Just ahead on American Black Journal.

One of my favorite shows of the year, the world's largest free jazz festival is back to entertain in-person audiences.

We're going to talk about the changes that are planned for the Detroit Jazz Festival.

Plus this year's official poster is going to be unveiled right here on our show.

And we'll have a performance by jazz great, Dee Dee Bridgewater.

Stay right there, American Black Journal starts now.

Announcer 1: From Delta Faucets to Behr Paint, Masco corporation is proud to deliver products that enhance the way consumers, all over the world, experience and enjoy their living spaces.

Masco, serving Michigan communities since 1929.

Announcer 2: Support also provided by, the Cynthia and Edsel Ford Fund for Journalism at Detroit Public TV.

Announcer 1: The DTE Foundation proudly supports 50 years of American Black Journal, in covering African-American history, culture, and politics.

the DTE Foundation and American Black Journal, partners in presenting African-American perspectives about our communities and in our world.

Announcer 2: Also brought to you by AAA.

Nissan foundation, Ally, Impact at Home, UAW: Solidarity Forever, and viewers like you.

Thank you.

♪♪ Welcome to American Black Journal, I'm Stephen Henderson, and as always, I'm glad you decided to join us.

Labor Day Weekend tradition in Detroit is back with live public performances this year.

The Detroit Jazz Festival is going to, once again, entertain in-person audiences after going all virtual last year because of the pandemic.

There's going to be COVID-19 safety precautions in place, and the festival footprint has been revised a bit to encourage social distancing.

I sat down with the President of the Detroit Jazz Festival Foundation, Chris Collins, along with one of the performers, trumpeter Keyon Harrold, and the artist who created this year's jazz Fest poster, Judy Bowman.

So Chris, I'm gonna start with you, last time you and I talked about all of this, there was a little bit of a wet blanket on everything because of the pandemic, And it was about how to keep Jazz Fest going when we couldn't all be together.

This year, things are looking a lot brighter.

Things are looking a lot more optimistic.

Tell us what Jazz Fest is going to be like.

Yes, optimistic indeed, although last year, Personality called it the miracle at the Marriott.

The stream that we did, which I thought was cool, reached a million people, 32 different countries, it was really quite special, we're very proud of it.

And my team worked their tails off to make it happen, in a beautiful way.

This year, you know, we moved cautiously, because while we're optimistic to be sure, we do not want to turn our backs on the potential of threats and some of the challenges that individuals and communities see.

So we really wanted to come at it as in-person, the live, all the great Jazz Fest moments everyone loves, but with a very careful consultation and adjustments that give us options on the footprint of ways to experience this festival.

So this year we are still on the full footprint from Hart Plaza, all the way up to Cadillac Square, multiple stages all intersecting at once, all completely free.

But the biggest difference is, you'll see in addition to, we're going cashless this year, we're going to have a lot of health reminders and hand sanitizers and things, but also to give people options of their jazz festival experience.

So the first night we have, you know, artists and residents, the great Dee Dee Bridgewater, followed by the legend, Herbie Hancock.

You know, if you can't find the seat you'd like at the stage, if it gets kind of packed, we have overflow areas with large screens throughout the footprint, you can choose to do that.

It's all completely free.

If you want to be a little more isolated, you can choose the Lincoln Garden Experience, where you're up above, looking down on the stage.

You can also buy tickets for VIP, which allows you sanctioned seating area in front of each stage.

And you can buy those things throughout the day.

So a lot more people have access to that then before, you don't have to spend a ton of money.

You can pick the day, you want to have that experience.

And so you put all that together with our app, Detroit Jazz Fest Live, and a free companion broadcast, we're doing a select sets throughout the entire festival.

So if you choose that it's just too much, or someone in your household has secondary issues, or things of that nature, and you just want to enjoy the festival from home, you have the option to do it.

So we thought this was the best approach to health and safety.

Options, how do you want to experience the festival?

And once you get there, you know, it's going to be a mixed multi-generational artists, everything falling from the jazz tree as we know, but still all of the wonderful ways that that can be experienced and created through the artistry that that's going to be onsite.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And of course we have become accustomed here on American Black Journal to unveiling the jazz festival poster each year.

