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Home , Jason Moran (musician), Lucky Peterson, Margo Jefferson

eighty-eighth season Symphony Center Presents

Friday, May 24, 2019, at 8:00

Jazz Series

TWO WINGS: THE MUSIC OF BLACK AMERICA IN MIGRATION Jason Moran Piano Alicia Hall Moran Mezzo-soprano Pastor Smokie Norful Vocals and Piano Margo Jefferson Host Seth Parker Woods Cello Rico McFarland Tony Llorens Guitar Jason Tyson Piano Allison Loggins-Hull Flute Toyin Spellman-Diaz Oboe Mark Dover Clarinet Jeff Scott French Horn Monica Ellis Bassoon Kenwood Academy Band Gerald Powell Director Bethany Pickens Assistant Director Kenwood Academy String Orchestra Ernestine Fleming-Jones Director florence price/ Sympathy paul laurence dunbar alicia hall moran jason moran jason moran Cane I. Togo to Natchitoches II. Coin Coin’s Narrative III. Gens Libre de Couleur IV. Natchitoches to New York imani winds jason moran james p. johnson Carolina Shout jason moran

may 2019 27 billie holiday/ God Bless the Child arthur herzog jr. alicia hall moran rico mcfarland jason moran jerry beach I’ll Play the for You jason moran tony llorens rico mcfarland pastor smokie norful Dear God pastor smokie norful jason tyson intermission

roy eldridge Wabash Stomp kenwood academy jazz band coleridge-taylor perkinson Lamen tations, Black Folk Song Suite I. Fuguing Tune: Resolute seth parker woods jason moran Music Boxing More News jason moran jason moran More News jason moran kenwood academy jazz band anthony newley/ “F eeling Good” from The Roar of the leslie bricusse Greasepaint—The Smell of the Crowd alicia hall moran seth parker woods jason moran

28 eighty-eighth season george gershwin/ “Summertime” from Porgy and Bess dubose heyward/ alicia hall moran ira gershwin jason moran walter donaldson/ How Ya Gonna Keep ’em Down on the Farm joe young/sam m. lewis (After They’ve Seen Paree?) alicia hall moran jason moran alicia hall moran Believe Me alicia hall moran jason moran kenwood academy string orchestra jason moran Shoulder to Shoulder jason moran kenwood academy jazz band jason moran “F inal Speech” from Selma jason moran margaret bonds He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands alicia hall moran jason moran imani winds traditional Two Wings alicia hall moran jason moran

The Symphony Center Presents Jazz series is sponsored by Exelon. Symphony Center Presents is grateful to DownBeat magazine, WBEZ 91.5 FM, and WDCB 90.9 FM for their generous support as media sponsors of this performance. This performance is sponsored by generous grants from The Elizabeth Morse Charitable Trust and Patricia Hyde and the Komarek-Hyde-McQueen Foundation. This presentation is supported by the Arts Midwest Touring Fund, a program of Arts Midwest that is funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, with additional contributions by the Illinois Arts Council Agency and the Crane Group. Funding for educational programs during the 2018–19 SCP Jazz season has been generously provided by Dan J. Epstein, Judy Guitelman, and the Dan J. Epstein Family Foundation.

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I want two wings to veil my face. I want two wings to fly away. And if these wings fail me, Then give me another pair.

