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Jazz, justice and Juneteenth: Wynton Marsalis and Bryan Stevenson join forces to celebrate Black protest

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NEW YORK (AP) – Black music traditions like jazz play a key role in Juneteenth celebrations, says civil rights lawyer and jazz pianist Bryan Stevenson.

That’s why he and Pulitzer Prize-winning jazz artist Wynton Marsalis debuted “Freedom, Justice and Hope,” a live album of historic jazz records created to protest racial injustice, just in time for this 12 months’s celebration.

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In addition to a brand new arrangement of saxophonist John Coltrane’s “Alabama,” a tribute to the 4 black girls killed within the 1963 Ku Klux Klan bombing of Birmingham’s sixteenth Street Baptist Church, the project features original compositions by rising bassist Endea Owens and trumpeter JoshEvans.

The album, released by Blue Engine Records, encompasses a guest appearance by the Jazz at Lincoln Center orchestra, of which Marsalis is the artistic and managing director. It is currently streaming on digital platforms.

Its publication comes ahead of this summer’s tenth anniversary of the death of Michael Brown, a black teenager fatally shot by police in Ferguson, Missouri, which sparked a wave of Black Lives Matter protests. When “Freedom, Justice & Hope” was recorded three years ago in 2021, the nation was reeling from one other flashpoint – the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.

“To take some of the great jazz works of the 20th century and integrate them into the narrative of the long struggle for social justice in this country is just a dream come true,” said Stevenson, founding father of the Equal Justice Initiative, a criminal justice reform nonprofit. and racial justice based in Montgomery, Alabama.

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The history of jazz and the musicality of Black American protest runs deeper than many individuals realize, said Marsalis, the legendary trumpeter who provides moving melodies throughout the album. Stevenson accompanies on piano and intersperses spoken reflections on disenfranchisement, racial injustice and the activism that has erupted in response.

“Jazz itself was the opposite of minstrelsy,” Marsalis said, referring to a type of entertainment popularized within the twentieth century wherein white actors with blackened faces performed racist depictions of African Americans.

“Jazz still has the same influence,” he said. “People come in, they can play and they take what they do seriously. They will discuss issues and be honest about them, and they don’t feel the need to denigrate themselves.”

Originating in ragtime and blues, cultivated in turn-of-the-century New Orleans, and rising to prominence through the Harlem Renaissance, the genre is a crossroads where music meets the march for justice. Some historians even credit jazz singer Billie Holiday’s 1939 rendition of “Strange Fruit,” an anti-lynching poem by Abel Meeropol, as one among the catalysts of the Civil Rights Movement.

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“I think jazz as an art form should be understood as a protest against the narrative that black people are somehow incapable,” Stevenson said. “The extraordinary thing that jazz musicians did was that they took Western music, did things with art forms that others had been doing for centuries, and added things that dazzled and inspired.”

“They did it with dignity and purpose, debunking this false narrative of racial hierarchy,” he said.

In that spirit, Owens’s lighthearted “Ida’s Crusade” chronicles journalist Ida B. Wells-Barnett’s lifelong struggle against lynching and false imprisonment. Evans’ “Elaine” draws inspiration from the 1919 Arkansas massacre wherein several hundred Black Americans were killed.

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With Marsalis and Stevenson, the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra performs recent arrangements of “Honeysuckle Rose,” originally composed by Fats Waller in 1929; “We Will Overcome” – The Civil Rights Movement Has Stopped Since 1947; and “Freedom Suite”, originally composed by Sonny Rollins in 1958.

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Apart from Stevenson’s monologues and songs from the album “Freedom, Justice and Hope”, these songs are entirely instrumental and contain no vocals.

Jazz’s reliance on instrumental solos has led some to stereotype it as outdated, irrelevant, and less connected to social justice than rap and vocal-based hip-hop – similar to Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power,” “F(asterisk)(asterisk) (asterisk “NWA) Tha Police” and “Alright” by Kendrick Lamar. But musicians, scholars and activists urge listeners to recognize and defend the political messages conveyed through the emotional depth of music.

“Sometimes there are no words to express the joy and sadness we feel,” said Reiland Rabaka, founder and director of the Center for African and African American Studies on the University of Colorado Boulder.

“And sometimes these trumpets, these saxophones, these guitars, these pianos – they can express it better than our words can,” said Rabaka, who has written extensively about hip-hop and Black Power, songs about women’s liberation and civil rights.

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According to Rabaka, the improvisational elements of jazz may be present in the Middle Passage from Africa to the Americas, where slaves chained to the underside of ships invented songs. Improv is also present in Juba and juke dances, common in various parts of the southern United States, including Congo Square in New Orleans, where slave auctions were held.

