JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER HONORS THE LIFE AND TIMES OF LEGENDARY HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION JACK JOHNSON At PREMIERE JACK JOHNSON FESTIVAL
November 12 & 13
• Film presentation of excerpts from soon-to-be-released documentary Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson introduced by its director Ken Burns and featuring musical performance by the Wynton Marsalis Septet on November 12 & 13 at 8pm
• FREE EVENT: Featured guest artists showcase skill and talent in Between the Ropes: Musician Battle at Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola on November 13 at 1pm
October 22, 2004 (New York, NY) Jazz at Lincoln Center proudly commemorates the Jack Johnson Festival in its new home, Frederick P. Rose Hall, for two special evenings of jazz and film on Friday, November 12 and Saturday, November 13 at 8:00pm. During the first half of the program, acclaimed filmmaker Ken Burns, along with Jazz at Lincoln Center Artistic Director Wynton Marsalis, will provide commentary and present clips from Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson, Mr. Burns' upcoming documentary on the heavyweight-boxing champion, author, patent-holding inventor and aspiring bass player. Mr. Marsalis composed the original score and, with the Wynton Marsalis Septet, will perform this extraordinary music during the second half of the program to round out a knockout evening. This is the first film presentation in Rose Theater — one of the three main performance spaces in Frederick P. Rose Hall — that was designed for jazz, but also accommodates opera, dance, theater and orchestral performances. Tickets for this special event are $10, $40, $75, $100, $115 and $150 and are available at the new Jazz at Lincoln Center box office on Broadway at 60th St., by calling CenterCharge at (212) 721-6500 or via
www.jalc.org. These performances are sponsored by Cadillac.
On Saturday, November 13 at 1:00pm, Between the Ropes will feature jazz musicians as they duel in friendly musician battles for an afternoon in Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola, a 140-seat jazz club with down-home yet sophisticated atmosphere, against a backdrop of Central Park and the Manhattan skyline. Special guest artists, to be announced, will showcase skill and talent during these exclusive one-on-one battles. This event is free and open to the public.
In Unforgivable Blackness, his latest work, Mr. Burns tells the story of the first black heavyweight champion of the world, who challenged the prejudices of his day. During the seven years (1908-15) he reigned supreme, the boxing establishment agitated to find a Great White Hope who might unseat him (the era's openly racist expressions are shocking today). Unforgivable Blackness is a fascinating, complex study of a magnificently gifted athlete who loved to read, party and "womanize," and whose independence and dignity collided both with a racist society and his own large, self-defeating appetites.
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