Russell Gunn and his Royal Krunk Jazz Orkestra played a gig of a lifetime Saturday at the Apollo Theater in New York City, premiering his song suite The Blues and Its People.
Gunn’s band was augmented by singer Jazzmeia Horn, trombonist Craig Harris, vibraphonist Stefon Harris, saxophonist and poet Oliver Lake, West African djembe player Weedie Braimah and poet Jessica Care Moore.
The concert celebrated author Amiri Baraka’s groundbreaking 1963 book Blues People: Negro Music in White America. The book argues that blues music is the foundation of American music and the forms that followed, including jazz and gospel. Baraka, who died in 2014, noted the music evolved from work songs and field calls that echo musical forms brought to America by slaves from Africa.
Baraka thought that blues and jazz are an ongoing community narrative of a people and their adaptation to adoption of American life.
Gunn’s suite of music explores those genres, from deep blues to gospel to second-line drumming. Gunn told The New York Times that the Apollo stage is “the mecca of what I represent as a musician.”
The Royal Krunk Jazz Orkestra has received massive acclaim for its blend of hard bop blended with hip-hop elements and other influences.
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The Greg Satterthwaite Quartet is one of 12 recipients of the South Arts Winter 2023 Jazz Road Artists grant.
The artists will each receive up to $15,000 to cover tour expenses to perform concerts nationwide.
The Atlanta-based arts funding organization has awarded $1.8 million to 137 jazz artists across the country since 2018. The Jazz Road Artist series is funded by the Doris Duke Foundation and the Mellon Foundation, and supports about 50 jazz artists each year.
Satterthwaite’s group is based in Dacula and he is an assistant professor of jazz piano and African American Studies at the University of Georgia. He is at work on his second album, to be called Savannah Blue.
“We are so thrilled to welcome the winter class of Jazz Road Artists and help elevate their artistry on stages across the nation,” said Drew Tucker, director of jazz with South Arts. “Among this pool of artists, there are a range of career levels and accomplishments. This class is representative of the heart and diversity that has not only carried the cultural footprint of this genre, but also its expansion.”
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Acclaimed poet Ilya Kaminsky, who holds the Bourne Chair in Poetry at Georgia Tech, has received a $50,000 cash award from United States Artists, a Chicago-based arts funding organization that has awarded more than $38 million to artists since 2006.
Kaminsky is one of 45 recipients of the 2023 USA Fellowships. Individual artists are allowed to decide how to use the cash award.
He was born in Odessa in Ukraine and came to the United States in 1993 when his family was granted asylum by the American government. Kaminsky is the author of Deaf Republic and Dancing In Odessa. Deaf Republic was a New York Times notable book for 2019, and named a “best book” by publications ranging from The Washington Post to Publisher’s Weekly to Vanity Fair.
