What a powerful experience we all had on this past Monday morning as we paid tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr through artistic expression and performance. The real MLK—not the commercialized version.
Thanks to all the folks who came and brought their ATTENTION and ENERGY to the audience! And there were so many folks there, you would have sworn we were performing at 7pm and not first thing in the morning on a Monday! The Winter Blues Jazz Festival went out with a bang—CultureFix VA did their thang!
I’m grateful to Tony Martucci, Randall Pharr, and W. Weldon Hill for their artistry and musicianship in dealing with my original music and arrangements, to Meoleaeke Jones for his collaboration with my ImproviStory project and literally bringing folks to tears with his dancing and movement, to the sound techs, Chase and Todd, for making it sound SO good on stage and in the room, and to Steve Rose and Lance Pedigo for asking me to put a presentation of this nature together in the first place with no restrictions.
It’s incredibly fulfilling to get to use my diverse set of skills and imagination all on the same project to generate an impact on people’s minds, emotions, and spirits. Activities include playing cornet, composing lyrics for a new original song of mine (first time for that!), arranging, singing, playing EWI, editing video, research, speaking…synergy at its finest!
All the sleepless nights and the tweaking and re-tweaking of elements for “The Other America…Is Here, Now” paid off in the end in a major way!
Folks—do not sleep on this experience!! The next time I plan to do this presentation (of COURSE there must be a next time), y’all better find your way there in the audience!
Check out all the photos (and soon, a video recap) on this page here: Martin Luther King Tribute Show
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