—From Two Wings, a spiritual

onight, we gather to recognize the epic married Reverend William D. Johnson (1842– movement of people—American people, 1908), an African Methodist Episcopal Church T Black people—from the Southern United administrator and orator. Born free in Calvert States and those lands where generations toiled in County, Maryland, he earned two degrees from unremunerated labor to all points North and West. Lincoln University before settling in Athens. In Together, we explore a rough chapter in American 1880, he completed his doctorate in divinity. history—a long chapter, roughly 1910–70: the Great Migration. Six million African Americans Their children—Mamie, Decker, Hall, Susan, left the South during this period. Through Two and Alice Irene (my grandmother)—also Wings, we settle into the musical worlds defined by graduated from the Knox Institute and spread this mass movement of people and give thanks for their wings. Mamie raised a family in . the opportunities our great-grandparents, grand- Susie became a beautician in Philadelphia. parents, and parents struggled to deliver to us. After Decker graduated from Tuskegee The Great Migration shaped my family—and University, he became a Pullman porter and continues to shape my family—just as it trans- then a Postal Service clerk in . formed the entire nation and continues to echo in In 1904, Reverend Johnson was appointed the present. I asked my mother, Carole F. Hall— president of Allen University in Columbia, the family historian—about our southern roots: South Carolina—the first Black college in that state. Hall, who was a gifted violinist, Our family’s Southern history is rooted in entered Allen University as a freshman and Athens, Georgia. My father’s great-great grand- graduated in 1909. He went on to attend the parents, Hannah and William Hall, were sold University of Pennsylvania and the Hahn at auction in Augusta as children and taken School of Music in Philadelphia. By 1921, Hall to Athens in bondage to Dr. Edward Ware and Johnson had become a force in the his wife, Margaret. William and Hannah even- Renaissance and had toured with stars such tually married and had four children: Edward, as James Reese Europe. He played in the pit in Rebecca, Rachel, and Mary, my father’s great Eubie Blake and Noble Sissle’s Broadway hit grandmother. Mary’s daughter, Alice Virginia Shuffle Along. After a year (1924–25) at the Sansom, was my father’s grandmother. She was Institute of Musical Art (which was later part eight years old when all three Hall generations of the ), he organized the Hall in Athens—never sold or separated by the Johnson Choir to honor the traditional spiritu- Wares—were emancipated in 1865. als sung by his grandmother, Mary Hall.

In Athens, site of the University of Georgia, Meanwhile, my grandmother, Alice Irene educational opportunities for newly freed Johnson (1890–1983), had married Robert African Americans flourished. Alice attended Foster of Athens, Georgia. On the eve of the the secondary Knox Institute and Industrial Great Depression, widowed with their five School—built on land donated by three wealthy children—William Robert, Mary Ellen, Alfred African Americans—and Atlanta University, (my father), Marcus, and Celeste—she became the first Black graduate school. In 1878, she the last of her siblings to leave the South.

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She moved to Philadelphia before eventually leaving for Pasadena, California in the 1940s. Pasadena had established a civic culture com- parable to Athens. Hall Johnson recommended the move. Just as he had been the first of his siblings to relocate to Philadelphia and then to New York, he was the first to discover Southern California. He traveled to Los Angeles and lived there periodically, scoring films, produc- ing plays, and directing performances of the Hall Johnson Choir.

Alfred Foster (1922–2009) discovered California when the navy shipped him from Jason and Alicia Hall Moran. Photo by Dawoud Bey Philadelphia to San Diego toward the end of World War II. He met your grandmother, of Oklahoma, and my grandmother went on Constance Barrick (1923–2009), at Cheyney to earn a master’s degree and sit as the first State Teacher’s College near Philadelphia. His African American appointee to the board of the grandfather, Reverend William D. Johnson, Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education. and her grandfather, George Barrick, were both She also raised six children and fought all forms born in Maryland two years apart. But George of discrimination. was enslaved, and when freedom came—with The boldness of those who were part of the neither opportunities nor education—he Great Migration amazes me. Looking closely at headed North, passed Philadelphia, and kept every person who pursued a better life, each one walking until he found steady employment as becomes heroic. Tonight, Jason and I present a a gardener on a Main Line estate. It was there kaleidoscope that examines the output of artists that he married Elizabeth Long. from our jukebox on the subject. Gospel, folk, rock ’n’ roll, opera, Broadway, jazz, orchestral, and Three of their children survived: Edward, chamber music are all represented here, because Herbert, and Clara. Edward married Vaunita in all of them is the Black musical imagination Allen, your great-grandmother, and created that continues to shape the cultural and political a family business that sent all ten of their landscape of this country. children to college. Your grandma Connie left We express our overwhelming gratitude for the Cheyney to join the war effort at Sun Shipyard. lives of hundreds of brilliant artists whose music She became the first—and for decades the brought our people through the storms . . . the only—one in her family to leave the Northeast. music that paved the sound waves on which our She and Alfred bought a home in Pasadena in spirits ride . . . and the music that fortifies each of 1951, and he went on to become a psychologist us on the journeys we take every day. We rec- in the Los Angeles public schools. ognize our music in the work and fascination of other artists, just as we use our freedom to explore Likewise, I grew up hearing detailed sagas from the ways in which we gather and build with tools the civil rights movement about movements that we’ve found along our way in the New World. We my father’s parents, Ira D. Hall Sr. and Rubye trace a narrative written in these songs, and they Mae Hibler Hall, worked tirelessly to uphold in tell their own story about the movement of people the state of Oklahoma. They faced obstruction and great artists who sought a community and at every level and still managed to earn degrees found a home in Black music. from Langston University and the University —Alicia Hall Moran

