In celebration of the 90th birthday of the iconic Nina Simone, Verve Records and UMe have unveiled a hidden gem from her illustrious career. “Blues for Mama,” the second single from the newly-discovered live recording of Nina’s mesmerizing performance at the 1966 Newport Jazz Festival, has been released as part of the year-long commemoration.
In partnership with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association (LA Phil), and in celebration of its 20th anniversary, WORDTheatre® proudly presents JAZZ Re-EVOLUTION, a literary and musical tribute honoring jazz legends, at The Ford, on Saturday, July 22, at 8:00pm. Featured performers include Keith David, Antonique Smith, Tracie Thoms, Glynn Turman, Terrace Martin, Nedra Wheeler and Clayton Cameron, among many others.
As we remember and mourn the loss of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., we can take inspiration and solace from, not only his written speeches, but also in the works of a number of esteemed Black writers who themselves mourned, coped and mapped out their own blueprint for a better nation through their art in 1968.
The symbolism was stunning, but it was far more critical that President Biden hit the ground running, and he did. He signed 17 executive orders, reversing some of the most onerous declarations of his predecessor. He dissolved the 1776 Commission, an odious truth-erasing propaganda body charged with developing “patriotic education.” Replete with lies, peppered with quotes by Dr. Martin Luther King and Abraham Lincoln, neither of whom would have cosigned the report, the previous administration had the utter audacity to release this madness on Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday holiday. One of the final slaps in the face from the deranged “leader.”
Black Fact of the Day: Monday October 26, 2020 – Brought to you by Black 365
“To Be Young, Gifted and Black” a song by Nina Simone was recorded on this day in 1969
Brought to you by the Black365 Calendar. Find out more at Black365.com
Classical, jazz, blues, folk, R&B, gospel, and pop singer Nina Simone was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, 2018.
Singer and civil rights activist Eunice Kathleen Waymon better known as Nina Simone was born in Tryon, NC, 1933.
“To Be Young, Gifted and Black” a song by Nina Simone was recorded on this day in 1969.
On this day in 1958, Little Girl Blue, the debut album by jazz singer and songwriter Nina Simone was released.
Featuring West Coast premieres of “Lazurus” and “Kairos” as well the Los Angeles premiere of “The Call”
“Black Panther” snagged the most prestigious award at the 25th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards, Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Motion Picture, on Sunday night inside the Shrine Auditorium. Chadwick Boseman, who played the film’s leading man T’Challa, used Nina Simone’s song “To be Young, Gifted and Black” as a way to describe the groundbreaking win in his acceptance speech.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation announced that one year after the launch of the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund the organization has hit a funding milestone, raising more than $10M dollars for this $25M initiative.
Whatever others may say in clearly deserved praise and homage to Aretha Franklin, it is vitally important that we, as persons and a people, speak our own special cultural truth about her and make our own unique assessment of her music, life, service and meaning to us. Here I mean not letting others’ descriptions of her and her music serve as an orientation and framework for our own praise and proper due, but rather reaching inside ourselves and understanding and speaking of her in a multiplicity of meaningful and praise-worthy ways drawn and distilled from the depths of our own hearts and our own culture.
Two giants of soul enshrined with bronze plaques on the Philadelphia Music Walk of Fame have been awarded the music industry’s highest honor
This Week in Black History.