This year is no different.

So Chris, tell us about the poster and then show it to.

I'm excited.

Yeah, we have the artist with us today, Judy Bowman.

Hey Judy, how are you?

We select an artist every year to commission an original work, and that work becomes the heartbeat of the poster itself.

And we did that this year with Judy.

She has an amazingly unique vocabulary and a voice in the art world.

So I'm going to jump right on to it, a little light adjustment, unveiling in two seconds.

Check it out.

All right.

The 2021 Detroit Jazz Festival Poster by Judy Bowman, here it is.

That is so wonderful.

Okay, okay so Judy, welcome to American Black Journal, but tell us, tell us about this poster.

What inspired it and what you're depicting here.

Well, I have always enjoy seeing photos of musicians because they look like they are always so into what they're doing, and the expressions on their face.

And they always looked so cool.

And my cousins, my male cousins, they always enjoy jazz and they just look so, like they were always in a groove or a special place.

And so I've kind of grown up looking at photographs of musicians, and they just always, always fascinate me and bring me, like these guys really are into their craft.

They are really into their craft.

And that's what I try to put in this particular poster.

And I think it looks great.

And so I do a lot of musician people because I just love their composure.

So one thing I noticed in the portrait, or in the depiction here is the expression that each musician has.

They're not just playing, they're playing expressively.

And I think that's a really key part of jazz, of course.

But it's also a key part of the jazz festival, that attitude that they all have.

It's an attitude.

It's a swag.

It's about me and my instrument and the music I'm creating.

And that's, in all of the photographs I've seen in music, musicians playing live, it's like nobody else is there, and it's just about the instrument, the music, and the creativity.

And that's what I love seeing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So speaking of musicians and the music that we're going to hear at Jazz Festival, we do have Keyon Harrold, the trumpeter, who is one of the musicians performing.

Keyon, welcome to American Black Journal.

It's my pleasure.

How are you?

It's great to have you here with us.

This is the part we always wish we were still live in studio because we would be having Keyon play for us for the show.

But Keyon, tell us what it means to you to be part of the Detroit Jazz Festival.

Oh, it means a great deal, especially knowing what we've all gone through the last year and some months, to be playing live and to really feel the energy of a live audience, there's nothing like it.

I had the opportunity to do, maybe one of the first gigs back, in front of people in New York city, at the Blue Note a few weeks ago, just to get a pre cursor to what it might be like.

With so many more people at the Detroit Jazz Festival, it's going to be an amazing experience.

It's going to be electric, I can feel it already.

Yeah.

So Keyon, I always think that artists, whether they're musicians, or painters, or other kinds of artists, they draw on the things that happened to us in our lives to shape the art, and that tragedy kind of holds a special place in that inspiration.

So I'm curious about what you've experienced in the last year and how you think that might change you as an artist.

Interesting.

This last year has been trying on so many levels.

I've, you know, definitely written about the idea of tragedy.

I have a song called, Love in Tragedy, in the context of, because in that working that happens in our lives, the things that we can control, there's only one way, you know, to fight or flight.

For me, one thing specifically that happened to me and my son in New York city, it was tragic, but at the same time, it created a platform to really speak on injustice, to speak on racial bias, to speak on different issues that needed a proper platform.

And as an artist, I've always spoken up.

Being from Ferguson, Missouri, the platform of social justice has always been one that I've always taken up as a musician in my writing, in the things that I say, I always take an opportunity to speak on, you know, injustice Musically, it's an opportunity for full expression, and I don't shy away from that.

So I love these kinds of opportunities.

It hurts in the beginning, but at the same time, the beauty can really take over and inspire.

Yeah.

You referenced this incident with your son in New York City with a woman who assaulted him after accusing him, falsely, of taking her phone.

Talk just a little about, you know, I think as African-Americans were becoming more and more aware of things like this that happened to us in many different places, but you've now experienced it firsthand.

Tell us how that changes your perspective on things.

Hmm.

Perspective wise, I mean, I'm very thankful for the accessibility of video, of cameras, because this is not something new, it's been happening since the days of Emmett Till, and before that, where black people have been accused and wrongfully incarcerated, wrongfully murdered, wrongfully abused for no reason, just because of the word of someone else.

