Harlem Speaks

[Lois Gilbert]

Harlem Speaks Swings into Spring

Mercedes Ellington (May 19)
Dr. Billy Taylor (June 2)
William C. Rhoden (June 16)




New York, NY (May 10, 2005) Harlem Speaks, The Jazz Museum in Harlem¹s continuing series venerating the legacy of Harlem jazz, began the May-June set on May 5th with senior member of the Harlem Blues and Jazz Band, tenor saxophonist Fred Staton, and continues with choreographer Mercedes Ellington, granddaughter of the great Duke Ellington, on May 19th. Each event takes place at the offices of the Jazz Museum in Harlem, located at 104 East 126th Street, between Park and Lexington Avenues, from 6:30pm-8:00pm on alternate Thursdays.

As always, the series is free to the public. Please call for reservations: 212 348-8300.

As a long-time dancer and choreographer, Ms. Ellington¹s career exemplifies the grace, professionalism, and drive associated with her family name. Shortly after graduating from the Juilliard School of Music, she became a June Taylor Dancer on the "Jackie Gleason Show," the first and only woman of color to fill that position. In her native New York she has been involved with more than 10 Broadway shows, including ³No, No, Nanette,² ³Hello Dolly!² and ³Sophisticated Ladies,² in which she performed as the feature dancer, assistant choreographer and dance captain. Her last foray on Broadway was ³Play On,² an original adaptation of Shakespeare¹s ³Twelfth Night,² set in 1940s Harlem.



Jazz Museum in Harlem board member, Dr. Billy Taylor, has been an ambassador of jazz for over 50 years. Not only is he a stunning pianist, skillful composer, articulate broadcaster, and educator par excellence; Mr. Taylor founded the Harlem-based Jazzmobile, which has offered music clinics and free summer concerts in Harlem and across the city for 40 years. On June 2nd, Dr. Taylor will discuss his career, including his early days in Harlem during the bebop revolution and as the house pianist at Birdland; the musicians he¹s performed with over the years such as Billie Holiday, Ben Webster, Dizzy Gillespie, Slam Stewart, and the unsung tenor saxophone giant, Don Byas; his tenure as advisor for jazz at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, and as presenter of an on-going series, "Mentors and Masters," at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. He¹ll also converse with executive director Loren Schoenberg and co-director Christian McBride about his very recent retirement.

The two-month set closes with William C. Rhoden, sports writer and columnist with the New York Times for 32 years. For the last 10 years he has written the Sports of the Times column. Along with discussing his career as a journalist, and analogies between sports and jazz, on June 16th Mr. Rhoden will reveal little-known details about his background as an associate editor of Ebony magazine from 1974 to 1978, his three years with The Baltimore Sun as a columnist and jazz critic, and his experience as the road manager for an international tour of the Billy Harper Quartet that made stops in Poland, Romania, Portugal, London, France, Turkey and Spain. Back in the 1970s, he wrote liner notes for Earth, Wind & Fire, and the Isley Brothers. Mr. Rhoden has recently completed his first book, Lost Tribe Wandering, a political and cultural analysis of African-American athletes.


Last Thursday, May 5th, 90 year-old Fred Staton recalled his early years in Pittsburgh, starting as a singer and drummer, switching to tenor saxophone as a teen in the early thirties. School tales of times with Billy Strayhorn and the affect of Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young on his generation of sax players delighted; his account of war-time work in factories, then living off of Mount Morris Park in Harlem in the 1950s, playing with and listening to the greats in the golden era of jazz, enthralled. The elder statesman of the Harlem Blues and Jazz Band also spoke about his work in the restaurant business as well as his role in the career of his famous younger sister, Dakota Staton. Several fellow band members related humorous anecdotes of life on the road, while founder/manager Dr. Albert Vollmer discussed how this 30+ year labor of love has been a vision come alive.


The Harlem Speaks series is co-produced by the Jazz Museum in Harlem and Greg Thomas Associates. Each event takes place at the offices of the Jazz Museum in Harlem, located at 104 East 126th Street, between Park and Lexington Avenues, from 6:30pm-8:00pm on alternate Thursdays.

As always, the series is free to the public. Please call for reservations: 212 348-8300.