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Posts tagged as “National Register of Historic Places”

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.

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Denzel Washington Headlines Event in Pittsburgh Marking Renovation of August Wilson Home

Denzel Washington Headlines Event in Pittsburgh Marking Renovation of August Wilson Home

By goodblacknews on September 29, 2018
Denzel Washington greets August Wilson’s daughter, Sakina Ansari-Wilson, at the groundblessing for August Wilson House. (photo by Nate Smallwood via Tribune-Review)

by Wes Venteicher via triblive.com

Actor Denzel Washington headlined a rainy ceremony Wednesday afternoon in Pittsburgh’s Hill District to mark the start of renovations at playwright August Wilson’s childhood home.

Washington led a $5 million fundraising effort to restore what is now called the August Wilson House. Renovations are expected to be completed in 2020, when the house is set to become a center for art and culture in the neighborhood.

“It is a privilege and an honor and a responsibility … and a joy to play a small part in keeping him alive,” Washington told an audience that huddled under umbrellas in the yard of the house at 1727 Bedford Ave.

Paul Ellis, Wilson’s nephew, led an effort to restore the nearly 200-year-old building to its 1950s-era look, matching how it appeared when Wilson lived there with his mother and five siblings. Wilson, who died in 2005, last visited the house in 1999.

Denzel Washington speaks at ground blessing of August Wilson House in Pittsburgh’s Historic Hill District (photo by Nate Smallwood via Tribune-Review)

When renovations are complete, the building — which is now on the National Register of Historic Places — will house displays and artifacts from Wilson’s life and plays. Wilson said he wanted the building to be “useful,” not only a museum, Ellis said. It will incorporate artist studios and will continue to host plays in its yard.

Duquesne University has launched a program to award fellowships to emerging writers who will live and study at Duquesne and spend time working at the House, Duquesne President Ken Gormley said.

Washington, who starred in a 2016 film production of Wilson’s play “Fences,” called Wilson one of the world’s great playwrights and talked about a familiar feeling in visiting the Hill District house. “I love August Wilson,” Washington said. “He touches my soul, our souls, in a way that no one else I know has. This is just like coming home.”

He identified some of the project’s big-name donors, noting Oprah Winfrey and actor Tyler Perry each gave $1 million and writer and producer Shonda Rhimes, director Spike Lee and actor Samuel L. Jackson all contributed.

Washington is producing nine more of Wilson’s plays — the rest of the 10 plays in the playwright’s Century Cycle.

Duquesne University has already selected its first fellow, former U.S. poet laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner Natasha Trethewey. Trethewey read her poem “Pilgrimage” at the ceremony, which included short performances of Wilson’s work by student Jamaica Johnson and Pittsburgh actor Wali Jamal.

Read more: https://triblive.com/local/allegheny/14120687-74/denzel-washington-headlines-event-marking-renovation-of-august-wilson-home

Obama Presidential Center Gets Green Light from Chicago City Council

By goodblacknews on May 24, 2018
The design for the Obama Presidential Center in Jackson Park was unveiled May 3, 2017 (photo via chicagotribune.com)

by Lolly Bowean via chicagotribune.com

Culminating a three-year campaign by the Obama Foundation, the Chicago City Council on Wednesday approved measures to allow construction of the Obama Presidential Center. The approval, which came on a 47-1 vote, means the foundation can move forward into federal reviews of the project with city support as a badge of endorsement.
No public comment was allowed during the council meeting, and aldermen discussed the matter for just over an hour — a contrast to the extended and heated debate last week during a Plan Commission hearing. Hundreds of residents, activists and leaders of cultural institutions testified both in favor of the presidential center and against it. The commission voted overwhelmingly in support, as did the Zoning Committee on Tuesday, which paved the way for Wednesday’s City Council vote.
The City Council decision was just another step in a long process. Besides the federal review — which is required because Jackson Park, the site of the center, is on the National Register of Historic Places — the foundation still must secure a formal long-term contract to lease Jackson Park from the city. The foundation already has hired a collective of construction firms to build the center, but they have to develop and hire a workforce.