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Posts tagged as “Lori Lakin Hutcherson”

Five Years Ago #OnThisDay: Kendrick Lamar Releases Pulitzer Prize Winning Album DAMN. (LISTEN)

Five Years Ago #OnThisDay: Kendrick Lamar Releases Pulitzer Prize Winning Album DAMN. (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on April 14, 2022

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

Today we drop in on lauded rapper and artist Kendrick Lamar, who five years ago #onthisday dropped his last full studio album project on us — the highly-acclaimed, award-winning DAMN. 

To read about Lamar, 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.com or 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 Thursday, April 14th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.

Five years ago, on April 14, 2017, hip hop artist and Compton, California native Kendrick Lamarreleased his fourth studio album DAMN. The following year, it became the first work outside of the jazz or classical genre to win the Pulitzer Prize for music. DAMN. also won the Grammy for Best Rap Album in 2018 and was a nominee for Album of the Year.

The two albums Kendrick Lamar released before DAMN., 2012’s good kid, m.A.A.d city and 2015’s To Pimp a Butterfly were already revered within and beyond hip hop circles as sonic and lyrical works of art. DAMN. was the culmination of a magnum opus in three parts, a tapestry of arresting themes explored in songs with one-word titles such as “DNA.”:

[Excerpt of “DNA.”]

“LOYALTY. FEAT. RIHANNA.”:

[Excerpt of “LOYALTY. FEAT. RIHANNA.”]

“LOVE. FEAT. ZACARI.”:

[Excerpt of “LOVE. FEAT. ZACARI.”]

And the song that has over a billion streams on Spotify, “HUMBLE.”:

[Excerpt of “HUMBLE.”]

Side projects and collaborations aside, like “Family Ties,” Lamar’s recent Grammy-winning collaboration with Baby Keem, we can’t wait to hear what Kendrick Lamar drops next. Until then, this June Kendrick Lamar will be headlining one evening of the Glastonbury Festival in the United Kingdom and is currently scheduled to do the same at Miami’s Rolling Loud Festival in July.To learn more about Kendrick Lamar, follow him @kendricklamar on Twitter, read 2020’s The Butterfly Effect: How Kendrick Lamar Ignited the Soul of Black America by Marcus J. Moore, 2021’s Promise That You Will Sing About Me: The Power and Poetry of Kendrick Lamar by Miles Marshall Lewis, and 2021’s Kendrick Lamar and the Making of Black Meaning edited by Lehigh University professors Christopher M. Driscoll, Monica R. Miller and Rice University professor Anthony B. Pinn.

You can also read Lamar’s in-depth Rolling Stone interview from 2017, watch his interview with Zane Lowe about DAMN. on AppleMusic’s YouTube channel, catch his videos and incredible live performances on Lamar’s YouTube channel, listen to the entire 5th season of the Dissect Podcast, which is a track-by-track analysis of DAMN., and, of course, buy or stream his entire catalog of music.

This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, written, produced and hosted by yours truly, Lori Lakin Hutcherson. Intro and outro beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.

All excerpts of Kendrick Lamar’s music are included 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.

Sources:

(amazon links are paid)

Celebrating Legendary Jazz Vocalist Sarah Vaughan for #JazzAppreciationMonth (LISTEN)

Celebrating Legendary Jazz Vocalist Sarah Vaughan for #JazzAppreciationMonth (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on April 13, 2022

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

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.com or 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 Remixed2 compilation, 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.

To learn about Sarah Vaughan, read the 2017 biography Queen of BeBop: The Musical Lives of Sarah Vaughan by Elaine M. Hayes, 1992’s Sassy: The Life of Sarah Vaughan by Leslie Gourse.

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.

Sources:

Celebrating Vocalist Nancy Wilson for #JazzAppreciationMonth (LISTEN)

Celebrating Vocalist Nancy Wilson for #JazzAppreciationMonth (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on April 12, 2022

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

In continued celebration of #JazzAppreciationMonth, today we drop in on the underappreciated yet cherished and deeply talented song stylist Nancy Wilson, who was at one time in the 1960s the second most popular act on Capitol Records behind only the Beatles.

To read about Wilson, 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.com or 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 Tuesday, April 12, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.

Ohio native Nancy Wilson claimed her gift early, knowing by age four she was meant to be a singer. Encouraged by jazz saxophonist and bandleader Julius “Cannonball” Adderley, Wilson moved to New York in 1959 and landed a contract with Capitol Records.

The success of Nancy’s debut single “Guess Who I Saw Today,” led to a rush of album recordings, and to that tune becoming one of the signature songs of her career:

[Excerpt of “Guess Who I Saw Today”]

Wilson’s classic 1962 album recorded with Cannonball Adderley [Nancy Wilson/Cannonball Adderley] contained her first Billboard R&B chart hit, the gorgeous ballad “Save Your Love for Me”:

[Excerpt of “Save Your Love for Me”]

From her 1964 album of the same title, Wilson scored her first pop hit, reaching number 11 on the Hot 100 chart with “How Glad I Am”:

[Excerpt of “How Glad I Am”]

Wilson won her first Grammy for that song and had four top 10 albums on the Billboard charts between 1964 and 1965, becoming during that period Capitol Records’ second-biggest selling act behind only the Beatles.