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here are moments in jazz history that burn landmark, is felt in every sway of the moss that brightly. When pianist James P. Johnson hangs from the pecan trees. Louisiana and T recorded his “Carolina Shout” in 1921, the are not passive landscapes. These are not pas- father of the Harlem Stride piano style was here sive songs. to stay. Any pianists uptown would challenge each I grew up in ’s Third Ward, a neighbor- other with “Carolina Shout,” from hood rich in African American cultural memory to Johnson’s own pupil . Trumpeter and scholarship. Most of my family lived in the Louis Armstrong’s performances of his intro and zip code, understanding the power and necessity cadenza to “West End Blues” became a testament of neighborhoods like this. It is not an easy tran- to his precision and inventiveness. His solo has sition to go from Houston to Harlem, but music been learned by legions of trumpeters for gen- solved the puzzles. For fear of being alone, I began erations. Lionel Hampton’s recording of “Flying telling my musician friends in Houston that they, Home” featured the rousing “Texas Tenor” Illinois too, should come to New York, bring the bris- Jacquet. His solo became a hit and a standard in ket and the blues, and help to shape the sound of the repertoire. Each of these pieces the city. reflects a place. They give us a sense of the hood African American musicians have stepped onto and the air, the cause and the effect—effectively, the grand stages in great American cities they the call and the response. helped to build, and continue to command the Cane (named for Cane River, Louisiana), attention of audiences. Among them are musi- examines my ancestry leading back to a matri- cians in Alicia’s bloodline, like composer, choral arch in the mid–eighteenth century, Maria conductor, and arranger Hall Johnson, and vocal- Therese Coincoin. She birthed ten children by ist Al Hibbler. her slave master’s son and on his deathbed, he Today, Alicia and I stand here among a group of granted freedom to her and a few of the children. thinkers of all ages who also form a constellation. In turn, she began the Melrose Plantation, pur- Artists’ ideas shine brightly. The art becomes the chased freedom for her remaining children, and map—and we’re charting our own course. became a powerful businesswoman. The tension embedded in the plantation’s land, a historical —Jason Moran

Two Wings: The Music of Black America in Migration is dedicated in loving memory to:

Bennie Ruth Chester (1919–2003) our teachers: Joseph P. Chester (1919–1976) (1930–2017) Constance Barrick Foster (1923–2009) Betty Allen (1927–2009) Alfred Harold Foster (1922–2009) (1922–1999) Ira DeVoyd Hall Sr. (1905–1989) Andrew Hill (1931–2007) Rubye Mae Hibler Hall (1912–2003) Shirley Verrett (1931–2010) Francis Hall Johnson (1888–1970) Warren George Rock Wilson (1934–2011) “Mama Clay” Claudia Llorens Moran (1930–2017) Mary Lou Chester Moran (1949–2004)

