News :: Press Releases

For Immediate release: September 20, 2006

Jazz Museum Launches “Harlem Swings” Concerts

·         Larry Ridley and the Jazz Legacy Ensemble      Oct. 5, 2006

·         Melba Joyce and her Trio                                    Oct. 19, 2006

The Jazz Museum in Harlem expands its free public programming uptown with a new bi-weekly performance series, Harlem Swings, beginning in October with groups led by bassist Larry Ridley and vocalist Melba Joyce. The series will generally take place on two Thursdays per month, alternating the Thursday schedule of the Harlem Speaks series.

The free live performances will occur from 7pm-9pm at Nubian Heritage, a multi-purpose venue offering books, original lotions and body products, food and teas, and a spa, located at Fifth Avenue at 126th Street. 

Early in his career, Larry Ridley gigged with Freddie Hubbard and Wes Montgomery back home in Indiana; then, in the 1960s, he moved to New York, where he served as bassist for Thelonious Monk, and numerous other top professionals, while recording dozens of classic albums with many artists including Freddie Hubbard. Mr. Ridley also has a distinguished career as an educator (for decades he taught at Rutgers University) and as an outspoken advocate for jazz, including significant work with NEA and the Congressional Black Caucus. He currently leads the Jazz Legacy Ensemble, and is Artistic Director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Mr. Ridley kicks off the live performance series on October 5, 2006.

Melba Joyce, a Texas-born jazz and blues vocalist and songwriter now living in Harlem, has been a part of the international music scene since she began her pro career with David “Fathead” Newman at the age of 17 and performed with Louis Armstrong at 19. Since then she has appeared with such greats as Louis Jordan, Lionel Hampton, Gerald Wilson, and recorded with John Carter, Ellis Marsalis, and Dizzy Gillespie, to name a few. Hear her mellifluous renderings of standards and more on October 19, 2006.

The series will continue in November, including famed bandleader/vocalist Johnny Colon on November 16th; watch this space for the complete November schedule.

The Harlem Swings series, supported, in part, by funds from The Musician’s Performance Fund, and the Jarvis and Constance Doctorow Family Foundation, is produced by Loren Schoenberg, the Jazz Museum in Harlem's Executive Director. The series occurs at Nubian Heritage, on 126th and Fifth Avenue, from 7:00pm - 9:00pm.