Improvisation may be compared to the resourcefulness of Black Americans who, using what they’d, built a life for themselves after freeing themselves from the agricultural environment wherein they were confined.

For Marsalis and Stevenson, the eleventh release of the album recorded three years ago is symbolic. June 19, or Juneteenth, is the day in 1865 when the last enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, were informed of their freedom – greater than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation granted them it.

“Enslaved people learned to love in the midst of sadness, and that is something extraordinary that can be achieved,” Stevenson said. “This is the part of Juneteenth that I hope we can start celebrating. Not just emancipation, but this whole legacy. … I think music plays a key role in that.”

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Echoing his colleague’s words, Marsalis said he hopes to encourage people to have a look at the challenges ahead moderately than continuing to fight old battles.

“I like Juneteenth in a symbolic sense because often people, wherever they are in the world, don’t know they are free,” he said. “From a national standpoint, the nation must view June 11 within the context of the national struggles we’re still fighting.

“We are still fighting this conflict, now on a unique battlefield. No one was telling people, “Hey, it’s long overdue.” Let’s be present,” Marsalis said.

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This article was originally published on : thegrio.com

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The prosecutor says that Sean “Diddy” Combs “lawyers are looking for reasons to delay his May trial

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The Federal Prosecutor in New York said on Monday that lawyers with a mogel of Sean “Diddy” Combs are looking for reasons why he delays the sexual trade process, which is to start in three weeks.

This month, the most recent version of the accusation against Combs, 55, added two latest allegations this month, but he still didn’t request, said prosecutors. This, in addition to possible delays from the routine means of sharing evidence with each side, called Discovery, meant that prosecutors thought that he could get stuck in time, said the assistant of the American prosecutor Christa Christa Slavik.

Combs has been closed and not using a deposit since his September arrest. He again handled the guilty accusation at Monday’s hearing, but in addition remained dispassionate within the courtroom.

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Judge Arun Subramanian told COMPS lawyers that they’d on Wednesdays to ask for a break within the trial to devote time to discovering.

“We are a freight train heading for the trial,” he said.

Marc Agnifilo, representing Combs, said that defense may ask for a “very short” two-week postponement over the problems of discovery, including the shortage of presidency of asking a key witness to transfer 200,000 its e-mails, and never only permission to emphasize those that they think were essential.

The latest version of the indictment, filed on April 4, added two latest allegations and accused the comb of using force, fraud or coercion to force a lady to engage in business sexual acts from no less than 2021 to 2024.

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He also claims that Combs was involved within the transport of a lady who was only as “victim-2”-and other people, including business sex employees, in the identical period engaging in prostitution.

The latest allegations have strengthened the indictment, which has already charged him with a conspiracy of racketeers and sexual trade.

Federal prosecutors stated that the allegation of a crunch of racketeers covers the accusations that the Combs-SEX-Traffish three victims and compelled to the fourth, considered one of his employees, to sexual intercourse with him.

His lawyers responded to the most recent version of the indictment, saying that she didn’t add any latest allegations or prosecutors and anxious only former long -term girls involved in consensual relations.

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Prosecutors say that Combs forced and used women for years because he used his “power and prestige” as a music star to draw a network of colleagues and employees to help him when he silenced the victims through blackmail and violence, including kidnapping, arson and physical bits.

They say that the founding father of Bad Boy Records prompted drug victims, intricately produced sexual performances with men’s sex employees in events called “waaks”.

Cassie resigns from anonymous testimony in the Sean trial

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Sean’s lawyers “Diddy” Combs want sworn at the hearing questioned for sex, drugs and violence

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Sean’s lawyers “Diddy” Combs call a judge to permit potential jurors in the upcoming hip-hop Mogul process about the sexual trade process about their views regarding sex, drugs and violence.

Lawyers approached that they submitted a proposed questionnaire, which was filled in by individuals called to the trial on May 5 at the Federal Court in Manhattan.

In a letter to the judge at the end of Friday, lawyers said that they want to know the readiness of the would -be sworn to look at movies which can be sexually clear or show a physical attack. They also say that they want to know their views on individuals with many sexual partners.

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In their very own list, prosecutors criticized the proposed defense questionnaire for too long and touching entities that the judge would ask higher personally, if at all.

They said that a few of the proposed 72 defense questions, some containing subjects, were “completely irrelevant to the ability to perform the jury.”

Prosecutors also cited the Ghislaine Maxwell sexual trade process for instance of how long a questionnaire could be.

