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…
The U.S. Postal Service will honor jazz vocalist Sarah Vaughan (1924–’90) with a commemorative Forever Stamp in a ceremony in Newark, New Jersey, on March 29.
(Photo: Courtesy USPS)Vocalist Sarah “Sassy” Vaughan will return to the spotlight yet again, thanks to a concert album and a commemorative stamp.
Resonance Records, with the cooperation of National Public Radio, will release Sarah Vaughan—Live At Rosy’s, New Orleans on March 25. The two-CD set comprises newly discovered recordings made for the NPR program Jazz Alive! during the legendary jazz singer’s live performance at Rosy’s Jazz Club on May 31, 1978.
The set comes bundled with a 36-page book, which contains rare photos and interviews alongside two newly commissioned essays by journalist James Gavin and jazz expert Will Friedwald.
Shortly after the album release, the U.S. Postal Service will honor Vaughan’s legacy by issuing a Commemorative Forever Stamp featuring her image. The ceremony will take place at the Sarah Vaughan Concert Hall at Newark Symphony Hall in New Jersey on March 29. The event is free and open to the public, but a ticket is required for admission. (Call Newark Symphony Hall box office at 973-643-8014 for more information.)
A host of major figures from the jazz and political world have signed on to attend the dedication ceremony. Confirmed participants include vocalist Tony Bennett (who will appear in a videotaped tribute), Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, Mount Zion Baptist Church Pastor Dr. Gloria White, Deputy Postmaster General Ronald Stroman and Grammy-winning actress Melba Moore.
The event will also feature performances by Jazzmeia Horn, winner of the 2013 Sarah Vaughan Jazz Vocalist Competition, as well as the Mount Zion Baptist Church Choir and the NJPAC Jazz for Teens Ensemble.
Vaughan, a Newark native, was elected to the DownBeat Hall of Fame via the 1985 Readers Poll. A Grammy Award winner and NEA Jazz Master, she died April 3, 1990.
In releasing the Vaughan album, Resonance Records adds to its impressive catalog of archival albums, including In the Beginning (2015), a collection of guitarist Wes Montgomery’s early music; In Paris: The ORTF Recordings (2016), a retrospective on organist Larry Young; and All My Yesterdays: The Debut 1966 Recordings At The Village Vanguard (2016), an assemblage of live recordings from the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra.
“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…
“I love doing ballads,” Mike Stern says. “It’s just a part of me, some part of emotionally how I feel sometimes.”
Dec 3, 2024 12:52 PM
Stories of major shifts and rebirths among musicians during the past five years are common, from weathering the…
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…
Robertson had a penetrating, pliant sound with a remarkable softness at its center.
Dec 11, 2024 10:34 AM
Herb Robertson, a trumpeter and flugelhornist known for his wide-lens explorations of the avant-garde, died Dec. 10. He…
