$15 advance / $20 at the door

7pm showtime

Program:
7pm Soundtrack: Music of Geri Allen
7:30pm M4D - Douglas Kearney; Douglas Ewart; Donald Washington; Davu Seru; Mankwe Ndosi.

About:
Great Black Music Mondays are nodes of sonic spiritual nourishment and freedom - freedom of expression and creation. Freedom of form and story. Freedom within the music as a vehicle*. Freedom and rootedness - a resonance connection to sonic ancestry carving more freedom - in and out and through the mainstream of popular music, of commerce. Crafting life and fluidity to seed and deepen bonds across genres and the globe.  

Join Mankwe Ndosi and Sovereign Hues Productions for Great Black Music Mondays for the Month of December at Icehouse Minneapolis. Mankwe Ndosi, Curator in Residence for December’s Monday Night Jazz series will tend the deep roots of black classical cosmic sound and practice. These five nights combine the soundtracks of Black Women composers past and present, music from five different ensembles of Twin Cities’ exciting musical innovators, with late-night Open Arrangement Sessions. OAS’s (pronounced Oasisz), Ndosi’s variation of the Open Mic, where she will arrange trios from musicians who show up to play. December 23rd will feature acclaimed international cellist/composer/bandleader Tomeka Reid. Produced by Mankwe Ndosi (SY Productions) and Sovereign Hues. .

*nod to Nicole Mitchell's quotation, "Jazz is a Globalized African American Freedom Vehicle. 

Douglas Kearney

Poet/Performer/Librettist Douglas Kearney has published six books, including Buck Studies (Fence Books, 2016), winner of the Theodore Roethke Memorial Poetry Award, the CLMP Firecracker Award for Poetry, and California Book Award silver medalist (Poetry). M. NourbeSe Philip calls Kearney’s collection of libretti, Someone Took They Tongues. (Subito, 2016), “a seismic, polyphonic mash-up.” Kearney’s Mess and Mess and (Noemi Press, 2015), was a Small Press Distribution Handpicked Selection that Publisher’s Weekly called “an extraordinary book.” He has received a Whiting Writer’s Award, a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Cy Twombly Award for Poetry, residencies/fellowships from Cave Canem, The Rauschenberg Foundation, and others. Kearney teaches Creative Writing at the University of Minnesota–Twin Cities and lives in St. Paul with his family. 

Douglas R Ewart

The polymathic Douglas R. Ewart has been honored for his work as a composer, improvising multi-instrumentalist, conceptual artist, sculptor, mask and instrument designer, builder and more. As an educator, Ewart bridges his kaleidoscopic activities with a vision that opposes today’s divided world by culture-fusing works that aim to restore the wholeness of communities and their members, and to emphasize the reality of the world’s interdependence.

Ewart is the founder of Arawak Records, is the leader of ensembles such as the Nyahbingi Drum Choir, Quasar, Clarinet Choir, and Douglas R. Ewart & Inventions. He is a designer and creator of instruments and kinetic sonic sculptures that have been exhibited in venues such as Houston’s Contemporary Arts Museum and the Museum of Science and Industry Chicago. “Crepuscule,” his vast periodic conceptual work, is collectively actualized by scores of musicians, dancers, visual artists, poets, capoeira, puppeteers, martial artists, activists, the honoring of elders and more. Ewart’s honors include a U.S. Japan Creative Arts Fellowship, a Bush Artists Fellowship,

Donald Washington

Reeds player, Musical Director, Composer Donald Washington has music in his blood and Detroit in his soul.  He’s led groups including the New Day Blues Band and Bird-Trane-Sco-Now!. He’s brightened stages and Jazz Festivals through Minnesota, Michigan, New York, and around the world.  He’s been a dedicated music educator for students of all ages in school and one on one. He’s a member of Imp Ork, AM AM Trio, and has played with artists including Marcus Belgrave, Donald Byrd, Don Cherry, Malachi Favors, Julius Hemphill, Joseph Jarman, Roscoe Mitchell, Ernie Watts, Douglas Ewart, J. Otis Powell!, James Carter. He’s also known as Master of Ceremonies with North Minnesapolis’s Capri Big Band. 

 Davu Seru

Davu Seru is a drummer, improviser and composer. He has worked throughout the United States and France. He is composer and bandleader for the ensembles Motherless Dollar Quarter and No Territory Band and a member of Trio SDS with French musicians Guilluame Seguron and Catherine Delaunay and Black Praxis Band with Chicago-based musicians David Boykin and Eliel Sherman Storey. For the year 2017-2018 he served as the first-ever composer-in-residence at Studio Z in Saint Paul. Davu has also received awards from the Jerome Foundation (2017-18 Composer/Sound Artist Fellow), American Composers Forum (Minnesota Emerging Composer Award), the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council (Next Step Fund) and has received commissions from the Zeitgeist Ensemble and Walker Art Center. In addition to his musical pursuits, Davu is a published author and a professor of English and African American literature and culture at Hamline University."