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Jason Moran Piano Center’s upcoming Jazz Ahead pro- gram, a two-week intensive for emerging jazz Jazz pianist, composer, and artist Jason Moran artist-composers; teaches at the New England hails from Houston, Texas. He studied with Jaki Conservatory of Music; and curates the Artists Byard at the Manhattan School of Music, and Studio series for the Park Avenue Armory in New after graduation with Andrew Hill and Muhal York City. Richard Abrams. Moran’s eighteen-year rela- tionship with produced nine highly acclaimed recordings. His groundbreak- ing trio, the Bandwagon, is currently celebrating Alicia Hall Moran Mezzo-soprano its twentieth anniversary. Moran’s performances with , Charles Lloyd, and the Mezzo-soprano and composer Alicia Hall Moran late reveal the scope of his partner- conjures a sonic world wherein classical and ships and music making. He also has worked with African American cultures meet. Her produc- visual artists such as , , tions include Black Wall Street (2016), inspired by , Adam Pendleton, Lorna Simpson, the Wall Street career of her father and the Tulsa, Kara Walker, Stan Douglas, and others. Recently, Oklahoma, race riot of 1921, and Breaking Ice. Her he received awards and fellowships from the works have been performed at the River to River MacArthur Foundation, United States Artists, the Festival, Opera Southwest, SITE Santa Fe, Tulsa Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, and the Ford Performing Arts Center, New York Public Library, Foundation. As an artist in the Whitney Museum National Sawdust, Massachusetts Museum of of American Art’s 2012 Whitney Biennial, Moran Contemporary Art, and the Prototype Festival. collaborated with his wife Alicia Hall Moran to Hall Moran made her Broadway debut in the Tony construct Bleed, a five-day series of performances. Award–winning revival of The Gershwins’ Porgy They also created Work Songs for the 2015 Venice and Bess and starred as Bess for its celebrated Biennale, and continue to produce albums for twenty-city American tour. Her latest album, Here their label, Yes Records. Today (2017), was released to high praise. Hall Since his first album, Moran has produced four- Moran has received solo commissions from Art teen additional recordings and created scores for Public/Art Basel Miami, MoMA, the Kitchen, the Ava DuVernay’s films Selma and 13th and author Art Institute of Chicago, and the Brooklyn Youth Ta-Nehisi Coates’s staged version of Between the Chorus, and has collaborated with , World and Me. Much of Moran’s work focuses on Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, and historical themes, and he has mounted touring Lara Downes, as well as visual artists Carrie Mae works in honor of (In My Mind: Weems, Suzanne Bocanegra, Adam Pendleton, Monk at Town Hall 1959, performed at Symphony and others. She recently recorded Gabriel Kahane’s Center in 2007), Fats Waller (Fats Waller Dance oratorio emergency shelter intake form with the Party, plus Grammy Award-nominated album All Oregon Symphony and joined Bryce Dessner’s Rise: An Elegy for Fats Waller), and James Reese Triptych, which will be performed at the Brooklyn Europe (James Reese Europe and the Absence Academy of Music in the spring of 2020. Hall of Ruin). Moran and her husband, Jason Moran—both Ford In 2018, Moran’s first solo museum exhibition Foundation Art of Change fellows—have created opened at Minneapolis’s and works for the Venice Biennale, Whitney Biennial, traveled to Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Walker Art Center, and Philadelphia Museum Art. The same exhibition opens at the Whitney of Art. Hall Moran received a bachelor’s degree Museum in September 2019. Currently, Moran in music from Barnard College with a minor in is artistic director for jazz at the Kennedy anthropology and a bachelor’s degree in vocal per- Center; residency director of the Kennedy formance from Manhattan School of Music.

