Mar 2, 2026 9:58 PM
In Memoriam: John Hammond Jr., 1942–2026
John P. Hammond (aka John Hammond Jr.), a blues guitarist and singer who was one of the first white American…
New York’s Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra has received a commission to compose and perform a new piece in honor of United States Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor. The composition will premiere at New York’s Symphony Space on Nov. 5 with a second performance the following day.
“I am so grateful and excited to receive this commission,” said Arturo O’Farrill, the orchestra’s founder and director. “The Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra’s mission is to preserve, perpetuate, and innovate the genre of Afro-Latin Big Band Jazz through performance. What better way to fulfill that mission than to honor the first Latina to be appointed to the United States Supreme Court.”
The commission’s backers include Symphony Space, RD Rice Construction and the Bronx Museum of the Arts. Sotomayor is a native of the borough.
“We have had a long tradition of commissioning new artwork by contemporary artists,” said the Bronx Museum’s executive director Holly Block. “The nomination of Sotomayor is great inspiration for everyone in the Bronx especially for youth and young women. Arturo O’Farrill’s commission represents an important moment in history.”
Hammond came to the blues through the folk boom of the late 1950s and early 1960s, which he experienced firsthand in New York’s Greenwich Village.
Mar 2, 2026 9:58 PM
John P. Hammond (aka John Hammond Jr.), a blues guitarist and singer who was one of the first white American…
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“These days, with curated news, where people only get half the story, people can’t even speak to family members anymore,” Schneider laments.
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