ORGANIC EXPRESSION: BLUESOLOGY, WONDERFUL WORLD, STUDIO 17

The award-winning production that features Gia Scott-Heron, co-producer and daughter of the revolutionary political poet, is presented by Poets Jazz House, written and co-produced by poet and actress Tuesday Conner, and directed by Phylliss Bailey Brooks. 

Artists will include Father Amde Hamilton of The Watts Prophets, Yawo Watts, Conney Williams, The Oracle, and Tuesday Conner.

Bluesology is a theatrical reinterpretation that celebrates the legacy of Scott-Heron, covering his powerful work of music and poems from 1970 to 2010, which features his daughter Gia offering insightful and heartfelt remembrances of her father, who spoke out in the face of America’s whirlwind of injustice. 

Gil Scott-Heron was a fiery poet, writer, and recording artist who followed the tradition of the African tribal storyteller. 

He was a cultural guardian whose spirited words like the village drum carried messages of importance to the people. 

Scott-Heron’s words encompassed bullets of knowledge that penetrated America’s urban streets calling out the injustices of social and political ills that seem to continue with no end in sight.    

The poet’s longtime collaborator was keyboardist, composer, and singer Brian Jackson. 

Their music fused blues, jazz, and R&B (their acclaimed album Winter in America, Strata East Records 1974). He described himself as a bluesologist, noting the music is based in the blues and danced on from there.

For tickets and information visit the website sohoplayhouse.com.

The Broadway production of A Wonderful World: The Louis Armstrong Musical at Studio 54 (254 West 54^th Street) is a roaring jump up and holla performance, highlighting the exhilarating times of the greatest trumpeter in jazz history. 

As Miles Davis once stated, “Everything we are trying to play Pops [as Armstrong was fondly called] already played.”  

This highflying musical, sheds light for the first time on the four women, his wives, those loving, creative, and resourceful heroines, who played significant roles in his musical journey from the streets to stardom.  

As the musical unfolds, we find young Armstrong, brilliantly played by James Monroe Iglehart, in his hometown of Storyville, a redlight district in Louisiana, where he fell in love and married his first wife Daisy Parker, played by Dionne Figgins, a street walker, independent contractor, who would sooner cut a man black or white with her switch blade than take any mess. 

But during a touching scene their marriage abruptly ends as the newlywed scurries off to Chicago to join his mentor’s band the great Joe “King” Oliver, played by Gavin Gregory.

There he meets and marries his second wife the pianist and business woman Lil Hardin, portrayed by Jennie Harney-Fleming. 

She anointed him the “king of jazz,” influencing him to leave Oliver to find his own fame while pointing out he was being underpaid, “Ask for what you are worth, they will pay you anything if you let them.” 

His third wife Alpha Smith, played by Kim Exum, is with Armstrong during a bustling scene in California during his Hollywood film debut. 

He eventually left her for Lucille Wilson (played by Darlesia Cearcy), a dancer at Harlem’s then famous Cotton Club. 

As a business woman she kept a sharp eye on his contracts and informed him “a king needs a castle to come home to, and she made his residential “castle” in Queens, New York. 

Armstrong’s amorous relationships demonstrated he was definitely in love with his music but he was deeply in love with love. 

This roaring musical was orchestrated and arranged by NEA Jazz Master saxophonist Branford Marsalis. “This was my first Broadway experience,” he explained during an interview on WBGO Jazz radio. 

“It was tedious but I learned a lot and would do it again.” The musical was co-directed by James Monroe Iglehart and Christina Sajous.

The only jazz show on Broadway with more velocity than Satchmo’s high blaring solos.  As the trumpeter noted, “Life is the choices you make between the notes!” This swinging musical is scheduled to end on February 23. 

For tickets visit louisarmstrongmusical.com

Studio 17

Studio 17: The Lost Reggae Tapes, is a mandatory must see documentary produced by Reshma B gives us a front row seat into the making of a new genre of Jamaican music called Reggae that shattered the boundaries of global sound.  

It captures the beginnings of this indigenous music through interviews with legendary artists like Jimmy Cliff, Lee “Scratch” Perry, Sly Dunbar, Lord Creator, Maxi Priest, Ali Campbell of UB40, King Jammy, and the late producer Bunny Lee. 

All of whom eventually in the early 60s found their way to Studio 17 through its famed used record store Randy’s at 17 North Parade in downtown Kingston, founded by Vincent “Randy” Chin and his wife Patricia Chin with all the beehive activity, added a recording studio upstairs that became a paradise for young musicians and Jamaica’s first fully integrated production and sales outlet.

The film was hailed as “one of my favorite documentaries right now, it’s documentaries like this that bring us closer to the music,” Quincy Jones via Forbes, and “a magical piece of work,” stated veteran UK reggae radio DJ David Rodigan. 

The enlightening documentary was initiated by renowned reggae journalist Reshma B, during her interview with Clive Chin, one of Jamaica’s pioneer producers at Studio 17, who revealed the many original session tapes that languished inside Studio 17, surviving looting, Hurricane Gilbert, and sweltering tropical heat. 

The tapes were hastily left behind after the Chins fled their island home during political unrest in the 1970s, and relocated to Jamaica Queens, New York, where the family started VP Records which became the world’s largest independent distributor of reggae and dancehall music. 

Reshma B’s excellent article on Clive Chin and Studio 17’s lost reggae tapes led to  her producing this amazing film with co-producer and director Mark James. 

“I feel proud that people are getting to hear music that could have been lost forever but instead we all get to enjoy it as music lovers and as culture lovers,” Reshma B said during our phone interview. 

The screening takes place on February 21 (at 7pm) at Cinema Arts Centre 423 Park Avenue, Huntington, NY  

For more information call 631-423-7610 or visit website info@cinemaartscentre.org.