Dec 17, 2024 9:58 AM
Tabla Master Zakir Hussain, 73, Succumbs to Illness
Tabla master Ustad Zakir Hussain, one of India’s reigning cultural ambassadors and a revered figure worldwide…
Mike LeDonne is the founder and organizer of the Jazz Legends for Disability Pride concert, which will take place Jan. 5, 2017, in Manhattan.
(Photo: Courtesy of the artist)Jazz Legends for Disability Pride is a concert fundraiser organized by keyboardist Mike LeDonne. LeDonne, whose name appears regularly in the Organ category of the annual DownBeat Critics and Readers and Critics Polls, also serves as President of Disability Pride NYC, an organization dedicated to promoting inclusion, awareness and visibility of people with disabilities.
Every year, jazz musicians graciously donate their voices to help this cause, and 2017 will be no exception. Among the jazz celebrities in this year’s Jazz Legends for Disability Pride concert will be Ron Carter, Benny Golson, Jimmy Cobb, Harold Mabern, Eddie Henderson, George Coleman, Buster Williams, Louis Hayes, Jon Faddis, Bill Charlap and many others. Concerts will take place takes Jan. 5 at the Quaker Friends Meeting Hall in Manhattan.
The organization recently announced that three more stars will join the roster: pianist Larry Willis, vocalist Roberta Gambarini and trumpeter/bandleader Jon Faddis.
This yearly comingling of jazz musicians is held in partnership with the 2017 NYC Winter Jazzfest, which is scheduled to run Jan. 5-10 in various locations around Manhattan’s Greenwich Village neighborhood.
LeDonne traces his public advocacy for disability awareness back to the birth of his daughter, Mary, who was born with a rare syndrome called Prader-Willi and was also diagnosed with hydrocephalus. In 2012, LeDonne created Disability Pride Day in New York, an annual that sought to change the public perception of people with disabilities. Funds raised from the annual event would eventually help launch the Disability Pride Parade, which was first held on July 12, 2015, the 20th anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
For more information on the organization, or to purchase tickets for the event, click here. DB
“Watching people like Max Roach or Elvin Jones and seeing how they utilize the whole drum kit in a very rhythmic and melodic way and how they stretched time — that was a huge inspiration to me,” Hussain said in DownBeat.
Dec 17, 2024 9:58 AM
Tabla master Ustad Zakir Hussain, one of India’s reigning cultural ambassadors and a revered figure worldwide…
Gerald and John Clayton at the family home in Altadena during a photo shoot for the June 2022 cover of DownBeat. The house was lost during the Los Angeles fires.
Jan 21, 2025 7:54 PM
Roy McCurdy and his wife had just finished eating dinner and were relaxing over coffee in their Altadena home, when he…
Queen Latifah extols Harlem and the Apollo Theater at this year’s Kennedy Center Honors.
Dec 12, 2024 1:58 AM
Cuban-American jazz trumpet legend Arturo Sandoval and Harlem’s Apollo Theater were among the honorees at the 2024…
“With jazz I thought it must be OK to be Black, for the first time,” says singer Sofia Jernberg.
Jan 2, 2025 10:50 AM
On Musho (Intakt), her recent duo album with pianist Alexander Hawkins, singer Sofia Jernberg interprets traditional…
The Old Country: More From The Deer Head Inn arrives 30 years after ECM issued the Keith Jarret Trio live album At The Deer Head Inn.
Jan 21, 2025 7:38 PM
Last November, Keith Jarrett, who has not played publicly since suffering two strokes in 2018, greenlighted ECM to drop…
