Happy #JazzAppreciationMonth, good people! For most the word “Jazz” conjures up images of the giants like Charlie Parker, Ella Fitzgerald, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Sarah Vaughan, and Louis Armstrong.
Though this collection, “Ear Food: A New Jazz Playlist“ features a new school of Jazz artists re-imagining and reinventing Jazz for today:
They are staying true to the game while infusing a spectrum of R&B, Hip-Hop and other influences.
Many will recognize names like Kamasi Washington, Robert Glasper, Meshell Ndegeocello, Esperanza Spalding, and the late Roy Hargrove, but this collection features some new talents that are not as well-known.
I hope you’ll dig artists like: Ezra Collective, Al Strong, Steam Down, Somi, Nubya Garcia, Tom Misch, and Moses Boyd, too.
It’s great to see and hear a new generation adopt and reinvent the sound of a timeless genre, proving that Jazz not only still lives, but thrives.
While I’ve generally moved to monthly offerings, I’ll be back during this month devoted to Jazz appreciation with another collection next week.
In continued celebration of #JazzAppreciationMonth, today we drop in on virtuoso pianist Oscar Peterson, who hailed from Canada, composed the de facto Civil Rights Movement anthem “Hymn to Freedom,” and was dubbed the “Maharaja of the Keyboard” by none other than fellow piano master Duke Ellington.
To read about Peterson, read on. To hear about him, press PLAY:
[You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.comor create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website. Full transcript below]:
Hey, this Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Monday, April 11, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.
Being called the “Maharaja of the Keyboard” by Duke Ellington was a lot for Canadian-born jazz pianist Oscar Peterson to live up to – and he did.
In a career spanning over six decades, the classically trained Peterson showed off his virtuosity and dexterity in his compositions such as 1964’s Canadiana Suiteand 1962’s “Hymn to Freedom,” which was embraced by people around the world as the anthem of the Civil Rights Movement:
[Excerpt from “Hymn to Freedom”]
Peterson also excelled as accompanist to greats like Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie and Louis Armstrong, and as front man of his world-renowned Oscar Peterson Trio in the 1950s, who recorded such treasures such as “Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars”:
[Excerpt of “Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars”]
“Something’s Coming” from West Side Story:
[Excerpt of “Something’s Coming”]
and “C Jam Blues”:
[Excerpt of “C Jam Blues”]
Peterson won eight Grammy awards and was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1978 and the International Jazz Hall of Fame in 1997.
Later this month over the April 22nd weekend, the Oscar Peterson International Jazz Festivalwill be held in Toronto, Canada and feature contemporary jazz artists Joshua Redman, Christian McBride, Brad Mehldau and Brian Blade, among others.
And, of course, buy or stream as much of Oscar Peterson’s music as you can, including the latest 2021 posthumous release, A Time For Love, a recording of Peterson’s quartet live concert in Helsinki in 1987, which you can get on 180 gram blue vinyl if you’re into that through oscarpeterson.com.
Links to these sources and more are provided in today’s show notes and the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.
This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing.
Intro and outro provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.
All excerpts of Oscar Peterson’s music included are permitted under Fair Use.
If you like these Daily Drops, please consider following us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
On #NationalSiblingsDay, we celebrate Tony and Emmy award-winning sisters Phylicia Rashad and Debbie Allen in today’s GBN Daily Drop podcast.
To read about them, read on. To hear about them, press PLAY:
[You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.comor create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website. Full transcript below]:
Hey, this Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Sunday, April 10, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing, also known as Palm Sunday and in the United States as National Siblings Day.
As the daughters of poet Vivian Ayers Allen (who was featured in April 8th’s Daily Drop), sisters Phylicia Rashad and Debbie Allen likely grew up believing the sky was the limit. Both are Howard University graduates and award-winning stars of stage and screen.
Phylicia won the Tony Award for Lead Actress in a Play for the 2004 revival of ARaisin in the Sun, and Debbie won Emmys in 1982, 1983 and 1991 for her choreography on Fame and Motown 30: What’s Goin’ On!
https://youtu.be/ObGtzzLLjlA
In 2001 Allen opened the Debbie Allen Dance Academy in Los Angeles, and in 2008 she directed the all-African American Broadway production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roofstarring big sis Rashad as Big Mama.
