According to variety.com, filmmaker Tyler Perry announced he’s donating $500,000 to New York’s famed Apollo Theater during the venue’s annual spring benefit gala yesterday.
Perry made the offer during his acceptance speech for the organization’s Impact Award, which was presented to him by Whoopi Goldberg.
“My studio [in Georgia] was once a former Confederate-owned army base where there were 3.9 million negroes and slaves at the time, and there were Confederate soldiers plotting and planning how to keep them enslaved,” Perry said.
“While now that land is owned by one negro and I know the importance of what it means to honor that and honor the history of what it has been, and what it has been and to redirect it and rechange it. So it’s very important to me that we all give and support, and with that said, I’d like to give a half-million dollars to make sure this place continues to grow and thrive.”
Perry concluded his speech by sharing that 98 percent of the people he paid last year with his $154 million payroll were Black. He then implored those listening not to give up on their career goals, using his own uplift of Black people in the industry as an example of the good that can come from Black people’s success.
“That is the power of us, that is the power of understanding our stories, our messages, whether who gets it or who don’t. Long as you walk you path, you understand who you’re talking to, you know your audience. If you’ve got a dream in this room, please hear me when I say this, do not give up on your dreams,” Perry said.
“If I would have given up, I don’t know who would have given that payroll, or if they would be in Hollywood, if people wouldn’t let them in the door. When you come to Tyler Perry Studios, you see the most diverse group of people who have ever worked in the industry, and for that I am grateful.”
Including Perry’s gift, the Apollo raised a record-breaking $3.7 million last night as comedian Kenan Thompson hosted the fundraising event.
GBN is pulling a trifecta today — celebrating #MusicMonday, #JazzAppreciationMonth, and dropping in on absolutely one of the best singers past, present — or ever — Ella Fitzgerald!
Born 105 years ago #OnThisDay, through her stunningly timeless gifts (and vast catalog), Ella Fitzgerald is still surprising and delighting music lovers and casual fans alike.
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 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 Monday, April 25th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.
Today, we offer a quote from the “First Lady of Song” born 105 years ago on this date, the incomparable Ella Fitzgerald.
“The only thing better than singing is more singing.”
Born in 1917 in Newport News, Virginia, Ella Fitzgerald’s earliest artistic ambitions were to become a dancer.
When the loss of her mother when she was 15 lead to a relocation to Harlem to live with her aunt and stints in an orphanage and a state reformatory school for girls, Fitzgerald hustled to get by on the streets and at 17 took her terpsichorean talents to Amateur Night at the Apollo Theater.
But when she saw two sisters with a dance act go on before her and wow the crowd, Ella didn’t think she could compete so she switched up her talent from dancing to singing and took to the stage to sing “Judy” and “The Object of My Affection” and won first prize in 1934.
Although she didn’t record either at the time, in 1968 Ella gave “The Object of My Affection” another onstage go when she sang it for her Live At Chautauqua, Volume1 LP:
[Excerpt from “The Object of My Affection”]
Ella’s Amateur night win lead to an audition with Chick Webb to become the girl singer in his orchestra, and one of the best collaborations between bandleader and singer in the swing era.
Webb and Ella had hits with “Love and Kisses,” “(If You Can’t Sing It) You’ll Have to Swing It (Mr. Paganini)” and the classic turn on a nursery rhyme co-written by Ella that become of the best-selling songs in it’s decade, “A Tisket, A Tasket”:
[Excerpt from “A Tisket, A Tasket”]
Even as Chick Webb took the young Ella under his wing, his serious health challenges ended his life way too soon in 1939.
Ella stepped up and lead and toured with the orchestra for a few more years until she went solo as jazz turned increasingly towards the newer sounds of bebop.
It was around this time, while working with Dizzy Gillespie and his band, Ella developed her scat singing style, lauded on songs such as “Oh, Lady Be Good” and “Flying Home”:
[Excerpt from “Flying Home”]
Ella not only navigated and interpreted jazz standards with dazzling dexterity and clarity, during her heyday, she, like her quote implied, sang and sang and sang some more.
Ella took on several of America’s most popular composers with her unparalleled series of “songbooks,” where she devoted entire albums to covering the songs of Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Duke Ellington, Rodgers and Hart, Johnny Mercer, Jerome Kern and Irving Berlin.