Wilson released more than 70 albums in her five-decade recording career, and won two more Grammys 40 years after her first win, both for Best Jazz Vocal Album, in 2005 for R.S.V.P. (Rare Songs, Very Personal) and 2007 for Turned to Blue.

[Excerpt of “That’s All” from R.S.V.P.]

In 2004, Nancy Wilson was honored as a Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts, and for her work as an advocate of civil rights, which included participating in the 1965 Selma to Montgomery march in Alabama.

She received an award from the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change in 1993 and also in 1998 she won an N.A.A.C.P. Hall of Fame Image Award.

Although Wilson was lauded as a jazz vocalist, she preferred to think of herself a song stylist, as she drew from a variety of influences, which she spoke about in detail during an interview on grammys.com:

“So, consequently, I was exposed to male influences. From early on, I heard Nat Cole I heard [?????] Jackson and Louis Jordan – loved Louis Jordan. I heard Billy Billy, Mr. B. I mean, he was just, I mean, my father thought Billy Eckstine was like, couldn’t – he walked on water. He loved B. And I heard Little Jimmy Scott with Lionel Hampton‘s big band. I would imagine that was when I was around 10. So basically, it was all male. And, and not gospel. I heard Jimmy Cleveland, James Cleveland, and C.L. Franklin, and his choir from my mom used to play that. So, I got to hear it all. And I enjoyed all of it. And then of course, I became a teenager. I mean, I was allowed to go out.

And there was a jukebox where I heard Little Esther, and I heard Little Miss Cornshucks. I heard LaVern Baker. I definitely heard Dinah and I heard Ruth Brown – I used to love Ruth Brown. That was where I got the exposure to R&B females. Was a quite a while – I think I was pretty much almost grown like 15 when I became exposed to – Sarah had some hit pop songs and I heard Sarah Vaughan and that I loved. “I Ran All the Way Home” was my big song. Also one of my big numbers was the Ravens tune called “You Saw Me Crying in the Chapel.”

So I sang these songs in variety shows and I’m like ninth grade, 10th grade, so, these were the things that really made things happen for me. The fact that I did not I had no idea that you were supposed to be afraid, or that you needed to be nervous. Because to me that had no part of what I did. I was not nervous about it at all. Loved to sing – loved the lyrics to songs always. Yeah.”

 

To learn more about Nancy Wilson, check out the Jazz Profiles series she hosted on National Public Radio, read her 2007 interview on the National Endowment for the Arts website, watch her 1994 interview on Detroit Black Journal on YouTube, her 1962 appearance on Jazz Scene USA currently on YouTube, an 80-song Nancy Wilson playlist curated by yours truly on Apple Music or Spotify, and of course, buy or stream as much Nancy Wilson music as you can online.

Links to these sources and more 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 beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.

All excerpts of Nancy Wilson’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.

Sources:

[Photo: David Redfern/Redferns]

Celebrating Jazz Piano Virtuoso Oscar Peterson for #JazzAppreciationMonth (LISTEN)

Celebrating Jazz Piano Virtuoso Oscar Peterson for #JazzAppreciationMonth (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on April 11, 2022

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

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.com or 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 Suite and 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 Festival will be held in Toronto, Canada and feature contemporary jazz artists Joshua Redman, Christian McBride, Brad Mehldau and Brian Blade, among others.

To learn more about Oscar Peterson, read his 2002 autobiography A Jazz Odyssey: The Life of Oscar Peterson, Oscar Peterson: The Man and His Jazz by Jack Batten from 2012 and Oscar Peterson: The Will to Swing by Gene Lees, and watch the 2021 documentary Oscar Peterson: Black + White, currently streaming on Hulu.

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.

Sources:

(links to amazon books are paid links)

GBN’s Daily Drop (bonus): Celebrating U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson (LISTEN)

GBN’s Daily Drop (bonus): Celebrating U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on April 9, 2022

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

Today’s GBN Daily Drop podcast is a bonus episode about U.S Supreme Court Justice Ketanji 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.com or 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.

Ketanji Brown Jackson Confirmed by Senate as U.S. Supreme Court Justice

Ketanji Brown Jackson Confirmed by Senate as U.S. Supreme Court Justice

By goodblacknews on April 7, 2022

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

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 Biden nominated 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.

“We Got Game”: Who Was the 1st African American Person to Appear on a U.S. Postage Stamp? (LISTEN)

“We Got Game”: Who Was the 1st African American Person to Appear on a U.S. Postage Stamp? (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on April 7, 2022

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

Today’s Daily Drop is based on the Thursday, April 7 entry in the “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day®️ Calendar for 2022 and is the year’s third foray into our Black Trivia category called “We Got Game.” 

