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| Harlem Speaks Announces Fall Guests After hosting a stellar group of summer honorees for Harlem Speaks, The Jazz Museum in Harlem announces its fall 2005 lineup of special guests! -- ” On September 8, executive director Loren Schoenberg will welcome nonagenarian Max “The Saxman” Lucas, still swinging with fire at Harlem's Lenox Lounge every Wednesday evening with his son, organist Nathan Lucas. Max Lucas has witnessed all of the major stylistic changes in the history of the music. He jammed with Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk back in the glory years of jazz; he has also performed with Count Basie and the Duke Ellington Orchestra, under the direction of Mercer Ellington. Born in New York's East Harlem, Johnny Colon (September 22) has been singing and playing guitar since the age of three. By the time he graduated from high school, he was playing the acoustic bass, trombone, piano, and guitar, also having studied classical voice and all the Latin rhythm instruments. In the early sixties he formed the first Johnny Colon Orchestra, a Charanga band. In 1967, Cotique records released Boogaloo Blues, a Latin music classic. In 1972, at the height of his recording career, Colon founded the East Harlem Music School, the first music school anywhere devoted exclusively to the teaching of Salsa. He still performs with the Johnny Colon Orchestra as the lead vocalist, composer, and arranger. Trap drum master Roy Haynes will discuss his living legacy as one of the world's greatest percussionists on October 6. He is celebrating his 80th birthday, and the 60th anniversary of his first date in Harlem, which took place at the Savoy Ballroom with Luis Russell's Big Band. Haynes' taste and power accompanied giants of jazz such as Charlie Parker, Lester Young, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane. In recent decades, he has propelled the rhythm section of many of the younger lights of jazz, including guitarist Pat Metheny, who once said: “To me, Roy is the father of modern drumming . . . the kind of drumming that has continued through Tony Williams and Jack DeJohnette. . . Roy's the guy. He's always coming up with something, every bar, every note.” Roy Haynes will bring his small group to perform at the Iridium Club on October 11-16, 2005, the week following his discussion for Harlem Speaks. Since 1970, Congressman Charles B. Rangel has served as the Representative from the 15th Congressional District, comprising Harlem, the Upper West Side, and Washington Heights/Inwood. A long-time lover of jazz (especially the music of previous Harlem Speaks honoree Gloria Lynne), he was co-proposer of a line item in the 2000 federal budget which gave the Jazz Museum in Harlem with its initial funding. On June 11, 2005, Congressman Rangel was honored for his contribution to the continuance of jazz in Harlem at Jazz at Lincoln Center along with his long-time friend Percy Sutton. BET Jazz aired portions of the ceremony in a recent broadcast, Sounds of Harlem. The congressman and former New York mayor David Dinkins were both crucial to the Abyssinian Development Corporation’s purchase of the famed Renaissance Ballroom several years ago. In 1995, Rangel paid tribute to his friend Lionel Hampton on the floor of Congress. When Hampton’s apartment suffered a devastating fire 1997, Congressman Rangel ensured that Hamp had suitable clothes for a meeting with then-President Clinton. He currently serves as a co-chair to the VERITAS 17th Annual Evening With Friends of Charlie Parker Benefit Concert and Gala, to occur on September 26, 2005. The October 20 interview with the congressman will take place in Harlem in the auditorium of the Frederick Douglass Academy, his alma mater. Journalist Herb Boyd engaged a rapt audience on August 26, 2005 via a discussion of his early years growing up in Detroit, where he and his younger siblings heard the sounds of jazz and R&B while his mother ironed clothing. She especially adored Nat King Cole and Billy Eckstine; Boyd attributes his love for words and lyrics to his mother, who would bring home old books and magazines given to her by the white families for whom she worked as a housekeeper. Boyd, who began writing for Down Beat in 1969 as a Detroit correspondent, also discussed his roles as a political activist, an educator, a jazz critic, a husband, an editor and an author, including the as-told-to biography of musician Yusef Lateef, slated for release in September 2005. The Harlem Speaks series is co-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-8:00pm twice a month on Thursdays. On select occasions, such as the evening of October 20, 2005, the series will be housed at collaborating venues. write your comments about the article :: © 2005 Jazz News :: home page |