Arts & Entertainment

Cissy Houston, mother of the late songstress Whitney Houston, was honored last month at the Women of Excellence in the Arts event in NYC.

Even two days of memorializing Dr. Donald Byrd recently didn’t appear to be enough. Numerous musicians were eager to perform.

Last month, a group of celebrities, socialites and figure skaters gathered in Wollman Rink for a benefit gala for Figure Skating in Harlem. 

Last Saturday at the Apollo Theater, “Tongues of Fire Choir” dedicated a concert to the memory of the enormously talented Sekou Sundiata.

J. Edgar Hoover would have been salivating on a recent evening at Baruch College with a roomful of former Black Panther Party members. 

“Jazz. Covers. Politics: Album Art in an Age of Activism” is an exhibition at The Nathan Cummings Foundation in New York City featuring more than 175 jazz album covers, actual covers along with some reproductions, that “make the politics visible.” Here, writer Clarence Reynolds reviews the exhibit.

Angela Davis, in reality, has been free from jail since 1972.  But that was a generation ago and filmmaker Shola Lynch in her riveting documentary “Free Angela Davis (And All Political Prisoners)” recounts those turbulent times when Davis was hunted, captured, and tried for her alleged involvement in a shootout in a courtroom in San Rafael, California, in 1970.

Maya Angelou’s fans began arriving and assembling at the Union Square Barnes and Noble hours before her seven o’clock appearance on Tuesday. As early as 4pm, the fourth floor was filled to capacity—more than 250 people—and the store’s security at the escalator blocked any more from ascending. The famed writer was in town to promote her latest book “Mom & Me & Mom,” which is mainly about the years she spent reconciling with her mother.

Like Miles, Mingus and Monk, drummer Michael Carvin is a leader who knows when and how to mix veteran musicians with emerging jazz stars. Such a tasteful mixture of the tried and true with a fresh brood was fully evident recently at Dizzy’s Club in midtown Manhattan. 

Many young girls start doll collecting with their first Barbie but there are some people who continue into adulthood.  Debbie Behan Garrett, author of The Doll Blogs: When Dolls Speak, I Listen and creator of the Black Doll Collecting website, provides some insight on collecting Black dolls.