T h e P ro g ram

The Program
Thursday Evening, March 31, 2016, at 8:00
Imani Uzuri
Marvin Sewell, Co–Musical Director, Guitars, and Banjo
Chala Yancy, Violin
Graham Haynes, Cornet
James Hurt, Piano
Jerome Harris, Bass
Satoshi Takeishi, Percussion and Drums
Jarvis C. McInnis, Matthew D. Morrison, Rozz Nash,
Guest Vocals
This evening’s program is approximately 75 minutes long and
will be performed without intermission.
Please make certain all your electronic devices are switched off.
Major support for Lincoln Center’s American Songbook is provided by Amy & Joseph Perella.
Endowment support provided by Bank of America
This performance is made possible in part by the Josie Robertson Fund for Lincoln Center.
Steinway Piano
Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse
American Songbook
Additional support for Lincoln Center’s American Songbook is provided by The DuBose and
Dorothy Heyward Memorial Fund, The Shubert Foundation, Jill and Irwin B. Cohen,
The G & A Foundation, Inc., Great Performers Circle, Chairman’s Council, and Friends of
Lincoln Center.
Public support is provided by the New York State Council on the Arts.
Artist catering provided by Zabar’s and zabars.com
MetLife is the National Sponsor of Lincoln Center
UPCOMING AMERICAN SONGBOOK EVENTS
IN THE STANLEY H. KAPLAN PENTHOUSE:
Friday Evening, April 1, at 8:00
Grace McLean
IN THE DAVID RUBENSTEIN ATRIUM:
Tuesday Evening, April 5, at 7:30
Rick Barry
The Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse is located in the Samuel B. and David Rose Building at
165 West 65th Street, 10th floor. The David Rubenstein Atrium is located on Broadway
between West 62nd and 63rd Streets. Shows at the Atrium are free, with seating available
on a first-come, first-served basis.
For tickets, call (212) 721-6500 or visit AmericanSongbook.org. Call the Lincoln Center Info
Request Line at (212) 875-5766 or visit AmericanSongbook.org for complete program
information.
Join the conversation: #LCSongbook
We would like to remind you that the sound of coughing and rustling paper might
distract the performers and your fellow audience members.
In consideration of the performing artists and members of the audience, those who
must leave before the end of the performance are asked to do so between pieces.
Flash photography and the use of recording equipment are not allowed in the building.
PETRA RICHTEROVA
Meet the Artists
American Songbook I Meet the Artists
Imani Uzuri
Vocalist and composer Imani Uzuri (co–musical director) creates music
that reflects her rural North Carolina roots; she grew up singing spirituals
and line-singing hymns with her grandmother and extended family in their
small rural church. Critically praised for her mesmerizing vocals, wide
range, and highly personalized compositions, Ms. Uzuri travels internationally creating concerts, experimental theater, performance art, and sound
installations in venues and festivals that have included Joe’s Pub, The
Kitchen, Central Park SummerStage, the Whitney Museum, Met Breuer,
Museum of Modern Art, and Performa biennial. She has collaborated with
artists across various disciplines, including musicians Herbie Hancock,
John Legend, and Vijay Iyer; visual artists Wangechi Mutu, Carrie Mae
Weems, and Sanford Biggers; choreographer Trajal Harrell; and composer
Robert Ashley.
Ms. Uzuri’s work incorporates her interests in world culture, improvisation,
and sacred music. Her recent album, The Gypsy Diaries, draws on her
roots as well as influences ranging from Sufi devotionals to Romany
laments. She is currently composing a new musical, GIRL Shakes Loose
Her Skin, with book and lyrics by playwright Zakiyyah Alexander (featuring
the poetry of Sonia Sanchez). She recently premiered her first orchestral
composition, Placeless, at Ecstatic Music Festival, drawing critical praise.
Ms. Uzuri was a 2015 Park Avenue Armory artist-in-residence, and is composing her first opera, Hush Arbor, as a 2015 MAP Fund grantee.
Marvin Sewell
Marvin Sewell (co–musical director, guitars, banjo) is a musician, composer, and producer whose sound encompasses a fusion of jazz, blues,
funk, alternative, and world music. Born and raised in Chicago, he began
American Songbook I Meet the Artists
playing guitar with the Malcolm X Community College Big Band in high school
and jammed with many basement bands in the city. From there, he went on to
perform with famous local musicians such as Von Freeman, Ramsey Lewis,
Billy Branch, Jody Christian, and Big Time Sarah. In 1990 Mr. Sewell moved to
New York City, and in 1995 began a creative collaboration with Grammy-winning
recording artist Cassandra Wilson. Over the next 15 years he would become her
lead guitarist, arranger, bandleader, and musical director.
