Articles by Willard Jenkins
Gregory Thomas: Ain't But a Few of Us
by Willard Jenkins
Like most of the participants in our ongoing dialogue with African American music writers, Gregory Thomas has both feet and hands in several camps. Thomas' byline has been featured in numerous publications, including Salon.com, Guardian Observer (London), American Legacy, Africana.com, BlackAmericaWeb.com, Daily News (New York, NY), TBWT.com, Callaloo, The Village Voice, and others. He was the founding editor-in-chief of Harlem World magazine.
Additionally, Thomas has taught jazz education at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Thurgood ...
read moreFestival D'Essouira Gnaoua Musiques Du Monde
by Willard Jenkins
"When I first heard Gnaoua music I heard Jimmy Blanton in the sound of the hajhouj, I heard the blues... I heard the black church..." The words of jazz master Randy Weston ring true with each encounter of the free Gnaoua Festival in Essaouira, Morocco. Essaouira is a picturesque fishing town of 70,000 inhabitants on the Atlantic coast which each June on a Thursday-Sunday weekend swells and pulsates with over 450,000 festival revelers. Essaouira has long been a fabled counter-culture ...
read moreMichael Thomas: The Messenger
by Willard Jenkins
For DC-based trumpeter Michael Thomas this initial release is the result of a true labor of love. Not one to wait for a record label to come knocking at his door, Thomas seized the initiative himself, not only starting his own label and releasing his own debut disc, but also developing his own home studio to lay down these 10 persuasive tracks. Thomas has a brass proud trumpeter's arrogance in sound but not demeanor. The title is an apt one ...
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