To learn more about these talented sisters, check out the siblings’ conversation from 2020 where they share stories, their history together and life lessons on IG live, posted on the True Exclusives channel on YouTube and check out the links to more sources provided in today’s show notes and the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.
This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing.
Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.
If you like these Daily Drops, please consider following us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
Today’s GBN Daily Drop podcast is a bonus episode about U.S Supreme Court JusticeKetanji Brown Jackson, whose historic appointment this week can’t be celebrated enough.
To read about her, read on. To hear about her, press PLAY:
[You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.comor create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website. Full transcript below]:
Hey, this Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a bonus daily drop of Good Black News for Saturday, April 9th, 2022, based on the format of the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.
Just two short days ago, history that was a long time in coming was finally made when Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson was officially confirmed by a Senate vote of 53 to 47 to become the 116th Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court and first African American woman ever to serve on the highest judicial body of the nation.
In a bit of poetry, the vote was called for and presided over by Vice President Kamala Harris, who herself is quite familiar with making U.S. history as a Black woman.
Nominated by President Joe Biden in February, Justice Jackson faced over a month of scrutiny in the Senate confirmation hearings as well as in the media, but navigated it all with intelligence, grace and candor.
Actor and Howard University graduate Taraji P. Henson and former head of the NBA Players Association and NBA star Chris Paul are among the more than a dozen top education leaders, celebrities and athletes President Joe Biden announced he is appointing to his board of advisers on historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), the White House said.
The presidents of five HBCUs – Alabama State University, Virginia State University, Norfolk State University in Virginia, Dillard University in New Orleans and Prairie View A&M University in Texas – have also been appointed to the board.
Biden’s move comes weeks after his administration touted a $2.7 billion in funding from the American Rescue Plan that was provided to HBCUs over the past year and as HBCUs continue working to keep campuses safe after dozens received bomb threats in recent months.
The group is made of “qualified and diverse leaders” and appointing them to the board “will allow the administration to build on that financial commitment with continued institutional support,” the White House said.
HBCUs affected by recent bomb threats will be eligible for federal security grants, as more support for HBCUs has part of Biden’s domestic policy agenda since he ran for president. Last year, Biden proposed increased funding for HBCUs but his full proposal was not passed by Congress.
Pulitzer Prize-nominated poet Vivian Ayers Allen not only infused the world with her art (her poem “On Status” was recently sampled by Solange on her 2019 When I Get Home album) but also with artists.
This includes famous daughters Phylicia Rashad and Debbie Allen as well as the children she’s inspired on the site of her former alma mater, the historic Brainerd Institute in Chester, South Carolina, via her “Workshops in Open Fields” program to educate preschool children in the arts.
To read about her, read on. To hear about her, press PLAY:
(You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.comor create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website.) Full transcript below:
Hey, this Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Friday, April 8th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.
The words of Pulitzer Prize-nominated poet Vivian Ayers Allen have stood the test of time – and space. Her poem “Hawk,” an allegory of freedom made analogous to space flight, was published in 1957 just before the launch of Sputnik I, the first artificial satellite sent from Earth into orbit.
Enlarged reproductions of select lines were exhibited at NASA’s Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center. In 1997 Allen’s family purchased her alma mater, the historic Brainerd Institute in Chester, South Carolina, and soon began offering “Workshops in Open Fields” to educate preschool children in the arts.
And in 2019, fellow Houstonian Solange Knowles used a sample of Allen’s poem “On Status” as read by her two famous daughters – Phylicia Rashad and Debbie Allen – on Knowles’ acclaimed When I Get Home album.
To learn more about Vivian Ayers Allen, check out Spice of Dawns, her 1952 poetry collection, the Brainerd Institute Heritage website, and links to more sources provided in today’s show notes and the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.
This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing.
Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.
If you like these Daily Drops, please consider following us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com,Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
History was made moments ago when the U.S. Senate confirmed Ketanji Brown Jackson 53-47 to become the next Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
Jackson is the first African American woman to serve on the court and the 116th Associate Justice overall.