After Maxwell was convicted of sexual trade in December 2021, the jurorz admitted that he didn’t reveal that he was a victim of sexual abuse, blaming his supervision after “he” dispersed when he accomplished the questionnaire “and” too fast “, causing that she understood the questions badly.

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Judge Arun Subramanian told lawyers that questionnaires could be separated to a whole bunch of potential jury at the end of April, in order that the interrogation of potential jury could start on May 5, and opening declarations probably on May 12.

The 55-year-old Combs didn’t plead guilty that he had subjected to sexual abuse inside 20 years. The founding father of Bad Boy Records remained trapped with no deposit since the September arrest.

The indictment accuses the comb of using “power and prestige”, which he ruled as a musical tycoon to intimidate, threaten and lure women in his orbit, often under the guise of a romantic relationship.

The indictment stated that he then used force, threats and coercion to cause victims, including three women laid out in court documents, to interact in industrial sexual acts.

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Cassie resigns from anonymous testimony in the Sean trial

He said that he gave his victims of violence, threats of violence, threats of monetary and reputational damage and verbal abuse.

Prosecutors said that a key element of evidence at the trial could be a movie showing Combs, which hit his former protagonal and girlfriend, the singer of R&B Cassie and throwing her to the floor in the hotel corridor.

Defense lawyers argued that prosecutors built their case on charges that attempt to demonize sexual acts between adults.

They told the judge that they were unable to realize consensus with prosecutors regarding what potential jury needs to be asked about questionnaires.

“Defense believes that it is important that we allow potential jurors to be honest about the unprecedented and negative attention of the media, which they could be exposed to, related to Mr. Combs,” lawyers wrote.

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Defense lawyers also asked that the jury could be asked to say in the event that they were watching programs on television entitled: “The Fall of Diddy”, “Diddy is?” “Downfall of Diddy” and “Diddy: The Making of A Bad Boy”.

Hip-hop artist Sean

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Coachella continues the appearance of Weezer, T-Pain and Bernie Sanders

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The second day of Coachelli took place, well -known guests from Hollywood and Washington, DC, the emotional performance of Weezer and calm power transfer between the stars of Elektropop. Then Flava Flav joined the character of Yo Gabba Gabba on the stage to rap “I love mistakes!”

The cultural width of the influential Coachella Valley music and art festival was fully presented on Saturday at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California.

Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont and Rep. Maxwell Frost from Florida went from the rally in Los Angeles to the desert to introduce Clairo, praising the political activism of a 26-year-old singer and writer.

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Less than an hour earlier, Charli XCX ran a minimalist scene during which Troye Sivan and Billie Eilish joined her, with an audience, which included the Oscar nominee Timothée Chalamet nominated in the first row in a giant smile and backpack.

As for this power transfer: after last 12 months’s “brother Summer” the English pop star ended her “girl, so misleading” performance with the New Zealand Elektropop Star Lorde, declaring “Lorde Summer 2025”.

Sanders’ appearance was not the only dose of the policy of the day. Billie Joe Armstrong adapted the lyrics opening Green Day “American Idiot” to declare that “is not part of the magician program” and modified the lyrics into “Jesus of Suburbia” to “escape from pain like children from Palestine.”

T-Pain brought mash-ups and covers to the most important stage, singing “Don’t Stop Be Believin” by Journey and “Tennesee whiskey” by Chris Stapleton.

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Earlier, Weezer provided a dozen songs in a well -adopted performance with the participation of “Undone (Sweater Song)”, “Buddy Holly” and the cover of “Enter Sandman” Metallica.

The band played 4 days after Bassist’s wife Scott Shriner, Jillian Lauren, was shot and wounded by the police in Los Angeles. Lauren, the writer of two memories, was arrested and later sent a deposit after the police said that she aimed a weapon at them.

The team members didn’t turn a special incident to this incident, but the frontman Rivers Cuomo told the crowd: “It’s good to get here and spend these emotions.”

Coachella began on Friday, and Lady Gaga began to perform the crowd, extravagant theatrical, five times. The star of K-Pop Lisa attracted an enormous crowd to the Sahara tent, and Benson Boone announced his second album and sang “Bohemian Rhapsody” with Queen Brian May on the guitar.

The festival will last until Sunday, and the next round of performances on April 18-20. Travis Scott entitled Saturday evening on the most important stage of Post Malone appeared in the final machine on Sunday evening.

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Ester Dean Pens Open letter on the drama Keri Hilson and gossipped Beyoncé Diss to determine the album straight

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