News :: Press Releases

For Immediate Release: January 8, 2007

Harlem Speaks Announces First Four of 2007

• Billy Bang, Violinist                                Jan. 11, 2007
• Reggie Workman, Bassist                      Jan. 25, 2007
• George Avakian, Producer                     Feb.  8, 2007
• Bill Hughes, Trombonist                         Feb. 22, 2007    

A dazzling improviser, inspired composer, and provocative leader, violinist Billy Bang is guest of Harlem Speaks on January 11, 2007. With more than 15 albums under his own leadership, nearly a dozen more in co-led endeavors, and five more with the String Trio of New York (which he co-founded in 1977 with guitarist James Emery and bassist John Lindberg), Billy Bang is one of today’s more prolific and original musicians.

Born William Vincent Walker in Mobile, Alabama in 1947, his family moved to New York City's Harlem while he was still an infant. In junior high school he was nicknamed Billy Bang after a cartoon character, and over his initial protests, it stuck. Around the same time, his primary interest turned to music, and he took up the violin, switching to percussion in the early '60s when he became captivated by Afro-Cuban rhythms.

While attending a Massachusetts prep school under full scholarship, he met and began playing with fellow-student, folk-singer Arlo Guthrie. Drafted into the army following graduation, Bang was sent to Vietnam, an experience that profoundly affected his life, often quite painfully. Returning home and radicalized, Billy became active in the anti-war movement, and by the late '60s had returned to music.

Heavily inspired by the exploratory fire of John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy, Ornette Coleman and the liberating energy of the free-jazz movement, Bang returned to the violin as his principal means of expression. Attending New York's Queens College, and studying privately with renowned violinist Leroy Jenkins, Bang became a key member of the dynamic New York avant-garde scene of the '70s.

Forming his own group, The Survival Ensemble, and working with artists like David Murray, Frank Lowe, William Parker and the legendary Sam Rivers, Billy began to reach an international audience in 1977 with the String Trio, remaining with the cooperative ensemble for nine years. In 1982 began a ten-year association with the incomparable Sun Ra, concluding with a 1992 quartet recording for Soul Note, "A Tribute to Stuff Smith," dedicated to the father of the jazz violin.

In 1990, Bang formed the Solomonic Quartet with trumpeter Ahmed Abdullah, and continued to freelance and lead his own groups. Relocating to Berlin in 1996 where he lived until 2000, Bang criss-crossed the Atlantic frequently, performing all over Europe and doing five tours through the South and Midwest with percussionist Abbey Rader, three of which included tenorman Frank Lowe.

Currently, Bang records for Canada's Justin Time Records, for which he recorded "Bang On" in 1997 and "The Big Bang Theory" in 1999. His latest CD (released in October 2001) entitled "Vietnam: The Aftermath" evokes and confronts the memories of his Vietnam experiences and showcases the fine compositional skills that have always marked his own recordings.

Reggie Workman, Harlem Speaks guest on January 25, 2007 has long been one of the most technically gifted of all bassists, a brilliant player whose versatile style fits into all jazz settings. He played piano, tuba, and euphonium early on but settled on bass in the mid-'50s. After working regularly with Gigi Gryce (1958), Red Garland, and Roy Haynes, he was a member of the John Coltrane Quartet for much of 1961, participating in several important recordings as well as touring. One of their European television broadcasts (with added guest Eric Dolphy) is currently available on video (The Coltrane Legacy). After Jimmy Garrison took his place with Coltrane, Workman became a member of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers (1962-1964) and was in the groups of Yusef Lateef (1964-65), Herbie Mann, and Thelonious Monk (1967).

Since that time, Workman has been both an educator, most readily associated with The New School, while also serving on the faculty of The University of Michigan, and a working musician, and has played with numerous legendary jazz musicians including Max Roach, Art Farmer, Mal Waldron, David Murray, Sam Rivers, and Andrew Hill. In the 1980s, Workman began leading his own group, the Reggie Workman Ensemble. He also began a collaboration with pianist Marilyn Crispell that lasted into the next decade. During the '90s, Workman was not only active with his own ensemble, but also in Trio Three, with Andrew Cyrille and Oliver Lake, and Reggie Workman's Grooveship and Extravaganza.

In recognition of Reggie Workman's international performances and recordings spanning over 40 years, he was named a Living Legend by the African-American Historical and Cultural Museum in his hometown of Philadelphia; he is also a recipient of the Eubie Blake Award.

