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The Onaje Allan Gumbs & Sandra Gumbs Community JazzArts Foundation Announce Ceremony To Honor Onaje Allan Gumbs And Upcoming Concerts The death keyboardist/composer/arranger/educator Onaje Allan Gumbs at the age of seventy on April 6th, 2020, ended his impressive, nearly fifty-year career that spanned jazz, R&B, pop and smooth jazz genres, with everyone from Norman Connors and Phyllis Hyman to Kenny Burrell and Kurtis Blow. The Onaje Allan Gumbs & Sandra Gumbs Community JazzArts Foundation is currently being formed one year after Gumbs’ death. The Foundation’s mission is to ”preserve the legacy of celebrated, world-renowned recording artist and jazz legend, Onaje Allan Gumbs.” According to producer-manager Cedric Rose, who will serve as the Foundation’s Founder and Executive Director, “The Onaje Allan Gumbs & Sandra Gumbs Community Jazz Arts Foundation [www.onajejazzarts.org] intends to continue the work and legacy of jazz icon, Onaje Allan Gumbs, and to honor the creativeness of his spouse, Sandra Gumbs. Together they were a dynamic couple … Sandra was his creative muse.” The Foundation will preserve and extend Gumbs’ legacy through the development of arts education programs, which collaborates with a number of arts-based institutions across a variety of disciplines; an oral tradition-based mentoring program; scholarships to be awarded to students on talent and need-basis, and through cultural events and concerts. One significant cultural event will occur on July 17, when Carl Clay, CEO of The Black Spectrum Theater in Jamaica, Queens will honor Onaje Allan Gumbs at the 19th Annual St. Albans Jazz and R&B Festival [rain date: 7/18]. Later that month, the Foundation will present a series of concerts performed in tribute to Gumbs' and his legendary Truth to Power concept, which he described on the website Harlem World as, “an expression of our Blackness and a defiant assertion of our humanity.” Those concerts are supported by the Jazz Foundation of America & Riverbay Corporation, from late July, to early August at the Co-op City Mobile Stage, across the boulevard from the Co-op City Field, Bronx, NY, from 7:00pm to 8:30pm: Tuesday, July 27 Rob Fulton Sextet with TK Blue - saxophones and flute, Danny Mixon - piano, Saul Zebulon Rubin - guitar, Endea Owens - bass, and Dwayne "Cook" Broadnax - drums Tuesday, August 3 Frank Senior Quartet with Marcus Persiani - keyboards, Nick Russo - guitar, Donald Nicks - bass, and Douglas Richardson - drums Tuesday, August 10 Onaje Allan Gumbs' "New Vintage: Redux" Musical Direction by George Gray with Terri Davis and Dennis Collins - vocals, Sharp Radway - piano, Roger Bynum - saxophone, Marcus McLaurine - bass, Baba Neil Clarke - percussion, and George Gray - drums & musical director. Featuring: Nana - Dance and Gha'il Rhodes Benjamin - spoken word. [Rain Location: Section 5 Auditorium, 135 Einstein Loop, Second Floor, Room 45] Every aspect of the Foundation will reflect on Gumbs’ wide-ranging artistry. Born on September 3, 1949 to Caribbean parents, Allan Bentley Gumbs moved to Queens when he was seven, and started piano lessons at that age. As a young child he was drawn to the music of Henry Mancini and the jazz great Horace Silver, listened to Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, and McCoy Tyner, and played in a Latin band as a teenager that also featured the future co-founders of the Fort Apache Band, Jerry and Andy Gonzalez. A graduate of New York’s famed Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Arts, and State University of New York at Fredonia, Gumbs’ first major gig was with guitarist Kenny Burrell. Pianist/Educator Billy Taylor, who commissioned him to write a composition for The David Frost Show, where Taylor was the Music Director. Gumbs would go on to work with other jazz stars including Woody Shaw, Nat Adderley, Betty Carter, and Lenny White. In the seventies, Gumbs added the name “Onaje, ” which he got from a book of African names by Amiri Baraka, that means “the sensitive one.” Gumbs also worked with Norman Connors and played on his hit single, “You Are my Starship” and with Phyllis Hyman, Roy Ayers, Will Downing, T.K. Blue and rapper Kurtis Blow, to name a very select few. His seven albums as a leader include, Onaje (Steeplechase, ) That Special Part of Me (Zebra/MCA), Sack Full of Dreams (18th & Vine), and Two, the Top, Featuring Nem Mahadr (Commercial Free Jazz). Gumbs also worked as an educator at The New School in New York City and at the Litchfield Jazz Camp in Connecticut. As a role model and educator, he told Down Beat’s Eric Harabadian in 2014, “It’s important to talk to students about why we do this …. Our mission is to heal.” The healing power of music was the driving force behind Onaje Allan Gumbs’ artistry. “Music is a healing force that is immeasurable and can affect so many aspects of people’s lives, ” Gumbs told Jet magazine in 2014. “Music has the power, I feel, to inspire a person to really bring out the good that is there. My objective is to hopefully touch that part of each person.” The Foundation will be accepting donations upon approval of the 501c3 status. |
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