Jawanza Kobie

05/07/2025

Here at Clifford Brown Way In Wilmington for City Fest for the first summer event with the ‘Rebirth Brass Band’

09/25/2024

08/29/2024

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/recordingacademy_grammys-recordingacademy-soundchoices-activity-7234674127087792129-SkQI?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

🏆 Understanding the Journey: Entry vs. Nomination. 🎶 The path to a GRAMMY Award begins with an Entry - the initial submission of work for…

08/04/2024

George Theophilus Walker (June 27, 1922 – August 23, 2018) was an American composer, pianist, and organist,
and the first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music, which he received for his work Lilacs in 1996.
Walker was married to pianist and scholar Helen Walker-Hill
(May 26, 1936 – August 8, 2013) between 1960 and 1975.
Walker was the father of two sons, violinist and composer Gregory T.S. Walker and playwright Ian Walker.

07/28/2024

Claus Ogerman A great influence. Orchestrator/Composer/Arranger extraordinaire

07/22/2024

The last member of my 1st favorite musical group when I was young has now joined the others. R.I.P Duke Fakir.

(July 22, 2024) For nearly two decades he was the last member of one the all-time great soul music groups, carrying the mantle for his past musical brothers. Today we say a sad goodbye to Abdul “Duke” Fakir, co-founding member of the legendary Four Tops, who remained part of the group for an ama...

07/02/2024

This a photo of Larry Monroe, saxophonist, educator, administrator, countless mentor to many, and still a major influencer in my musical life. I have nothing but fond memories of Larry who was instrumental in working with me and promoting my last concert at Berklee College of Music as well as offering me an entry-teaching position after graduation.
Larry passed yesterday morning July 1.
R.I.P Larry you definitely made a positive difference in so many lives.

05/15/2024

The time when David Sanborn and Guitarist Hyram Bullock on their own, stopped by Berklee Alumni on a Sunday afternoon for an impromptu visit for us students. They were performing at Paul's Mall/Jazz Workshop that weekend. Singer great Al Jarreau was their opening act at the time.
Now R.I.P to both.
David Sanborn & Hyram Bullock

08/16/2023

On this date we mark the birth of Samuel Coleridge Taylor in 1875. He was an African English Composer, one of that country's most celebrated composers at the beginning of the twentieth century.

The son of a doctor from Sierra Leone and a British mother, Samuel showed musical gifts at the age of five. His father, frustrated in his attempts to progress as a physician through apparent racial prejudice, deserted his family and returned to his native West Africa. At the age of five Samuel began playing the violin and joined the choir of a Presbyterian church in Croydon, where H. A. Walters guided his progress and arranged his admittance to the Royal College of Music in 1890. At the age of fifteen he entered the Royal college of Music in London.

His most famous symphonic performances were Hiawatha's Wedding Feast (1898), The Death of Minnehaha (1899), and Hiawatha's Departure (1900). Coleridge Taylor was very well received in the United States. James Weldon Johnson and Booker T. Washington were personal friends and he was President Theodore Roosevelt’s guest at the White House.

The Coleridge-Taylor Society was created in 1901 in Washington D. C. specifically to study and perform his music. Samuel Coleridge Taylor died in 1912.

*Coleridge-Taylor was 37 when he died of pneumonia. His death is often attributed to the stress of his financial situation. He was buried in Bandon Hill Cemetery, Wallington, Surrey (today in the London Borough of Sutton).