And that's something that just needs to stop.

Being the victims of that is definitely, there's nothing like being there.

You know what I mean?

In the context of perspective, it's nothing like being that person.

So it's hard to really, it's hard, I can't go back from being that person.

I can't go back from having to always speak about it, but, I mean, I guess the blessing is, I don't mind speaking about injustice, so it's not something that I shy away from, in the context of it all.

I think that's the reason why the story was such a big story, because I guess the tragedy in it is that so many people go through this every single day, but not many people have the platform to actually speak on it.

Because when it happened to me, I spoke to the management, I spoke to the police department, I spoke to everybody, and I let them know, I said, listen, we should deal with this, you know, deal with it correctly because I have a little reach.

So let's deal with it.

And nothing happened.

They didn't even respond to me and it blew up.

And, but the thing is, it went to, you know, pretty much every country.

I have messages from all over the world, from Japan to China, to Iraq, of people really willing to be educated about injustices that happened to black people, but at the same time, willing to be supportive of it.

So millions and millions of people reached out to me and my son about what happened.

And hopefully, you know, hopefully many people have the opportunity to see themselves in the mirror as to what they could do in the context of the paradigm, of how injustice starts, how racism is activated.

It doesn't, the only thing it takes is for someone not to believe you.

And when then happens it goes from the manager, then it goes to the police department, and it goes to the judge and then it goes, and then you all of a sudden locked up or killed.

And it happens so often.

And in that incident specifically, I just thank God that I was actually there with my son.

It could have went a very different.

It could have gone very differently.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I saw that video on social media, and you are so correct, if you didn't have, if it wasn't videotaped, your credibility would have been just shot.

I mean, they wouldn't have believed you at all.

And yeah, that was really amazing.

Yeah.

Judy, I wonder what the last year, and the things that we've experienced and done, in terms of inspiring your art, we can see in the background some of the things that you're working on, other depictions of musicians, but how has the pandemic and the social movements that we're experiencing play out on your art?

Well, I feel as an artist that I am a Griot, I am here to tell the story and I use my art to do that.

It's my responsibility to make sure that I record from the perspective of a black woman, a black person, I'm a mother of many sons, and every time they go out the door, I, you know, I just have a fear.

And so it's my responsibility to share, to record, to put that fear out in my artwork.

And I did a piece on George Floyd, and where he's calling out for his mom.

And so when people, when it's not so in a spotlight and all of that, they will know that people had this experience, and this is their perspective of it, not what's said in the newspaper for some talking head, but from a person who actually was in it and felt it.

Yeah.

Yeah, so Chris, I always ask you to give me the, headlights, the highlights of the upcoming festival, who should I mark my calendar?

Well, always the exciting part is the inspiration.

And this year has provided a lot, and we've got a taste of it here.

And I think it's a very meaningful piece at this year's Detroit Jazz Festival, and it's why we work so hard to get it into person, in-person but appropriately and safely.

You know, some of the special sets are going to include, you know, there's a hundredth anniversary celebration of Charlie Parker, a hundredth anniversary celebration of Dave Brubeck with his family.

And some families selected video elements worked into the performance, along with, you know, some of the greats.

Monte Alexander sticks in my mind because Monte called me specifically after we worked out the details to let me know that, you know, he spent a lot of time of his life, early life, playing with bags right here from Detroit.

And he was talking to me about how he couldn't wait to bring some of that influence and beauty on stage, even though, you know, people know him for his Caribbean stuff, those early years meant so much to his development and what bags brought to his life.

And I thought that that's the kind of vibe that's so cool at the Jazz Fest.

We have these folks that are really inspired, invested in the Detroit sound, and the great artists of Detroit.

And speaking of that, we have a great homecoming, Kenny Garrett will be with us this year.

We have some special sets.

Kurt Elling is doing a two hour set called, The Big Blind, which has a dramatic narrative.

He's written this amazingly beautiful piece with orchestra, a big band, a bunch of guests.

And it'll be the first time that we've ever presented anything like this.