President Joe Bidennominated Jackson over a month ago to take over the seat of retiring Justice Stephen Breyer, for whom Jackson once clerked.
Associate Justice Jackson was born in Washington, DC and grew up in Miami, Florida. Her parents attended segregated primary schools, then attended historically black colleges and universities.
Both started their careers as public school teachers and became leaders and administrators in the Miami-Dade Public School System. When Justice Jackson was in preschool, her father attended law school.
In a 2017 lecture, Justice Jackson traced her love of the law back to sitting next to her father in their apartment as he tackled his law school homework—reading cases and preparing for Socratic questioning—while she undertook her preschool homework—coloring books.
Justice Jackson stood out as a high achiever throughout her childhood. She was a speech and debate star who was elected “mayor” of Palmetto Junior High and student body president of Miami Palmetto Senior High School.
But like many Black women, Judge Jackson still faced naysayers. When Judge Jackson told her high school guidance counselor she wanted to attend Harvard, the guidance counselor warned that Justice Jackson should not set her “sights so high.”
That did not stop Judge Jackson. She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University, then attended Harvard Law School, where she graduated cum laude and was an editor of the Harvard Law Review.
Jackson went on to clerk for the U.S. Supreme Court, serve as a public defender, become a U.S. District Court Judge for the District of Columbia and then a Judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals.
Justice Jackson lives with her husband, Patrick, and their two daughters, in Washington, DC.
All due respect to Chuck D, some of our heroes actually did appear on stamps, the first doing so 82 years ago #onthisday. Question is, who was the first one? To read the choices, read on. To hear them, press PLAY:
You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Amazon, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.comor create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website (transcript below):
Hey, this is Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Thursday, April 7th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing. It’s in the category for Black Trivia we call “We Got Game”:
Okay, so I’m going to read a multiple-choice question that you will get time to think about and answer.
What I’m going to do is read the question, read the choices — and they’ll be four of them — and then I’ll prompt you to pause the episode if you want to take longer than the 10 seconds that will pass before I share the answer.
Sound good? Ready to see if you got game? All right, here we go:
Who was the first African American to be featured on a U.S. Postage Stamp? Was it…
W.E.B. DuBois
Frederick Douglass
Harriet Tubman, or
Booker T. Washington
Now go ahead and pause the episode if you want to take more than 10 seconds before you hear the answer. Otherwise, I’ll be back in 10… Okay, time’s up.
The answer is… D: Booker T. Washington.
Although the other three have since been featured on USPS stamps — 1992 for DuBois, 1967 for Douglas and 1978 for Tubman — Booker T. Washington was the first Black person to be honored in this way 82 years ago on April 7, 1940.
After several petitions from African American supporters, President Franklin D. Roosevelt pushed to make Washington’s stamp happen.
Issued at a cost of 10 cents and celebrated with a ceremony at the Tuskegee Institute, Washington’s stamp was part of the U.S. Postal Service’s Famous Americans Series.
The most recent African American person celebrated on a postage stamp is sculptor Edmonia Lewis, who is the 45th subject of the USPS Black Heritage stamp series, issued in January of this year.
To learn more about the history of African Americans on U.S. postage stamps, check out the links provided in today’s show notes and the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.
This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing.
Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.
If you like these Daily Drops, please consider following us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
As #JazzAppreciationMonth continues, we offer a quote from true jazz royalty, — bandleader, composer, pianist, performer — the superb, sublime Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington.
To read it, read on. To hear it and more about Ellington, press PLAY:
Or just check it out every day here on the main website.) Full transcript below:
Hey, this Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Wednesday, April 6th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.
Today, we offer a quote from jazz royalty — bandleader, composer, pianist, performer — the one and only Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington:
“Playing ‘bop’ is like playing Scrabble with all the vowels missing.”
Born in Washington D.C. in 1899 to two piano playing parents, Duke Ellington began composing in his teenage years and started landing gigs through his work as a freelance sign painter by offering his band’s services to any club or party he made a sign for.
