NJMH Juneteenth Black Music and Dance Celebration is an outdoor music and dance celebration rooted in community, movement, and sounds from the Black Diaspora.

ANNOUNCMENT!  Meet at 3:45 at the National Jazz Museum in Harlem to join Michelle Gibson in a New Orleans Second Line.  The parade will end at Marcus Garvey Park to kick off the festival. 

4-8pm
Richard Rodgers Amphitheater at Marcus Garvey Park
Presented in partnership with NYC Parks.
Free

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Will Calhoun’s Mali Project feat. Cheick Tidiane Seck

Michelle Gibson’s Second Line Offering feat. Alphonso Horne and the Gotham Kings

Introducing:
NJMH House Band, under the direction of Christopher McBride, featuring 2024 NJMH Jazz Is: Now! Curatorial Fellows, Luther S. Allison and Liany Mateo.  

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Juneteenth Black Music and Dance Festival is curated by Sekou McMiller, NJMH Curator of Special Projects.

This show made possible by Harlem Grown, The Mellon Foundation, Jarvis & Constance Doctorow Family Foundation, Harlem Community Development Corporation, Coalition of Theaters of Color, the Howard Gilman Foundation, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS:

Will Calhoun is a two time Grammy winning interdisciplinary artist who graduated from the Berklee college of music. Although he’s mostly known for his drumming/composing with the genre bending Rock Band Living Colour; he’s recorded with, toured and/or produced B.B. King, Mick Jagger, Pharaoh Sanders, Wayne Shorter, Lauryn Hill, Yassin Bey (Mos Def) Oumou Sangare, Philip Glass, and many others.

Will has invested over 25 years of personal research in the Outback of Australia, Mali, Morocco, Senegal, Belize, and Northern Brazil to document and study the true History of the drums, rhythm, sonic vibrations and their impact on modern music.  Will is also an inventor and avid user of technology and its unique role in creating music. Three well known colleagues Will continues to brainstorm with are: Jaron Lanier(Virtual Reality Inventor), Roger Linn, and Mario DeCurtiis.

“Simultaneously studying the past and future of music/rhythm is essential in today’s musical environment” -Will Calhoun

Cheick-Tidiane Seck, keyboardist, composer, and performer of popular and traditional Malian music, is one of the most prolific, experienced, and perhaps even under-appreciated musicians from the Manding-speaking region of West Africa. He possesses a rich and undeniably interesting history, filled with a diverse range of musical encounters with such artists as Salif Keita, Mory Kante, Fela Kuti, Youssou N’Dour, Hank Jones, Carlos Santana, Joe Zawinul, and a host of others. As keyboardist, composer, bandleader, singer, arranger, Seck presents a telling portrait of the varied and complex nature of the musician in West Africa, one that often features the mixing of cultures and regions, contemporary and traditional, and global and local.

Michelle N. Gibson is a consummate storyteller, employing body and mind to build a bridge between the arts and academia. On stage and in the classroom, Gibson’s dance, choreography, and associated scholarship evoke the social, political, economic and spiritual understandings central to building bonds within and across cultures. Employing pedagogical practices deeply rooted in both her New Orleans upbringing and the Black church, Gibson provides cultural narratives and historical context for Diaspora and African American dance forms, music, and communal gatherings. Her embodiment of jazz music, traditional funeral processions, Congo Square gatherings, the Black church, and Second Line parades celebrating community, deeply informs her understanding and instruction of African American vernacular dance forms. In every aspect of her daily practice, Gibson shares her expertise, her passion, her healing practices and her culturally driven spirit with her students, her colleagues, her audiences, and you.

Alphonso Horne is one of the most sought-after musicians today. Known for his high level of musicianship, Horne has performed with some of the leading musicians in jazz including, touring with Wynton Marsalis and Jazz at Lincoln Center (2013), performing on the PBS Special: Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett (2014), playing in the house band of the Late Show with Jon Batiste, and playing on Grammy nominated albums (Jamison, 2015; My Favorite Things, 2015). Horne was also featured in the 2019 film Bolden, playing a cameo role. Currently Horne is involved with the annual Savannah Swing Central and Music Festival, playing with Sammy Miller and the Congregation and leading the Gotham Kings.

NJMH House Band embodies the “Jazz in Harlem Experience.” Versions of this band are led by saxophonist Christopher McBride and vocalist Tahira Clayton. Join us and be a part of the musical journey that celebrates the past and heralds the future. For this performance, McBride will be taking the helm and joined by NJMH 2024 Jazz Is: Now! Curatorial Fellows, bassist Liany Mateo and pianist Luther Allison.

Christopher McBride is based in New York City. His work includes education, arranging and composition in addition to performance. He has been slowly but steadily turning heads with his ubiquitous work as an invaluable sideman since the mid-2000’s. Now Christopher is gaining respect amongst fans, critics, and his peers as one of the most versatile saxophonists in the world. His 2012 debut album Quatuor de Force certainly establishes his ability to front a group and write his own soulful, melodically indelible tunes. Applauded for his ability to play in all musical situations, McBride has the ability to unleash a fiery attack and serrated tone, but on his first album he explores a more measured, mellow sound heavily influenced by contemporary R&B—with a strong shot of Cannonball Adderley’s post-bop sensuality—but his improvising is very rigorous and cogent. As a composer, McBride was selected as the 2022 Make Jazz Fellowship artist at The 18th Street Arts Center in Santa Monica, California.

Liany Mateo has traveled across the globe performing, touring, and teaching music. Influenced by a mix of hard-hitting straight-ahead swing, free avant-garde, and music with deep pocket groove.

Mateo is the bassist for Arturo O’Farrill’s “Legacies” album recorded on Blue Note records. Mateo was also featured on the PBS television show “NEXT at the Kennedy Center”, as a featured artist introduced as Christian McBride’s protege.

She has performed with musicians such as Regina Carter, Geoffrey Keezer, Matthew Whitaker, Carl Allen, Steve Wilson, Fay Victor, and Brandee Younger. She holds a jazz degree from the esteemed Michigan State University (2020) and a Master’s degree from the Berklee Global Jazz Institute (2021). In 2023 she won the esteemed “Next Jazz Legacy” Award and grant through New Music USA, led by Terri Lyne Carrington. You can find her playing across NYC’s most notable venues.

Luther Allison, hailing from Charlotte, North Carolina, is a multi-instrumentalist specializing in both piano and drum set. In 2017 Allison earned his Bachelors of Music in Studio Music & Jazz from The University of Tennessee and his Masters of Music in Jazz Studies from Michigan State University in 2019. Allison is a Grammy Award Winning Pianist with Samara Joy on her 2023 release “Tight.” He has recorded as a “sideman” on numerous projects including including Diego Rivera’s Connections (piano), Michael Dease’s Reaching Out (piano), Dease’s Give It All You Got(drums), Dease’s Never More Here (piano), and Markus Howell’s Get Right (drums). Allison has performed nationally and internationally alongside the likes of Rodney Whitaker, Jazzmeia Horn, The Baylor Project, Samara Joy, Gregory Tardy, Ulysses Owens Jr. and many more.

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