In addition to leading the Marvin Sewell Group, he is a member of Jason Moran
and the Bandwagon and travels the globe touring with a host of performing
artists, including Angelique Kidjo, Herbie Hancock, Charles Earland, Wayne
Shorter, Chaka Khan, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Terri Lyne Carrington, Prince, Fred
Hopkins, Aimee Mann, George Benson, Mark Isham, Jorge Sylvester, Branford
Marsalis, Regina Carter, Dianne Reeves, and Lila Downs.
Chala Yancy
Chala Yancy (violin) enjoys a career as a chamber musician, studio violinist, and
early childhood music educator. She plays with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s and
International Street Cannibals new music ensemble. Ms. Yancy has appeared on
stage with performing artists such as Adele, Johnny Mathis, Il Volo, Mos Def,
Don Omar, Beres Hammond, David Broza, and Kanye West. Television appearances include Good Morning America, Today, The Tonight Show, and Late Night
with Seth Meyers. On Broadway Ms. Yancy has performed in Young Frankenstein, Motown: The Musical, and Amazing Grace. She has also performed at the
Kennedy Center during the DC Jazz Festival and at Tanglewood Jazz Festival
with Paquito D’Rivera, Mike Mossman, Nnenna Freelon, and Mike Garson.
Ms. Yancy can be heard on recordings by A Great Big World, Alicia Keys, James
Carter, Regina Carter, and Papo Vazquez’s Mighty Pirates Troubadours, as well
as on Tania León’s Inura, which was nominated for a Grammy and Latin
Grammy. She received her bachelor of music degree from New York University
and her master’s from the Manhattan School of Music.
Graham Haynes
Graham Haynes (cornet) is regarded as an innovator on cornet and flugelhorn,
and an emerging force in contemporary electronic music and world music. As a
leader he has recorded 15 critically acclaimed CDs, including ¿What Time It Be!,
Nocturne Parisian, and Tones for the 21st Century, which layers sound effects,
textures, drones, and samples over electronically manipulated horn. Mr. Haynes
has also collaborated on numerous CDs as a side person with such artists as
Steve Coleman, Roy Haynes, Ed Blackwell, Abbey Lincoln, and Cassandra Wilson.
Since 2013 Mr. Haynes has been a member of the Vijay Iyer Sextet.
American Songbook I Meet the Artists
Also a composer, Mr. Haynes has written for theater, dance, and film, including
Flag Wars, a film funded by PBS, and an original soundtrack for the short film
The Promise. Throughout his career, he has brought together different musical
traditions from Africa, Asia, and Arabic countries, and has been a perennial
guest at the Essaouira Gnaoua and World Music Festival in Morocco.
James Hurt
James Hurt (piano) is a conductor, arranger, composer, drummer, and pianist.
His collaborations include working with Rashid Ali, Antonio Hart, Russell Gunn,
DJ Logic, Meshell Ndegeocello, Q-Tip, Bernie Worrell, Maceo Parker, and
Buster Williams. Mr. Hurt served as guest conductor and arranger for both Tess
Marsalis & the Swing Daddies at the Iridium and the Jason Lindner Big Band at
Smalls. As a pianist Mr. Hurt played in the Oliver Lake Big Band at the Knitting
Factory, and on electronics, laptop, and keyboards in Butch Morris’s Nublu and
Lucky Cheng’s orchestras.
As a recording artist he can be heard on such labels as Atlantic, Impulse,
Motown, High Note, Fresh Sounds, and Innerscope. He has also recorded on
Grammy-nominated albums for Antonio Hart (Here I Stand ), Abbey Lincoln
(Wholly Earth), and Russell Gunn (Ethnomusicology, Vol. I). He released his own
album, Dark Grooves—Mystical Rhythms, on Blue Note Records. Mr. Hurt also
teaches both privately and through the New School’s jazz department.
Jerome Harris
Jerome Harris (bass) has won recognition as a versatile and penetrating stylist
on both guitar and bass guitar. From 1988 to 1994 he was Sonny Rollins’s guitarist, and appears on five of his recordings. Since then, Mr. Harris has recorded
and performed on six continents, with Jack DeJohnette, Bill Frisell, David
Krakauer, Paul Motian, Ray Anderson, Don Byron, Bobby Previte, Oliver Lake,
Amina Claudine Myers, Bob Stewart, George Russell, and Julius Hemphill,
among others. His extensive international work includes stints in Japan with
Rollins, as well as touring in six African countries, sponsored by the U.S. State
Department, with saxophonist Sam Newsome and guitarist Marvin Sewell.
Mr. Harris’s scholarly work includes an essay, “Jazz on the Global Stage,” published in the anthology The African Diaspora: A Musical Perspective
(Garland/Taylor & Francis). He has taught courses on the history and social context of jazz and blues at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts. After
earning a bachelor of arts degree in psychology and social relations at Harvard
College in 1973, Mr. Harris attended New England Conservatory of Music for
jazz guitar.