On February 8, 2007, Harlem Speaks welcomes legendary producer George Avakian. His contributions to jazz have been huge through the years. A jazz critic as early as 1937, Avakian wrote about jazz for Mademoiselle and Pic during 1946-48, helped revise Charles Delauney’s famous Hot Discography when it was first published in the U.S. in 1948 and contributed to both Down Beat and Metronome. He pioneered both reissues (discovering previously unissued Armstrong items from the 1920’s) and put together one of the first jazz albums (Chicago Jazz) for Decca in 1940. After World War II, he began producing jazz records for Columbia, becoming quite influential in the 1950s when he also ran the popular music department. Among the many artists who he worked closely with were Louis Armstrong, Dave Brubeck, Duke Ellington, and Miles Davis, and he frequently penned insightful liner notes. After leaving Columbia in 1958, Avakian worked for World Pacific, Warner Bros. and RCA, freelanced with many other labels, was an important supporter of the Charles Lloyd Quartet and recently celebrated over 60 years in the jazz business.

Trombonist Bill Hughes, or “Mr. B” as he’s affectionately called by the younger members, joined the Count Basie Orchestra in September, 1953 on a recommendation by the legendary saxophonist/flautist Frank Wess. Hughes will be the guest of Harlem Speaks on February 22, 2007.

A 1952 product of Howard University School of Pharmacy and self-taught trombonist, Hughes had previously performed with Wess in variously sized groups and in a house band Wess led at the world famous Howard Theater in Washington, DC.  It was at that same time Bill was invited to join the Duke Ellington Orchestra but chose Basie where he would be more comfortable with friends like Frank, Eddie Jones and Benny Powell.

Bill played the tenor trombone in a three-man section, which included Henry Coker and Benny.  This section was at one time acclaimed as the best trombone section in jazz and their names appeared in several polls then popular in jazz magazines.  During this period Bill traveled the world with Basie, including the very first trip to Europe for the orchestra.  It was also during this time period Basie was to record several of his timeless hits including “Shiny Stockings”, “Corner Pocket” and the famous rendition of the classic “April In Paris.”

From September 1953 until September of 1957 Bill performed continuously with The Count Basie Orchestra.  He took a 6 year break from touring to help raise his family and returned to the road in July 1963 where he has since remained.  He took over the directorship of the ensemble in 2004.

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The Jazz Museum took a giant step on Thursday, December 21, 2006 with the appearance of NBA legend Kareem Abdul Jabbar as the honored guest for its 65^th Harlem Speaks event, held for the first time at the Museum of the City of New York (MCNY). Introductory remarks were offered by by  MCNY president and director, Susan Henshaw Jones, event host Maxx Myrick of XM Satellite Radio and Lloyd Williams, President of the Greater Harlem Chamber of Commerce and new addition of the jazz museum’s board. They then welcomed Jazz Museum in Harlem Co-Directors Loren Schoenberg and Christian McBride. McBride led the interview along with jazz writer Larry Blumenfeld. 

Next the towering guest appeared, to thunderous applause. Williams told Kareem that the people of Harlem love and respect him, and are happy that he’s moved back home. And that not only was he an inspiration as an athlete, an author, actor, and long-time supporter of classic African-American music, but that Williams himself stood on the shoulders of Kareem’s father.  

When Williams was a cocky teenager attending Brooklyn Tech high school he, on a whim, decided to pass through the train turnstiles uptown without paying the fare. Jabbar’s father, a police officer, slammed him against the wall and asked for his identification. Once he saw that Williams attended the prestigious school, he said, “So you must have some sense, young man. You’re never going to do this again, are you?” “No sir!” was the quick reply. Not long thereafter William’s grandmother took him to see a performance in which Jabbar’s father was playing drums! Williams found out that Jabbar’s father, Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor, Sr. knew his family very well, so when he and his grandma approached the band stand after the set, he was apprehensive. His grandmother says, “Have you met my grandson?”  “Yes,” said Kareem’s father, “and he’s a fine young man.” 

Jabbar spoke with candor and fond memories about his young years growing up in Harlem and Inwood, where “there was always music on the turntables. Eckstine, Sarah, Nat King Cole, Count Basie, Duke.” Louis Armstrong tickled his early fancy, because “he was swingin’. He was cool.” His parents were very much into bebop, and were ensconced in the jazz music community. Jabbar recalled babysitting for drum great Ben Riley when Riley played with Thelonious Monk. That association led to Jabbar attending performances at the Village Vanguard for free. He and a teen friend would get a kick out of imitating Monk’s dancing and idiosyncratic arm movements, which alarmed Vanguard owner Max Gordon because of the notorious laws forbidding dancing in clubs without a cabaret license.  

