Saying Sounds: Bob Blumenthal with special guest Greg Osby February 12, 2009

Unique Variety of Talk and Tunes with Progressive Jazz Artist Greg Osby, Hosted by Bob Blumenthal, Feb. 12,
at the Berklee Performance Center

Part of Africana Studies/Music and Society’s Jazz as Culture, Language, Being, and Music series

Feb. 3, 2009 – Throughout the month of February, Berklee College of Music’s Africana Studies/Music and Society initiative presents the Jazz as Culture, Language, Being, and Music series, mix of concerts, lectures, and live interviews.

On Feb. 12 at the Berklee Performance Center, Grammy Award-winning journalist Bob Blumenthal and Greg Osby, saxophonist, composer, producer, educator, and Berklee alumnus offer an night of varied entertainment in Saying Sounds: The Bob Blumenthal Show. General admission is $5, and $2 for seniors. Tickets are available at the Berklee box office. Call 617-747-2261 or visit berkleebpc.com.

Highlights will include Blumenthal and Osby interviewing each other about career, influences, and the artist/critic relationship. Osby will perform two sets with his band. Blumenthal will read from his upcoming book while recorded musical illustrations. A list of the 10 jazz artists everyone should know and questions from the audience will bring the home.

Blumenthal is known worldwide as an authority on the history and personalities of jazz. He is a former Boston Globe columnist and has contributed to numerous publications for 40 years. Two Grammy Awards rest on his mantle both for Best Album Notes on collections by Miles Davis and John Coltrane. His latest book is Jazz: An Introduction to the History and Legends Behind America's Music. Blumenthal is a creative consultant at Marsalis Music.

Though best-known for more than a dozen jazz-based CDs he’s recorded for Blue Note, Osby is noted for deconstructing the genre, mixing in hip-hop and funk, writing nontraditional arrangements, and performing feverish club gigs. He has toured with The Dead and Phil Lesh and Friends.

Berklee’s Africana Studies/Music and Society initiative provides innovative, substantive, and sustained connective programs in black music culture at Berklee. Its focus is on the study of black music practice, history and meaning. This includes the study of traditional West African music, spirituals, ragtime, blues, jazz, gospel, r&b, reggae, soul, music in South America, Cuba, and the Caribbean, and contemporary urban music traditions. Africana Studies aids in curriculum and student development by increasing the understanding and appreciation of the music and culture, and the roles artists have had in transforming modern culture and society.

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