American Songbook I Meet the Artists
Satoshi Takeishi
Based in New York City since 1991, Satoshi Takeishi (percussion, drums) has
performed and recorded in variety of genres, from world music, jazz, and contemporary classical music to experimental electronic music. He continues to
explore multicultural electronics and improvisational music with local musicians and composers.
Jarvis C. McInnis
Jarvis C. McInnis (guest vocals) is an interdisciplinary scholar of African
American and African diaspora literature and culture, with research interests
primarily in the American South and Caribbean, music and sound studies, performance studies, and visual culture. He is currently a postdoctoral research
associate in the Department of African American Studies at Princeton
University, where he is working on his first book project, tentatively titled The
Afterlives of the Plantation: Aesthetics, Labor, and Diaspora in the Global
Black South. A graduate of Tougaloo College in Jackson, Mississippi, Mr.
McInnis was a featured soloist and panelist at the Imani Uzuri Curates: Sinners
and Saints festival in Brooklyn in 2013.
Matthew D. Morrison
Matthew D. Morrison (guest vocals) is an assistant professor in the Clive
Davis Institute of Recorded Music at New York University’s Tisch School of the
Arts. He holds a Ph.D. in musicology from Columbia University, a master’s in
musicology from the Catholic University of America, and was a Presidential
music scholar at Morehouse College, where he studied violin and conducting.
Mr. Morrison has served as editor-in-chief of the peer-reviewed music journal
Current Musicology, where he published a special issue on race, sound, and
performance in spring 2012. He is currently the dean of faculty and academic
affairs for the W.E.B. DuBois Scholars Institute at Princeton University. His
book project, American Popular Sound: From Blackface to Blacksound, considers the implications of positing sound and music as major components in both
individual and societal identity formations, particularly the construction of race.
Mr. Morrison also curates and contracts a variety of performances featuring
some of the most dynamic musicians in the New York City area.
Rozz Nash
Musician, choreographer, and theater director Rozz Nash (guest vocals) has
performed and taught in New York City for over 20 years. She is the founding
artistic director of the Caras Dance Ensemble, a youth contemporary dance
company in Williamsburg. She has directed and choreographed musicals and
American Songbook I Meet the Artists
dance works for the Possibility Project, Marymount Academy, and Columbia
University, among others. Now based in her native Bay Area, Ms. Nash is currently the director of performing and visual art at Roses in Concrete Community
School in Oakland. She also consults for the San Francisco Opera as a lead
instructor. Ms. Nash is also an internationally touring artist and can be seen with
her music project Coulon when she is in New York at the Blue Note, Joe’s Pub,
and Rockwood Music Hall.
American Songbook
In 1998, Lincoln Center launched American Songbook, dedicated to the celebration of popular American song. Designed to highlight and affirm the creative
mastery of America’s songwriters from their emergence at the turn of the 19th
century up through the present, American Songbook spans all styles and genres, from the form’s early roots in Tin Pan Alley and Broadway to the eclecticism
of today’s singer-songwriters. American Songbook also showcases the outstanding interpreters of popular song, including established and emerging concert, cabaret, theater, and songwriter performers.
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Inc.
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (LCPA) serves three primary roles: presenter of artistic programming, national leader in arts and education and community relations, and manager of the Lincoln Center campus. A presenter of
more than 3,000 free and ticketed events, performances, tours, and educational
activities annually, LCPA offers 15 programs, series, and festivals including
American Songbook, Great Performers, Lincoln Center Festival, Lincoln Center
Out of Doors, Midsummer Night Swing, the Mostly Mozart Festival, and the
White Light Festival, as well as the Emmy Award–winning Live From Lincoln
Center, which airs nationally on PBS. As manager of the Lincoln Center campus,
LCPA provides support and services for the Lincoln Center complex and the 11
resident organizations. In addition, LCPA led a $1.2 billion campus renovation,
completed in October 2012.
American Songbook
Lincoln Center Programming Department
Jane Moss, Ehrenkranz Artistic Director
Hanako Yamaguchi, Director, Music Programming
Jon Nakagawa, Director, Contemporary Programming
Jill Sternheimer, Director, Public Programming
Lisa Takemoto, Production Manager
Charles Cermele, Producer, Contemporary Programming
Mauricio Lomelin, Producer, Contemporary Programming
Regina Grande, Associate Producer
Amber Shavers, Associate Producer, Public Programming
Nana Asase, Assistant to the Artistic Director
Luna Shyr, Senior Editor
Nick Kleist, Company Manager
Olivia Fortunato, House Seat Coordinator
For American Songbook
Rocky Noel, Lighting Design
Scott Stauffer, Sound Design
Kyle Moore, Sound Engineer