Other highlights of the discussion included: remembrances of shows at the Apollo featuring Sarah Vaughan, “Little” Stevie Wonder, Duke Ellington and John Coltrane; Sugar Ray Robinson’s waving at kids from his lavender Lincoln Continental convertible; Art Blakey, looking up at the tall teenager and saying to his father, “You mean this is the little kid in the stroller?”; his book and documentary, “On the Shoulders of Giants,” about the influence of the Harlem Renaissance on American culture and his own life; connections between jazz and basketball, and how jazz was the soundtrack he heard in his mind when practicing and playing ball; his mentorship by his high school coach, and UCLA basketball legend, John Wooden (“a saint who didn’t have a biased bone in his body”); how playing with Irish basketball players in high school taught him to leave friendship at the edge of the court; why he converted to Islam from his Catholic upbringing; his early historical research experience at the Schomburg Center in 1964 as sports editor of a teen Harlem youth publication for a program sponsored by the HARYOU Act; how Wilt Chamberlain took him under his wing, giving him clothes, letting Jabbar borrow his car, taking him to the club that Wilt owned, Small’s Paradise, and buying him Singapore Slings; his pleasure at seeing then-Boston Celtics center Robert Parish slug the “annoying” Bill Laimbeer, and the referee taking his time breaking it up; playing basketball with bassist Ron Carter when Carter’s first child was born; witnessing John Coltrane’s Kulu Se Mama recording session in 1965; and hilarious tales about drummer Philly Joe Jones, who replaced Riley one night for Monk.  

“Philly Joe was nodding at the drum set. Monk called out for him to wake up but he didn’t budge. So Monk finally counted down the number and right on cue Philly Joe began playing, and took a great solo with brushes. I was amazed.”  

Jabbar also drew upon his trove of historical findings, revealing that Fats Waller learned how to play organ at the Abyssinian Baptist Church because his friend Adam Clayton Powell Jr. would let him practice late at night; that Cab Calloway was an excellent athlete who owned a baseball team and tried out and made the Harlem Globetrotters, but had to decide between a career in athletics or music; how black basketball players and entertainers stayed at black rooming houses on the road because of segregation, and formed many bonds of affection thereby; and that the Harlem Rens was actually the first team from New York to win a national basketball title, back in 1939.   

Blumenfeld recalled Jabbar once telling him that if he played an instrument in a jazz band it would be a bass, taking a lot of solos. When McBride asked Jabbar to name the one band he would have loved to have played in, Jabbar told him “Dizzy’s band that traveled to South America.” McBride also asked Jabbar what he thought of young players in the NBA. “The younger players, like the younger generation in the cities generally, are not getting the type of educational foundation they need. They don’t understand Malcolm X’s evolution and the significance of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I came to a deeper understanding of King myself once I saw the movie Ghandi.” He also remembered hearing King speak to a group of young people working on the above-mentioned Harlem youth publication, saying “You’ve broken out of the mold already. Just continue to search and things will begin to change.” 

He mentioned Pete Maravich and World B. Free as the most improvisational players he ever saw, and wryly reminisced about one of the most memorable moments of his basketball career, in 1985, when his team, the Los Angeles Lakers, beat the Boston Celtics on their home court for the NBA championship, the first team to ever do so.  When McBride asked him to name his starting five all-time jazz quintet, he called McBride “wicked,” and then chose Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Rollins, Paul Chambers, Bud Powell and Elvin Jones or Tony Williams. 

Jabbar showed himself a humorous, demonstrative, intellectual and reflective giant of man with a deep love for jazz, black American culture and history, and an abiding appreciation for Harlem and its people.

The Harlem Speaks series, supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, is produced by the Jazz Museum in Harlem's Executive Director, Loren Schoenberg, Co-Director Christian McBride, and Greg Thomas Associates. The series occurs at the offices of the Jazz Museum in Harlem, located at 104 East 126th Street, between Park and Lexington Avenues, from 6:30pm-8:30pm.

This discussion series is free to the public.  To view the photo archives of Harlem Speaks go to: http://www.jazzmuseuminharlem.org/hs_photos.html