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INSIDE THE BEAT
14 Backstage With …
Gilberto Gil
16 Vinyl Freak
18 The Archives
September 15, 1960
19 The Question
20 The Insider
Debt Repayment
Great Night in Harlem
Event Benefits Jazz
Foundation of America
“I owe it to these people,” said Chevy Chase,
one of three master of ceremonies presiding over
the festivities at the Jazz Foundation of
America’s (JFA) annual Great Night in Harlem
event at the Apollo Theater on May 29. “I was a
teenager in love with jazz. I grew up in New
York hanging out at jazz clubs like the Five
Spot, the Half Note and the Village Vanguard in
the ’50s and ’60s. So, it’s a honor to help support
these people—great innovators and the
greatest musicians in the world—to help solve
the medical and housing problems they face
when they get older.”
What started out as an upstart non-profit
organization in New York 19 years ago has
bloomed into a major player in assisting musicians
with emergency housing, rent or mortgage
payments, and free health services around the
country. The aid in recent years ranged from
helping Freddie Hubbard make payments on his
house in Southern California when he was suffering
from congestive heart failure to giving the
late Cecil Payne a short lease on life a couple of
years ago when he was blind, housebound and
surviving on two cans of Slim-Fast a day.
As in the past six years, the JFA staged an allstar
two-hours-plus show that boasted such headliners
as Norah Jones and Dave Brubeck and
such elders as Houston Person, Randy Weston,
Hank Jones and James Blood Ulmer. Gluing the
proceedings together were top-tier hosts Chase,
Danny Glover and Bill Cosby.
This year’s sold-out concert and preshow
dinner raised $1.8 million toward the foundation’s
mission.
The show’s highlights included Person opening
with a gorgeous solo rendition of
“Sentimental Mood,” Brubeck playing “Take
Five” and the blues jam “Any Way You Want
Me” led by vocalist Marva Wright.
Also of special note was Norah Jones performing
with Hank Jones, who was honored
with a chocolate-icing birthday cake in honor of
his 90th birthday. Along with bassist Buster
Williams, they delivered a sublime version of
“The Nearness Of You.”
Norah Jones and James Blood Ulmer performing at the Apollo
Jones was unequivocal about why she signed
on to perform.
“They asked me to sing with Hank Jones, so
that was a yes,” Jones said. “It was at the Apollo
Theater, which I’d never even been in before.
That’s a yes. And it’s a good cause.”
Brandon Ross underlined the “good cause”
nature of the event. The guitarist from the band
Harriet Tubman and sideman for Ulmer’s spitfire
rendition of “Little Red Rooster” said that
the JFA is, “the angel force when musicians
need help. My cousin Lance Carter, who passed
in 2006, got ill and was supported by the Jazz
Foundation, which helped out with his and his
wife’s mortgage bills.”
In the face of Hurricane Katrina, the JFA
upped the ante in the wake of the destruction of
New Orleans. The organization experienced a
post-Katrina spike in service, assisting more
than 3,500 musicians with emergency housing,
mortgage/rent payments and musical instruments.
Previously, the JFA averaged 500 emergency
cases each year. The JFA raised more
than $250,000 to buy instruments to help unemployed
and displaced musicians get back on
their feet.
“We have a program that employs musicians
who are too old to start over in New
Orleans,” said JFA Founder/Executive Director
Wendy Oxenhorn, who has led the charge by
raising $1 million for the ongoing operation
that brings music to schools and senior care
centers. “Some of these musicians are icons
who can’t get work. When they do get work,
the pay is ridiculously low.”
Like last year, Great Night in Harlem featured
New Orleans natives coming to perform,
led by Dr. Michael White. “[The JFA] has done
more than any single agency for so many musicians
who lost their homes, their instruments,
their music and their jobs,” White said.
Hanging out backstage, Chase and Glover
marveled at the spirit of the event.
“It’s the nature of this country, of show biz,
of TV where everyone wants quick results and
then it’s goodbye,” Chase said. “They don’t
think about what’s formed their judgments, their
rituals, their musical views.”
Glover agreed, noting that it says something
about a culture that commoditizes musicians and
their music. “Their value is diminished,” he said.
“It says something about how we live and what
kind of respect we have for culture. There’s a
journey of music that comes from the blues and
goes to gospel to jazz to bebop to soul to rock
’n’ roll to hip-hop. If we don’t recognize the
connection among all those formative means of
expression, then there’s a screw missing. That’s
why it’s so important to help musicians who are
in dire straits.”
—Dan Ouellette
ENID FARBER FOR THE JAZZ FOUNDATION OF AMERICA
September 2008 DOWNBEAT 13