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Pastor Smokie Norful Piano Margo Jefferson Host and Vocals Professor and arts critic Margo Jefferson was born Smokie Norful has reached the height of suc- in Chicago. She earned her bachelor’s degree in cess in music and ministry. Since his 2002 solo English and American literature from Brandeis debut release, I Need You Now, he has sold over University in 1968, and went on to receive a three million albums worldwide. Norful has been master’s degree from the Columbia University named Billboard magazine’s Gospel Artist of the Graduate School of Journalism in 1971. In 1973, Year several times, and is the recipient of eight Jefferson was hired as an associate editor for Stellar awards, five Dove awards, one Soul Train Newsweek magazine, where she worked until Music Award, two NAACP Image Award nomi- 1978. The next year, she joined the Department nations, three BET Award nominations, and two of Journalism and Mass Communication at New Grammy awards. Norful won a 2005 Grammy for York University as an assistant professor. In 1984, Contemporary Soul Gospel Album of the Year for Jefferson was hired as a contributing editor by his chart-topping disc Nothing Without You, and Vogue magazine, where she wrote arts reviews Best Gospel Performance/Song in 2015 for “No and essays until 1989. She returned to New York Greater Love.” An Arkansas native, he also has University as an assistant professor in 1989, where been inducted into the Arkansas Black Hall of she taught until 1991 when she was hired as a Fame and the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame. lecturer at Columbia University. In 1993, Jefferson Norful has contributed to five platinum-selling accepted a position at as album compilations and written songs for a book and arts critic. She became its Sunday numerous major recording artists. His many theater critic in 1995, and critic-at-large in 1996. notable performances include the Essence Music Jefferson is a professor of writing at Columbia Festival, New Orleans Jazz Festival, White House University, and also has served as a visiting associ- Salute to Black Music Month, and the legendary ate professor at Eugene Lang College and the New Apollo Theater. Norful launched his record label, School for Liberal Arts in New York City. Tre’Myles Music, affectionally named after his Throughout her career, she has been a contrib- sons, in 2009. Recently, he released his first book, uting critic to many other publications, and has Take the Lid Off, an empowering compilation written and performed two theater pieces at the of his personal life stories and anecdotes. After Cherry Lane Theatre and the Culture Project. receiving a degree in history from the University Jefferson also is author of On Michael Jackson, of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, Norful went on to teach which was published in 2006. Her memoir junior and senior high school for several years. Negroland was published in 2015, and received He attended Garrett-Evangelical Theological the National Book Critics Circle Award for Seminary and Trinity International Seminary, Autobiography in 2016, the Bridge Prize, and the where he received a master’s degree in divinity Heartland Prize. In 1995, Jefferson received the and, recently, a degree in leadership. In 2005, Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. Norful launched his church, Victory Cathedral Worship Center, in Bolingbrook, Illinois, where he serves as senior pastor. Since its launch, the community has extended to a second campus on Seth Parker Woods Cello the south side of Chicago. The ministry focuses on adopting a heart of volunteerism, charity, and Seth Parker Woods has established a reputation philanthropy via its Give Yourself Away initiative. as a versatile artist who comfortably performs across several genres. In addition to solo appear- ances, he has played with the Ictus Ensemble, Basel Sinfonietta, New York City Ballet, Ensemble

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LPR, and Orchestra of St. Luke’s. A fierce advocate decades performing as a sought-after session for contemporary arts, Woods has worked with guitarist and sideman, he released an acclaimed a wide range of artists such as Louis Andriessen, solo album, Tired Of Being Alone, on Evidence Elliott Carter, Heinz Holliger, Georg Friedrich Music. As an educator, McFarland continues to Haas, Helmut Lachenmann, Péter Eötvös, Peter work with the Blues Foundation’s Blues in the Gabriel, Sting, Lou Reed, and Rachael Yamagata. Schools program. He recently was inducted into He also has worked with many visual artists, the Chicago Blues Hall of Fame. including Ron Athey, Vanessa Beecroft, Jack Early, Adam Pendleton, and Aldo Tambellini. Woods received a PhD from the University of Huddersfield. He has appeared in concert around Tony Llorens Guitar the world, including at the Royal Albert Hall for the BBC Proms, Snape Maltings Festival American musician, composer, pianist, and actor of New, Strasbourg Museum of Modern and Tony Llorens is known for his work in films A Contemporary Art, (Le) Poisson Rouge, and Wedding (1978), Heavens Fall (2006), and No KLANG Contemporary Music Festival. Awards God, No Master (2013). He has worked as music include a grant from Chicago’s Department of director for the Chicago-based ETA Creative Arts Cultural Affairs and Special Events, an Earle Foundation and Najwa Dance Corps. Llorens Brown/Morton Feldman Foundation Grant, was born in Pineville, Louisiana, and his parents Francis Chagrin Award, and the Paul Sacher were sharecroppers on the Melrose Plantation. Foundation Research Scholarship. His debut solo Although his beginnings were humble, they were album, asinglewordisnotenough (2016), has been rich in the Delta blues tradition. His mother, a profiled in , 5against4, I Care if you classically trained pianist, taught him to play Listen, Musical America, The Seattle Times, and Louis Jordan’s “St. Louis Blues” at the age of four. Strings magazine. Woods serves on the music His father, a classically trained tenor, traveled faculty at Dartmouth College as a visiting lecturer to Chicago during the Great Migration and and also is artist-in-residence for the Seattle bought a piano; during family get togethers, the Symphony and its new concert venue, Octave 9. younger Llorens watched and learned to play the blues from his uncle, Rainy Lacour. Llorens has played with blues greats , Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eddie Shaw, Junior Wells, and Big Rico McFarland Guitar Time Sarah. He has produced and played on two Grammy Award–nominated albums for King, Guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter Rico and performed on the album and video In Session McFarland has performed and recorded with all featuring Vaughan. Llorens also wrote the score of the blues genre’s greatest legends. His inno- to the musical Ephraim’s Song, which was pro- vative musical voice incorporates contempo- duced by Cedric the Entertainer and Bruce Willis, rary music, yet preserves traditional blues style. and won the coveted NAACP Award for Best McFarland’s collaborations, performances, and Musical Director in 2005. Currently, he performs recording sessions include work with Little with blues great Shirley King and will produce Milton, James Cotton, Al Green, Big Time Sarah, her upcoming album. Tonight marks Llorens’s Lucky Peterson, Jimmy Johnson, , Symphony Center debut, sharing the stage with and David Sanborn. A native of Chicago, he grew his cousin Jason Moran. up in a musical household (his father James also was a bandleader). McFarland’s first instrument was the drums, and among others, he counted as local heroes Otis Rush and Hubert Sumlin. After