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.com or 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…

  1. W.E.B. DuBois
  2. Frederick Douglass
  3. Harriet Tubman, or
  4. 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.

Sources:

Quote from Jazz Royalty, Duke Ellington, for #JazzAppreciationMonth (LISTEN)

Quote from Jazz Royalty, Duke Ellington, for #JazzAppreciationMonth (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on April 6, 2022

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

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:

(You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.com or 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 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.

To learn more about Ellington, read his 1973 autobiography Music is My Mistress,  the 1995 biography Beyond Category: The Genius of Duke Ellington by John Edward Hasse, 2016’s Duke Ellington: An American Composer and Icon by Steven Brower, and 2022’s Duke Ellington: The Notes the World Was Not Ready to Hear by Karen S. Barbera and Randall Keith Horton.

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 Duke Ellington: Love You Madly by Ralph J. Gleason on YouTube, On The Road With Duke Ellington from 1967, currently also on YouTube, the 2016 documentary The Definitive Duke Ellington on Prime Video, and you can also check out the PBS American Masters episode on Duke Ellington from 2002.

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.

Sources:

[Photo credit: Duke Ellington, Scurlock Photographic Collection, National Museum of American History]

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Born On This Day in 1973: Producer and Philanthropist Pharrell Williams (LISTEN)

Born On This Day in 1973: Producer and Philanthropist Pharrell Williams (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on April 5, 2022

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

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.com or 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 Initiative to 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.

To learn more about Pharrell, read his books, Places and Spaces I’ve Been and Pharrell: A Fish Doesn’t Know It’s Wet, as well as his 2016 children’s board book Happy, check out the 2016 documentary Pharrell Williams: Happy Go Lucky on Amazon Prime Video or Free Movies on YouTube, Pharrell’s interview on The Breakfast Club, his 2019 conversation with Rick Rubin on GQ’s YouTube channel, or his 2021 appearance on PBS’s Finding Your Roots.You can also check out the 2020 Netflix series Voices of Fire, Pharrell’s interview with Mark Ronson on The FADER Uncovered podcast, and Pharrell’ own podcast, OTHERtone.

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.

Sources:

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Quote from Jazz Virtuoso John Coltrane for #JazzAppreciationMonth (LISTEN)

Quote from Jazz Virtuoso John Coltrane for #JazzAppreciationMonth (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on April 3, 2022

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

In today’s Daily Drop, for #JazzAppreciationMonth we offer a quote from jazz legend and pioneer, the unparalleled saxophonist, composer and musician, North Carolina native John Coltrane. To hear it (and more on Coltrane), press PLAY:

You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.com or 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 3rd, 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 legend and pioneer, the unparalleled saxophonist, composer and musician, John Coltrane:

“That’s what music is to me—it’s just another way of saying this is a big, beautiful universe we live in, that’s been given to us, and here’s an example of just how magnificent and encompassing it is.”

It makes complete poetic sense that the name of the band John Coltrane played in while enlisted in the U.S. Navy was the Melody Masters.

With Johnny Hodges and Dexter Gordon as musical heroes and from a young age in thrall to big band music and its emerging successor, bebop, a young Coltrane dedicated himself to hours upon hours upon hours of practice, gigging whenever and wherever he could, and learning from whoever he could learn from.

Coltrane mastered and some even say transcended what was understood or known about the structure and composition of jazz music in the 1950s and 60s. After stints working with and learning from Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk and Ornette Coleman, among others, Coltrane began creating and recording with his own band.

Not only could Coltrane reimagine, reinvigorate and repopularize standards such as My Favorite Things, he composed the bulk of classic works such as Blue Train, Giant Steps, and his undisputed masterpiece recorded one day in 1965, A Love Supreme.

Coltrane passed in 1967 but his music and legacy live on.

In 1995, the United States Postal Service created a commemorative John Coltrane postage stamp and in 1997, the Grammys honored him with a Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2001, the National Endowment for the Arts chose “My Favorite Things” for its list of 360 Songs of the Century, and in 2007, Coltrane was awarded a Pulitzer Prize as a Special Citation for a lifetime of innovative and influential work.

To learn more about Coltrane, check out the official website johncoltrane.com, which contains audio interviews with Coltrane, watch the 2016 documentary Chasing Trane, now streaming on Hulu, read Coltrane on Coltrane: The John Coltrane Interviews edited by Chris DeVito, John Coltrane: His Life and Music by Lewis Porter, visit or support the John and Alice Coltrane Home in New York, which is on the National Register of Historic Places.

And of course, perhaps most importantly, buy or stream Coltrane’s music. 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.

Intro and outro beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.

Excerpts from “Blue Train,” “My Favorite Things” and “A Love Supreme, Pt. 1: Acknowledgement” performed by John Coltrane are included 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.

Sources:

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