We also have a great set with, if you could imagine, Manhattan Transfer and Take 6 coming together, they're calling it, The Summit.

On one stage, at one time, it's going to be beautiful.

Gregory Porter is with us, of course, all the sets of our artists and residents, the great Dee Dee Bridgewater.

I mentioned Herbie Hancock already.

An incredible list of Detroit world-class artists, as always, will be part of that.

And a few special sets.

One that Keyon is doing, in the light of the challenges of this year, and the challenges educational institutions face, you know, a lot of bands have not been rehearsing, right?

So we, what we did is we went around to all the regional universities, had them nominate their very best students, and we've put them together into something of a collegiate all-star big band that will be accompanying Keyon in one of his two sets, on Monday.

And it'll bring the community together, in a particular generation, with Keyon as a mentor and leader, in a very unique way.

And these are the moments that speak to what we want to celebrate in Detroit and celebrate at the Detroit Jazz Festival.

And we think we've got a hell of a lineup for all four days, that people will feel that from top to bottom.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, again, it is one of my favorite events of the year, and that makes this one of my favorite shows of the year.

So Chris Collins, Keyon Harrold, and Judy Bowman, thanks to all of you for being here.

And I cannot wait for just a few weeks from now when the jazz festival kicks off.

Thanks very much.

Thanks Stephen.

The Detroit Jazz Festival runs from Friday, September 3rd, through Labor Day, September 6th.

You can check out the lineup at, DetroitJazzFest.org, and you can find out more about today's guests at, americanblackjournal.org.

We're going to leave you now with a really powerful performance by the jazz festival's 2021 artist in residence, Dee Dee Bridgewater.

Enjoy, and we'll see you next week.

♪ God Bless the Child, by Dee Dee Bridgewater ♪ ♪ Them that's got shall get ♪ And them that's not shall lose ♪ ♪ So the Bible says and it still is news ♪ ♪ Your Mama may have, Papa may have ♪ ♪ But God, God bless the child that's got his own ♪ ♪ That's got his own ♪ Yes, the strong gets more, while the weak ones fade ♪ ♪ Empty pockets , empty pocket, empty pockets ♪ ♪ No, they do not make the grade, your Mama may have ♪ ♪ Papa may have ♪ But God, God bless the child that's got his own ♪ ♪ That's got his own ♪ Money, money, you will have a lot of friends ♪ ♪ Oh, and they'll come crowding, crowding around your door ♪ ♪ Yes they will ♪ Oh, but when that's money gone ♪ ♪ and all your spending ends ♪ They will not be there, you won't find them ♪ ♪ You won't hear them ♪ they will not come knocking on your door ♪ ♪ Rich, rich relations, give a crust of bread and such ♪ ♪ Go on, help yourself ♪ But don't take too much ♪ Mama may have, Papa may have ♪ But God, God bless the child that's got his own ♪ ♪ That's got his own (jazz music continues) ♪ Money you have got a lot of friends ♪ ♪ And they'll come knocking, knocking ♪ ♪ knocking, knocking, knocking on your door ♪ ♪ When that money's gone, and all the spending ends ♪ ♪ They will not be there, you won't find them ♪ ♪ They will not come knock knocking on your door ♪ ♪ Rich, rich relations, give a crust of bread and such ♪ ♪ Help yourself ♪ Just don't take too much ♪ Mama, mama she may have, papa may have ♪ ♪ But God, God bless the child that's got his own ♪ ♪ That's got his own Announcer 1: From Delta faucets to Behr Paint, Masco corporation is proud to deliver products that enhance the way consumers, all over the world, experience and enjoy their living spaces.

Masco, serving Michigan communities since 1929.

Announcer 2: Support also provided by, the Cynthia and Edsel Ford Fund for Journalism at Detroit Public TV.

Announcer 1: The DTE Foundation proudly supports 50 years of American Black Journal, in covering African-American history, culture, and politics.

The DTE Foundation and American Black Journal, partners in presenting African-American perspectives about our communities and in our world.

Announcer 2: Also brought to you by AAA, Nissan foundation, Ally, Impact at Home, UAW: Solidarity Forever, and viewers like you.

Thank you.

♪♪