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Imani Winds Kenwood Academy Jazz Band

Over the course of its twenty-plus year career, the Kenwood Academy was opened in 1966 as a pub- Grammy Award–nominated Imani Winds quintet lic high school serving the Kenwood and Hyde has discovered what audiences value most: a sense Park neighborhoods in Chicago. The academy of connection—with the music, the perform- is ranked by U.S. News & World Report as one of ers, the composers, the artistry, and beyond. The the top-100 public high schools in Illinois, and ensemble has created a distinct presence in the as one of the eighteen best public high schools world through its dynamic playing, in the Chicago Public Schools (CPS). Kenwood culturally relevant programming, commission Academy boasts a ninety-six percent graduation work, virtuosic collaborations, and inspirational rate, and its 2018 graduates received $36 mil- outreach programs. lion in college scholarships. Under the direction With repertoire that ranges from Mendelssohn, of Gerald D. Powell, the jazz band consistently Ligeti, and Stravinsky to Astor Piazzolla, Elliott receives superior ratings at CPS and state-level Carter, John Harbison, and twenty-first century music festivals. Graduating seniors receive college greats like Frederic Rzewski and Valerie Coleman, band scholarships exceeding $400,000 each year. the quintet actively seeks to engage new voices in In this year’s Illinois High School Association’s the modern classical idiom. Competition, the ensemble received a supe- Imani Winds’s touring schedule has taken the rior ranking and the Top Jazz Band of the Day group across the globe. At home, the ensemble Award. Known as “Jazz at the Wood,” in 2007, the has performed in major concert venues includ- Kenwood Academy Jazz Band was the first high ing Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Kennedy school band to be invited by the Jazz Institute of Center, and Walt Disney Concert Hall. It also Chicago to perform at the , has performed on virtually every major univer- and has since appeared at the festival for eleven sity performing-arts series and summer festival, consecutive years. In 2016, the band performed including those in Amherst, Stanford, Ann Arbor, and participated in a panel discussion on the Austin, and Seattle, as well as Chamber Music history of jazz at Millennium Park’s Jay Pritzker Northwest and at the Banff Centre for Arts and Pavilion, sponsored by Illinois Humanities. Last Creativity. In recent seasons, the group has trav- year, the ensemble was presented with the Vivian eled extensively, with tours in China, Singapore, G. Harsh Society’s Charles E. Walton Award, and Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, and through- performed at the Midwest Clinic International out Europe. The Imani Winds have six albums, Band and Orchestra Conference. In February including the Grammy–nominated The Classical 2019, the band competed in the Essentially Underground. The quintet also has recorded for Ellington High School Jazz Band Competition, Naxos, Blue Note, and Warner Classics. In 2016, and earned the Top Trombone Section Award. Imani Winds received its greatest accolade to date: With the assistance of Bethany Pickens and her its work is on permanent display in the classi- father Willie Pickens, the Kenwood Academy Jazz cal-music section of the Smithsonian Institution’s Band had the honor of joining Jason Moran in the National Museum of African American History premiere of his Looks of a Lot at Symphony Center and Culture. in 2014, and appeared in the same program at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. The Looks of a Lot project culminated with a recording released in 2017, and these events were the subject of the Chicago Tribune’s Emmy Award–winning documentary, Kenwood’s Journey.

