Jill Scott, and Chuck D. Isles appears on four Grammy-winning albums with the Christian McBride Big Band and has released two albums as a leader, Eclectic Excursions and En Motion.
Alongside his music career, Isles has built an extensive career in sports broadcasting and journalism, covering the NBA, NFL, MLB, NCAA basketball, and championship boxing. He served as a producer for SiriusXM NBA Radio and co-hosted the SiriusXM boxing program Going the Distance with Teddy Atlas and Wally Matthews. His work has included producing in-depth programs exploring basketball history and the intersections of sports, music, and culture. He also created and hosts the podcast Where They At, featuring conversations with prominent retired athletes and cultural figures.
The National Jazz Museum in Harlem’s Miles 100 series is made possible in part with support from the National Endowment for the Arts.
We are your go-to venue for off-site meetings, receptions, film screenings, workshops, networking events, socials and more. Located in the heart of Central Harlem’s thriving culinary and entertainment district, The National Jazz Museum in Harlem is the perfect place to hold your next gathering.