You can’t go wrong with any of these incredible recordings, so I’ll share a personal favorite from Ella Sings Gershwin – Ella’s plaintively tender version of “Someone to Watch Over Me”:
[Excerpt of “Someone to Watch Over Me”]
Ella also paired up with jazz royalty, recording an album with Count Basie, three with Louis Armstrong, four with guitarist Joe Pass and four with Duke Ellington, one which included her version of – I can’t think of any better word than “banging” because Ella just goes so hard in “It Don’t Mean a Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing”:
[Excerpt of “It Don’t Mean a Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing”]
From big band to bebop to Broadway, standards, pop and R&B, throughout her career, Ella Fitzgerald recorded over 200 albums and 2,000 songs.
Because frankly, with a voice like hers, the only thing better than Ella singing was more Ella singing. I’m going to put a link to a much longer Ella playlist in the show notes, but let’s hear from her one more time, in 1977, when one of her biggest fans, Stevie Wonder, lovingly sings her praises right before she helps him sing his song:
And of course, buy or stream as much of her music as you can. Links to these sources and more are provided in today’s show notes and in the episodes full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.
This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, written, produced and hosted by me, Lori Lakin Hutcherson.
Intro and outro beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.
All excerpts of Ella Fitzgerald’s music are included under Fair Use.
If you like these Daily Drops, follow 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.
In continued celebration of #JazzAppreciationMonth, today we drop in on virtuoso vocalist Sarah Vaughan, who hailed from Newark, New Jersey, and was dubbed “Sassy” for her salty conversation and “The Divine One” for the heavenly and serene singing feats she accomplished with her three octave range.
To read about Vaughan, 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 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 Wednesday, April 13th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.
Today, we offer a quote from one of the finest vocalists and musicians ever to do it, she’s known as “Sassy,” “The Divine One,” she’s Ms. Sarah Vaughan:
“When I sing, trouble can sit right on my shoulder and I don’t even notice.”
Born in Newark, New Jersey in 1924, Sarah Lois Vaughan’s musical talent first revealed itself in church when she would clamor to sit with the organist instead of her mother.
As a teenager Vaughan snuck into local nightclubs to play piano, sing and perform. In 1942, she entered the famed Apollo Theater Amateur Night contest in New York and captivated the audience with her stunning performance of “Body and Soul.”
Here’s a version Vaughan later recorded of the song that was her calling card to her career:=
[Excerpt of “Body and Soul”]
Vaughan’s Apollo contest win lead quickly to a stint singing with the Earl Hines Orchestra before she joined fellow singer Billy Eckstine’s orchestra when he quit Hines to form his own big band.
In Mr. B’s outfit, Vaughan played, sang and improvised with burgeoning bebop innovators Art Blakey, Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker before eventually going solo herself.
Vaughan carried the bebop style into her vocals, as can be heard in her version of “Lover Man” with Gillespie’s Septet from 1946:
[Excerpt of “Lover Man” 1946]
From the 1940s through the 1960s, Vaughan recorded with various labels, big and small, including Columbia, Roulette, Mercury, and Mercury’s jazz subsidiary, EmArcy.
Whether singing sweet pop or hot jazz, Vaughan’s vocals remained innovative, impressive and unparalleled. In 1947 she was the first singer to record and release “Tenderly,” establishing the standard for the standard:
[Excerpt of “Tenderly”]
Vaughan literally could sing anything – and did. She scored her first gold record with pop and R&B hit “Broken Hearted Melody”:
[Excerpt of “Broken Hearted Melody”]
And kept her jazz chops tight with her renditions of songs like “Nice Work If You Can Get It”:
[Excerpt of “Nice Work If You Can Get It”]
“Black Coffee”:
[Excerpt of “Black Coffee”]
And turned tunes like Erroll Garner’s “Misty,” which she recorded for her 1959 Vaughan and Violins album orchestrated and arranged by Quincy Jones, into something altogether ethereal:
[Excerpt of “Misty”]
In the 1960s and 1970s however, Vaughan experienced differing troubles with different record labels that didn’t know how to present or frankly even respect Vaughan in the changing musical times.
Just take one look at the clown with an afro photo on the cover of her 1974 Send in The Clowns album on Mainstream Records and you’ll get it.
