Join us on Wednesday, February 5, 2025 at 7:30 PM for an enjoyable conversation with Larry Tyre author of The Jazzmen: How Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong and Count Basie Transformed America as well as a special performance by Young Musicians Unite Jazz Ensemble. MC'd by Ted Grossman, host of the long running WLRN Sunday night Jazz radio show - Night Train.
The Jazzmen looks mainly at these three maestros’ lives off the bandstand, and how they wrote the soundtrack for the civil rights revolution. It also explores the Black-Jewish alliance of old— one where each of these African-American bandleaders had a Jewish manager and bandmates —and how that might offer a model for today.
Larry Tye is a former reporter at The Boston Globe, off now writing books and running a Boston-based fellowship program for health journalists. The Jazzmen is his ninth book, with others including Home Lands, the upbeat tale of a thriving Jewish diaspora; Superman, the biography of America’s longest-lasting (Jewish) hero; and Bobby Kennedy, which looks at RFK’s transformation from Joe McCarthy’s protege to a liberal icon.
Young Musicians Unite, to empower youth, provides turnkey music education solutions for Title 1 schools across Miami-Dade County. YMU equips schools with trained instructors, lesson plans, instruments and all the necessary resources for vibrant music classes.