3rd Annual Return to the Source

June 7th - Jazzin’ the Spirit (A Jazz Picnic) – 5-7:30 pm – Robert Mills Manor - 20 Franklin Street

Click to hear The Post and CourierSpoleto Today Podcast about this event and others with Jack McCray (interviewed by Harriet McLeod).
Scroll down to Podcast 3 (5/23/07) and click on“Thirteen Previous” with Geoff, Dan and Harriet talking to Jack. The interview begins at 2:30 and ends at 7:20.
The City of Charleston’s Housing Authority, Jake McGuire Savage Foundation and the Charleston Jazz Initiative hosted a jazz picnic at the former home of the Jenkins Orphanage.
Music was provided by the Franklin Street Five, a Jenkins Orphanage Tribute Band led by noted drummer Quentin Baxter…Imagination, a local neo-gospel and jazz youth band led by pianist Demetrius Doctor… and featured the debut of CJI’s Jenkins Orphanage Reenactment Band! The band was organized by Rachel Dowling, the daughter of Jenkins Orphanage administrators, the late Sarah and John Dowling, and David Richardson.

June 8th – South Carolina Jazz Diaspora (CJI Symposium) – 6-9 pm New Tabernacle Fourth Baptist Church – 22 Elizabeth Street

Click here to read “Jazz promoter to share her musical legacy,” A celebration honoring the Jenkins Orphanage Bands, Freddie Green, Count Basie’s rhythm guitarist for nearly 50 years, and Jabbo Smith, rival trumpeter of Louis Armstrong…plus the debut of CJI’s Edmund Thornton Jenkins Chamber Society organized by Rachel Dowling
Keynote Address — “Jabbo and Me: One Mo’ Time” with Lorraine Gordon (shown right), Owner of the Village Vanguard (one of the most famous jazz clubs in the world), New York City…plus a booksigning of Alive at the Village Vanguard: My Life In and Out of Jazz Time (Hal Leonard, 2006)
Conversations in Jazz with special guests… Al Green, son of Freddie Green, Palm Coast, FL (pictured bottom left); Michael Pettersen, guitarist, arranger & Freddie Green historian, Evanston, IL (pictured bottom center); Jeffrey Green, biographer of Edmund Thornton Jenkins, West Sussex, England (pictured bottom right)
Other special guests included CJI Advisors — A.B. Spellman, former Deputy Chairman, ,National Endowment for the Arts; Dan Morgenstern, Director, Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers University; and Larry Ridley, Executive Director, African American Jazz Caucus, New York City, as well as visiting jazz historian, Dr. Rainer Lotz, Bonn, Germany
Encore Screening of “Song of Pumpkin Brown” by filmmaker Brad Jayne…musical score by drummer Quentin Baxter
Music was provided by the Edmund Thornton Jenkins Chamber Society; Celeste Laribo, Associate Pastor, The Net International Ministries, Inc.; Daniel Davis, Concertmaster, Charleston County School of the Arts Orchestra; and Darren Shuler, Minister of Music, New Bethel Sounds of Praise Pentecostal Fellowship Ministries, Inc.

June 9th – Booksigning – Nineteenth Century Freedom Fighters: The 1st South Carolina Volunteers (Arcadia, 2006) – 4-6 pm
Avery Research Center – 125 Bull Street

Booksigning and discussion about the Civil War’s 33rd Regiment, South Carolina’s US Colored Troops from authors Bennie J. McRae, Jr. & Cheryl Trowbridge-Miller
Presentation on black American military bands…influences of early jazz & Jenkins Orphanage musicians by special guest Wolfram Knauer, Director, Jazz-Institut, Darmstadt, Germany

Other Events:

June 2nd – Piccolo Spoleto Festival’s Sister City Jazz Block Party: A Tale of Two Cities – 7-11 pm US Custom House – Concord & Market Streets
Celebrate the jazz legacies of Charleston and New Orleans with Fotos for Humanity, Big Daddy & the Salty Dogs, Quiana Parler & Friends, & Skipp Pearsons’ All-State All-Star Jazz Band

REGRETFULLY CANCELLED TROPICAL STORM BARRY
Special thanks to our 2007 major donors and sponsors … College of Charleston (Arts Management Program; Dean’s Office, School of the Arts; Office of the Provost; and the Avery Research Center); Charleston County Council; City of Charleston Housing Authority; Jake McGuire Savage Foundation; Office of Cultural Affairs/City of Charleston; Arcadia Publishing; Hal Leonard Publishers; National Park Service; First Citizens Bank; Coca-Cola Bottling Company; Herzman-Fishman Foundation; Jeffrey Green; Barbara Burgess and John Dinkelspiel; Charleston Place Hotel; and New Tabernacle Fourth Baptist Church.