But if you can’t do that right now, take a listen to the ‘70s vanilla pop/light disco production of the title track to get the point:
[Excerpt of “Send in the Clowns” – 1974]
After Vaughan sued Mainstream over the album cover and other issues, she signed with Norman Granz’s Pablo label and released albums of jazz standards and bossa nova inflected music, two of which were nominated for Grammys.
She also re-arranged and re-recorded “Send in the Clowns,” which went from being lawsuit-worthy to another of her signature songs:
[Excerpt of “Send in the Clowns” 1981]
Vaughan continued to lean into bossa nova-style music in the 1980s, and recorded her last full album, 1987’s A Brazilian Romance, with Sergio Mendes producing. A personal favorite of mine from that LP is the languidly stunning “So Many Stars”:
[Excerpt of “So Many Stars”]
In her lifetime, Vaughan received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, was inducted into the Jazz Hall of Fame and received the National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters Award in 1989. Vaughan passed in 1990 and in 1998, her recording of “If You Could See Me Now,”composed specifically for her by Tad Dameron four decades earlier, was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
[Excerpt of “If You Could See Me Now”]
In 2002, Sarah Vaughan’s “Whatever Lola Wants” was a standout on the Verve Remixed2compilation, introducing her timeless voice to a whole new generation:
[Excerpt of “Whatever Lola Wants – Gotan Project Remix”]
In 2012, Vaughan was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame, and for over a decade, the New Jersey Performing Arts Center has held an annual International Jazz Vocal Competition, nicknamed “The SASSY Awards” in honor of the one and only, the incomparable Sarah Vaughan.
Stream or buy on DVD the music documentary of her performing live 1958 and 1964 called Sarah Vaughan: The Divine One in 1958, watch the 1991 biographical American Masters documentary Sarah Vaughan “The Divine One” currently available on YouTube, watch clips of her live performances on YouTube and of course, buy or stream as much Sarah Vaughan music as you can online.
Links to these sources and more are provided in today’s show notes and the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.
And let’s hear Sarah Vaughan’s voice one more time – her speaking voice – from her 1964 live performance in Sweden of “Misty”:
“Thank you very very much ladies and gentlemen. I’m very nervous up here I got a cold today. The day I got to do TV I got a cold. That’s fine. But anyway I do you want to enjoy our show and right now I like to do a little tune that I recorded while I was over here and not in Stockholm but while I was in Paris in ’58. A tune that was written by Erroll Garner. I do hope you enjoy “Misty.”
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 Sarah Vaughan’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.
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 (transcript below):
SHOW TRANSCRIPT:
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 Saturday, March 19th, 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 Comedians we call, “Yeah, You Funny”:
Jackie “Moms” Mabley was the first woman comedian in the U.S. to have a long-lasting and successful career. Born #onthisday in 1894, in Brevard, North Carolina, Mabley got her start performing on vaudeville’s “chitlin’ circuit” for years before becoming widely known from the 1940s to the 1970s for her movie appearances, hit comedy albums, variety show guest spots, and as a headlining stand-up act at venues such as the Apollo Theater, where she appeared more than any other performer in history.
Mabley mostly played the character of an older woman in a housedress who offered subtle commentary on politics, racism, sexism… all while musing on her desire for younger men.
Today we share one of Mabley’s clever quips of the latter variety, which juxtaposed so greatly with her presentation and still feels contemporary:
“There ain’t nothin’ an old man can do for me but bring me a message from a young one.”
All albums are available to stream on Apple Music and some of them are also on Spotify. You can also check out Wanda Sykes’ Emmy-nominated portrayal of Moms Mabley in the Amazon original series The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.
Links to these sources and more are provided in today’s show notes and in 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.
And today, in honor of Moms Mabley’s birthday, we’re closing with a snippet of her version of “Abraham, Martin and John,” written by Dick Holler:
Ta-Nehisi Coates (photo via nytimes.com) article by Andrew R. Chow via nytimes.com “Between the World and Me,”Ta-Nehisi Coates’s award-winning book exploring racial injustice in America, will be brought to the Apollo stage next April.
Mr. Coates’s fiery work — which made him the National Book Award winner and a Pulitzer Prize finalist — will be adapted into a multimedia performance, with excerpted monologues, video projections, and a score by the jazz musician Jason Moran.
