Apr 29, 2025 11:53 AM
Vocalist Andy Bey Dies at 85
Singer Andy Bey, who illuminated the jazz scene for five decades with a four-octave range that encompassed a bellowing…
Wynton Marsalis has composed and recorded the original score for Ken Burns’ upcoming PBS documentary, Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise And Fall Of Jack Johnson, a portrait of the first-ever African-American Heavyweight Champion of the World. Conjuring up the early 1900s jazz current to Johnson’s life (1878-1946), Marsalis’ score perfectly complements Burns’s film, capturing all the dramatic tension inherent in Johnson’s story, from the joy of ultimate triumph to the despair of inescapable oppression.
The soundtrack CD will be released by Blue Note on Nov. 30. PBS will air the two-part documentary on Jan. 17-18, 2005.
“It kind of slows down, but it’s still kind of productive in a way, because you have something that you can be inspired by,” Andy Bey said on a 2019 episode of NPR Jazz Night in America, when he was 80. “The music is always inspiring.”
Apr 29, 2025 11:53 AM
Singer Andy Bey, who illuminated the jazz scene for five decades with a four-octave range that encompassed a bellowing…
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