The swing style of jazz dates back to prohibition, from the early 1920's and continued through the 1940s where the Big Bands of Ellington, Basie, Cab Calloway, Goodman and others dominated popular culture with lively, vibrant music. Dances of the Lindy Hop, Charleston, and more were the craze. New York City Swing recreates this exciting time of music and dance.
Founded in 1986 by trombonist/ composer Demetrios Kastaris , the Latin Jazz Coalition blends rhythms like the rumba (guaguancó), son-montuno, bembé, guajira, mozambique, cha-cha-chá, songo, danzón, bolero, samba, partido Alto, bossa nova, swing, blues and be-bop jazz. The ensemble has performed at a number of cultural festivals, colleges, public libraries and conferences in and around New York. In February 2017, Demetrios received the "Premios Latinos Fama" award (Latin Fame Award) from Telemundo/Univisión, El Diario La Prensa for trajectory in Latin music. In 2016 he was chosen to be the sole teacher/presenter in Havana Cuba for their very first "Summit of Trombonists" (Cumbre Para Trombonistas) with 42 trombone player participants. The ensemble has performed in live concerts with such Grammy Award winners, Latin Jazz luminaries, and legends as Tito Puente, Dave Valentin, Claudio Roditi, Steve Turre, Edy Matinez, Alfredo de la Fé, Oscar Hernandez, Herman Olivera, Vitín Avilés and many others.
Louis Armstrong was one of the most famous musicians on the planet but did you know that he chose to live in Corona, Queens? And his home is now a museum? Louis Armstrong House Museum Director of Research Collections Ricky Riccardi and Visitor Services Manager Adriana Filstrup will talk about Armstrong's historic career, show rare footage of the trumpeter in action and talk about the Louis Armstrong House Museum today and how Queens residents can become more involved with it.
Acclaimed as one of the very best motion pictures ever made about music, the vibrant Calle 54 offers an incredible behind-the-scenes glimpse into the lives of Grammy Award winner Tito Puente and some of the greatest Latin Jazz artists of our time!
A cornet player at a 1920s-era Harlem nightspot gets caught in the orbit of a notorious gangster and his teenaged mistress.
Trumpeter Alphonso Horne and jazz vocalist Vuyo Sotashe are two men of South African background who explore the origin of jazz from its roots planted in Congo Square of New Orleans to it's Renaissance in Harlem and it's expansion through the fabrics of musical styles worldwide. Horne is a two-time Grammy nominated trumpeter named by Wynton Marsalis as one of the rising stars of the next generation. Horne has performed with many renowned jazz artists including Wynton Marsalis, Marcus Roberts, Michael Feinstein, and Rihanna. Mr. Horne holds degrees from Florida State University (BM), and The Julliard School (MM). Sotashe won first prize at the very first Mid-Atlantic Jazz Festival Vocal Competition in 2014, and performed on the festivals's main stage in February of 2015.
Jazz great Dexter Gordon plays a brilliant, self-destructive, African American musician who moves to Paris in the 1950s to find an audience more appreciative of his art–and his race. Will a bond with a young female fan, be enough to save him from alcoholism, drug addiction and depression?
Cast: Ethel Waters, Eddie 'Rochester' Anderson, Lena Horne, Louis Armstrong, and Duke Ellington.
Hollywood's first all-black film tells the vibrant fable of rascally Little Joe, torn between the love of his good wife Petunia and the wiles of good-time bad-girl Georgia Brown…and caught in a tug-of-war between emissaries from the Lord and Satan. How can virtue triumph over evil?
A jazz trumpeter obsessed with his music and indecisive about his girlfriends; finds his life is fragile when he must come to the aid of his manager.
* Presented by the Jazz Foundation of America's Gig Fund program, this project is supported in part by awards from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. This program is funded in part by the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation.
**These programs are funded by the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation, Inc.