Ellington later moved to Harlem and landed the gig as the house band for the Cotton Club after King Oliver turned it down, and became a world-renowned big band leader for popular compositions and recordings like 1926’s “East St. Louis Toodle-O” which was the first signature song of Duke Ellington’s Orchestra:
[Excerpt from “East St. Louis Toodle-O”]
Also hugely popular was his composition “Caravan” which was first recorded and released by clarinetist Barney Bigard and his Jazzopaters before Ellington reclaimed it:
[Excerpt from “Caravan”]
“Mood Indigo” for which Barney Bigard is listed as a co-writer:
[Excerpt from “Mood Indigo”]
The classic swing tune “It Don’t Mean a Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing”:
[Excerpt from “It Don’t Mean a Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing”]
His 1953 composition with longtime collaborator Billy Strayhorn, “Satin Doll”:
[Excerpt from “Satin Doll”]
One of Ellington’s best known songs is one that Strayhorn composed for him, the song that would replace Ellington’s own “East St. Louis Toodle-O” as his orchestra’s signature song, the song titled to tell you how to get to Harlem, Ellington and the Cotton Club… “Take the “A” Train”:
[Excerpt from “Take the “A” Train”]
Ellington also composed beyond the category of jazz, writing orchestral and symphonic works such as Black, Brown, and Beige, and a Concert of Sacred Music, scored the feature films Anatomy of a Murder and Paris Blues, and influenced those who became the vanguard in jazz and bop such as Miles Davis and former orchestra member Charles Mingus.
In 1962, Ellington himself played Scrabble without the vowels when he recorded the album Money Jungle with bassist Mingus and drummer Max Roach, which included a new take on “Caravan”:
[Excerpt from “Caravan” from Money Jungle]
Ellington composed and played up until the last years of his life before passing at the age of 74 in 1974. That same year, his DC hometown renamed its Calvert Street Bridge the Duke Ellington Bridge.
In 1997, an intersection in Harlem in Central Park was renamed Duke Ellington Circle. In 1999 he was posthumously awarded a special Pulitzer Prize for his indelible contribution to art and culture and in 2009 Ellington graced the back of the commemorative District of Columbia quarter, among just a few of the honors Ellington has received since he transcended this life as we know it.
And, of course, buy or stream as much of the music as you can from the man lovingly and unforgettably referred to by modern day musical genius Stevie Wonder as “The king of all, Sir Duke.”
This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing.
Intro and outro beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot. All excerpts of Duke Ellington’s music included are permitted under Fair Use.
If you like these Daily Drops, please consider following us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
As Pharrell Williams takes his 49th orbit around the sun today, GBN celebrates the music and contributions to the culture and community made by this prolific and inventive force of nature.
To read about him, read on. To hear about him, press PLAY:
(You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.comor create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website.) Full transcript below:
Hey, this Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Tuesday, April 5th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.
Born April 5, 1973 in Virginia Beach, VA, prolific music producer, composer and artist Pharrell Williams (“Drop It Like It’s Hot,” “Get Lucky,” “Hollaback Girl”) has also excelled as a fashion designer (Billionaire Boys Club, G Star Raw, Adidas) as a film and television producer (Dope, Hidden Figures, the Amazon Prime series Harlem) …and, importantly, as a philanthropist.
In 2019 Williams offered “A-List internships” to 114 college-bound high school students to help set them on their career paths.
More recently, Williams co-founded the Black Ambition Initiativeto fund Black and Latinx entrepreneurs in tech, design, healthcare and consumer products and services start-ups. So, let’s wish a “Happy” birthday to this “Beautiful” Neptune on his 49th trip around the sun.
And, it goes without saying, stream or buy any and/or all of the innovative, industry-changing music he’s produced and performed over the decades.
This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing.
Intro and outro beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.
Excerpts from “Frontin’”, “Happy,” “Beautiful” and “Brand New” by Pharrell Williams permitted under fair use.
If you like these Daily Drops, please consider following us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.
For more Good Black News, you can check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
To learn more about Oscar Peterson, read his 2002 autobiography 
You can also watch Ellington in the short film Black and Tan from 1929, Symphony in Black from 1935 featuring Billie Holiday, the mid-1960s documentary 
You can also check out the 2020 Netflix series