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Gerald Powell Director group 8 Bold Souls, with which he has toured extensively, having performed in Europe and at As a boy, Gerald Powell loved music. His par- the Toronto and Chicago jazz festivals. In 2018, ents kept him actively involved in church, and he he was awarded the Charles E. Walton Award by grew up singing in various choirs. He began his the Vivian G. Harsh Society for his dedication to formal music lessons on trombone at nine years music and the community. Powell is a devoted old. By the sixth grade, he was introduced to the husband to his wife Angela and a loving father to tuba. Throughout his junior high and high school his children Gerald II, Garrett, and Alana. years, he was a member of several award-winning school bands. In 1995, Powell graduated with a bachelor’s degree in music performance (tuba) Bethany Pickens Assistant Director from Morehouse College in Atlanta, and returned home and began his service with Chicago Public Bethany Pickens is an award-winning pianist, Schools, where, for the past twenty-three years, composer, and educator. She began her musi- he has led his students to superior ratings at city cal training under the tutelage of her father, and state band and solo competitions. Kenwood’s world-class jazz pianist Willie Pickens. Since band program also was the recipient of the graduating from the American Conservatory Mr. Holland’s Opus Foundation Award. Also in of Music, Pickens has had the opportunity to 1995, Powell joined the music ministry of the perform, record, and conduct clinics with art- Apostolic Church of God, where he has per- ists such as Clark Terry, Louie Bellson, Willie formed with the orchestra and numerous promi- Pickens, Susan Anton, Dee Dee Bridgewater, nent artists. He currently serves as lead conductor Roy Hargrove, Branford Marsalis, Rascal Flats, of the church’s youth orchestra. Powell is a mem- Josh Groban, Aretha Franklin, Patti LaBelle, and ber of the Phi Mu Alpha music fraternity and the Usher. As an educator, Pickens has worked with Phi Beta Mu international band directors frater- the Ravinia Jazz Scholars Program and the Jazz nity. In 2009, Powell was named Kenwood’s music Institute of Chicago’s Jazz Links Program. She is department chair, and in 2010 received the Fidelity in her twenty-fifth year of teaching for Chicago FutureStage Grant. His students are recruited Public Schools, and currently teaches piano at her by numerous institutions of higher learning and alma mater, Kenwood Academy. Pickens is on have earned numerous college scholarships. the board of the Jazz Institute of Chicago and the Since 1996, Powell has been a member of the jazz Hyde Park Neighborhood Club.

Kenwood Academy Jazz Band Gerald D. Powell Music Department Chair, Director of Bands Bethany V. Pickens Assistant Jazz Band Director trombones rhythm section Shakar Griffin Steven Bowman Bass Guitar, Lorne Hubert Christian Cherry Bass Guitar Asa Patterson Jonathan Gweshe Drums Garrett Powell Bass Trombone Joseph Koziboski Guitar Joshua White Christian Pellicano Piano Tyler Smith Piano trumpets Jabari Austin Isa Gault William Bishop-Green Baritone Saxophone, Bass Clarinet Miles Macklin Calvin Brumfield Alto Saxophone Azadi Mathew-Lewis Alexis Gilmore Alto Saxophone, Flute Miram Niestat Brianna King Alto Saxophone Tyson Smith Samuel Reynolds Alto Saxophone Hope Washington Tenor Saxophone

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