Metroparks - John Chacona writes

If you were a northeast Ohio native who would be returning for a visit in September, the most glorious month here, your itinerary would probably include family gatherings, clambakes, forest bathing in the Metroparks ,and if you have a strong stomach, maybe a Browns game. Even a local legend like Joe Lovano might have those on his vaca to-do list. But this September to remember, he’s making memories in a different–and more consequential–way.

The eminent saxophonist and composer is establishing an endowed fund to support merit-based scholarships for students in the J@MS (Jazz at The Music Settlement) program, and kicking off the effort with a concert, celebration and hang at BOP STOP called Joe Lovano: Family & Friends

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Julian Davis Reid

Like many Black musicians, pianist, bandleader and theologian Julian Davis Reid paid close attention to poet and essayist Amiri Baraka’s 1963 book “Blues People: Negro Music in White America.” Reid was particularly taken with, as he told me, “this idea that Black music is a place where people in this country, Black and otherwise, rest. But at the same time, the music emerges from our sense of homelessness, of not feeling welcomed.”

Baraka was a man of action as well as of ideas, and Reid, a graduate of Yale Divinity School, took his words as a call that Reid answered in words and music with “The American Dream, the American Nightmare, and Black American Music,” which he will present Thursday at 7:30 p.m. in Reinberger Chamber Hall at Severance Music Center. as part of the Cleveland Orchestra’s weeklong Mandel Opera & Humanities Festival: The American Dream.

Tag: Metroparks

Joe Lovano Returns Home With An Homage On His Mind

At Severance, Julian Davis Reid Examines Both Sides of The American Dream