CartMAR 10-13 | Leading Women
Mar 10, 2022
Joe Henderson Lab
PLEASE NOTE:
This page is an archive of a past production
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Original show description below.
The masterful young vibraphonist and composer Nikara Warren brings her rollicking Black Wall Street project that explores abstract sound-collage, hip-hop, jazz, neo-soul, Afro-Latino and Afro-Caribbean rhythms, and more.
With a legendary jazz pedigree as the granddaughter of pianist and 2010 NEA Jazz Master Kenny Barron, the Brooklyn-born Warren has built a singular aesthetic that brings together the jazz that has surrounded her from birth along with the hip-hop and dancehall sounds from her parents that informed her musical tastes since childhood.
Studies with her grandfather and vibraphone great Stefon Harris, a scholarship to Boston’s Berklee College of Music, and participation in the iconic vocalist Betty Carter’s career-building Jazz Ahead program at Kennedy Center cemented her musical pursuits, she now premieres her debut working project, Black Wall Street, named for the affluent black neighborhood of Tulsa, Oklahoma that was burned to the ground during the 1921 Tulsa race massacre. Instead of drawing attention to the racist events that destroyed America’s most affluent Black neighborhood, Warren seeks to celebrate the achievements that built the over 600 Black-owned businesses, schools, and hospitals, and explore a dialog about support and equality.
Warren made her SFJAZZ debut with Kenny Barron in November 2018, and we welcome her back for the Bay Area premiere of this new project.
Warren premieres her debut working project, Black Wall Street, named for the affluent black neighborhood of Tulsa, Oklahoma that was burned to the ground during the 1921 Tulsa race massacre.