Portions of Mr. Coates’s letters to his son would be read aloud, while narratives of his experiences at Howard University and in New York City could be performed by actors. Kamilah Forbes, the Apollo’s executive producer, will direct the production.
The coming Apollo season will be Ms. Forbes’s first full season in the role; she previously was the associate director of “Raisin in the Sun” on Broadway. To read more, go to: Ta-Nehisi Coates’s ‘Between the World and Me’ Is Coming to the Apollo – NYTimes.com
Prince, performing in 2005. (Getty/Kevin Winter) article by Dartunorro Clark via dnainfo.com Prince will be immortalized at the Apollo Theater’s Walk of Fame.
Theater officials announced Wednesday they will add the Purple One to their walk under the theater’s iconic marquee on 125th Street during its annual spring gala and fundraiser next month, honoring the music legend’s contributions over 40 years.
Prince’s plaque will be in the company of previously inducted Walk of Fame music icons such as Michael Jackson, Aretha Franklin and Ella Fitzgerald.
“The Apollo family was, of course, devastated to hear about the loss of Prince. He is, hands down, one of the greatest artists of all time — an absolute genius — and his relationship with the Apollo dates back to 1993,” said Jonelle Procope, the Appollo’s president and CEO. The Apollo Theater honored Prince, who died at his Minnesota home Thursday at 57. (DNAinfo/Kathleen Culliton)
“Over the years, we’ve been honored to host him, whether for a seminal New York performance or as a guest in our audience, so we are beyond thrilled to kick off this year’s Spring Gala by inducting him into the Apollo Walk of Fame.”
The gala, scheduled for June 13th at 7 p.m., will also feature a star-studded line up with performances from legendary R&B group The O’Jays and newer artists such as Leon Bridges and Andra Day. LL Cool J will host. The evening will also include special tributes to other trailblazing artists who died in 2016, as well as a dance tribute to Prince.
2015 Apollo Theater Walk of Fame inductees Richard Pryor, Moms Mabley and Redd Foxx
The Apollo Theater in Harlem will induct famed comedians Richard Pryor, Moms Mabley and Redd Foxx into its Walk of Fame.
The ceremony, to take place on Oct. 1, will mark the first time that non-musical artists will be inducted. All three had long-standing relationships with the venue. The historic theater also is launching a new comedy series on the same night. The Apollo Comedy Club will feature emerging comics.
Its fall and winter season also includes the return of the international hip-hop dance festival Breakin’ Convention that will feature French dance duo Les Twins. Read more at http://www.eurweb.com/2015/09/richard-pryor-moms-mabley-redd-foxx-headed-to-apollos-walk-of-fame/#ZpJgecujOC5oZrfe.99
“It’s Showtime!” Pharrell Williams continued his incredible run of musical accomplishments on Tuesday, by being named to the Apollo Theater’s Board of Directors. The multi-talented producer joins a list of 32 that includes New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, Quincy Jones, John D. Dempsey of Estee Lauder, and many more.
Skateboard P made his debut on the famed stage on June 3, which was streamed live as part of a digital series, Unstaged. The project was directed by Spike Lee and sponsored by American Express, and seemed to open new doors for hollowed grounds. The global reach of Pharrell’s performance coincided with the technological upgrades that the venue is going through, as part of a $20 million dollar initiative for its 21st Century Apollo Campaign.
The singer/songwriter stated that he’s excited to preserve and expand upon the Apollo’s legacy in American culture. In other words, he’s “Happy.” article by @TheKidSkoob via theurbandaily.com
NEW YORK — R&B star Chaka Khan will be inducted into the Apollo Theater’s hall of fame. The theater announced Thursday that Patti LaBelle and Mary J. Blige will perform in Khan’s honor at its June 10 New York gala. The annual event raises funds for the Apollo’s education and community outreach programs. Khan and Blige received a Grammy Award together in 2008 for “Disrespectful.” Singer-songwriter Lionel Richie and the late Etta James were inducted last year into the Apollo Legends Hall of Fame. Other previous inductees include LaBelle, Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson and Aretha Franklin, to name just a few. Sarah Jessica Parker will present this year’s corporate award to Time Warner Inc. via Chaka Khan Chosen For Apollo Legends Hall Of Fame.
Watch incredible clips of her on YouTube performing with 
Stream or buy on DVD the music documentary of her performing live 1958 and 1964 called 
