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************************OUR WOMEN NOW is the ************************new "Jazzoperetry"
************************ensemble conceived and
************************developed by Earl Hazell,
************************Bass-baritone,
************************composer/arranger and
************************author of THEY IS OUR
************************WOMEN NOW: A
************************CELEBRATION OF THE
************************WOMEN OF THE ************************GERSHWIN'S
************************PORGY AND BESS.
************************It's mission:
************************To facilitate the
************************global appreciation of
************************American women of
************************African cultural descent
************************in opera, poetry and jazz.************************With Angela Owens,
************************Lisa Lockhart,
************************Sabrina Elayne Carten and
************************Marlene Villafane,
************************classical/operatic sopranos;
************************Alteouise deVaughn,
************************mezzo-soprano;
************************the Oriente Lopez ************************Jazz Quintet;
************************accompanist
************************Joan Kreuger and ************************Earl Hazell,
************************their highly acclaimed
************************debut in New York City
************************took place in
************************St. Peter's Episcopal ************************Church of the Bronx,
************************2500 Westchester Square, ************************on Friday March 2nd, 2007,
************************8PM and Sunday ************************March 4th, 4PM.************************With each member having
************************careers that have ************************spanned the globe
************************several times over, their
************************combined talents in an
************************innovative new ensemble ************************continuously makes for a
************************cultural event that has ************************to be experienced
************************to be believed.***************************************************
**
*****************************************************
*****************************************************
*****************************************************
_____________________________________________________
*****************************************************
************************Earl Hazell: OUR WOMEN NOW,
************************Artistic Director
*****************************************************
_____________________________________________________
************************Earl Hazell, bass-baritone
************************singer, actor, poet, ************************composer/arranger,
************************Native New Yorker, ************************Founder/Artistic Director of
************************OUR WOMEN NOW
************************and coiner of the term ************************JAZZOPERETRY
************************is a product of his
************************environment.
************************A Sagittarian born in the
************************late sixties to sculptor, poet,
************************Harlemite and
************************jazz enthusiast
************************Earl Hazell, Sr.
************************and
************************young student of
************************fashion design
************************Carolyn Hazell
************************(high school sweethearts
************************at the
************************High School of Art & Design
************************in New York City; ************************best friends of
************************Afro-Cuban dancer and
************************"folk anthropologist"
************************Raymond MacKethan),
************************he was raised in the
************************Marble Hill projects of the
************************Bronx. In a world imbued with the
************************politics, arts and intellectual culture
************************of what he calls
************************the second Harlem Renaissance
************************(the African-American experience
************************during Civil/post-Civil rights ************************Harlem, 1959-1975), his
************************"Baby-boomer" parents,
************************soon after his birth,
************************eschewed the Baptist religious
************************ traditions of both their
************************"Greatest Generation" parents.
************************This exposed Earl to their
************************Malcolm X/John Coltrane-like
************************spiritual quest for a
************************Gnostic experience of
************************true freedom in the Transcendent,
************************via the embrace of the
************************Nation of Islam,
************************the Sunni faith,
************************African religious traditions as
************************encoded in African-American
************************and European Modern art,
************************and the mystical writings of
************************Khrishnamurti,
************************Kahlil Gibran
************************and
************************Hazrat Inyat Khan.
************************The television shows of the
************************sixties and seventies—
************************"The Twilight Zone",
************************"Mission Impossible",
************************"Laugh-In",
************************"The Flip Wilson Show"
************************and the soon to be legendary
************************debut of "Sesame Street—
************************combined with his immersion
************************ in modern Jazz to complete the
************************incubator of Earl's young soul.*******************************************************
*********************The loss of his father to mental
************************illness in his early teens began ************************his own Siddarthic adolescence
************************via the search for his own artistic
************************voice. His mother's fears of the
************************life of a jazz musician for her only
************************son led him away from the
************************bass and piano and to
************************the human voice,
************************where it grew from a
************************tenor pubescence into the
************************bass-baritone singer he is today.
************************After singing in every choir
************************available in elementary and
************************middle school and auditioning for
************************the School of Performing Arts for
************************acting, he accepted a position in
************************voice at the High School of
************************Music and Art: the acclaimed
************************school which combined with its
************************"Fame" sister school in 1985
************************to form the
************************LaGuardia High School of the Arts
************************at Lincoln Center—of which he is
************************among the first graduating class.******************************************************
**********************His high school exposure to the
************************European classical vocal tradition
************************led to
************************another phase of his development.
************************First, with Maestro
************************Dr. John L. Motley:
************************protégé of spirituals master
************************Hall Johnson,
************************director of the All-City
************************High School Chorus and
************************Minister of Music of
************************Grace Congregational Church of
************************Harlem. Then, via Maestro
************************Motley,
************************Ben Matthews & Wayne Sanders:
************************the directors of
************************Opera Ebony, New York.
************************Their mentoring led him to
************************pursue the study of
************************opera and art song en route to a
************************career in its performance.************************************************
****************************At the Aaron Copland
************************School of Music at
************************Queens College where he
************************entered later, however,
************************his study of voice under
************************Dr. Robert C. White, Jr.
************************coincided with the entrance of
************************saxophone and
************************composer/arranger legend
************************Jimmy Heath as
************************professor of Jazz, leading to the
************************hiring of the internationally
************************celebrated Jazz trumpeter
************************Donald Byrd soon after.
************************His tutelage under both
************************masters in composition and
************************arranging completed a circle of his
************************ artistic development that revealed
************************ the creative voice within him;
************************a voice desiring to celebrate
************************all of his influences.
************************In so doing, he discovered a
************************vision of
************************transcendental possibility that
************************gave him a sense of
************************purpose: the merging of the
************************Southern and Northern
************************Black musical traditions
************************(i.e. opera & spirituals/art song
************************vs. modern jazz) and the
************************dichotomous European traditions
************************they partly reflected
************************(e.g., the Italian/Germanic
************************structural and horizontal
************************sensibility of opera & art song
************************within the Spirituals tradition,
************************vs. the Spanish/French harmonic
************************and vertical sensibility within the
************************ blues and jazz). All as a
************************vehicle of reclamation:
************************reclamation of the
************************rhythmic,
************************spherical and
************************medicinal
************************west African spirit
************************expressed in music since
************************the dawn of man.
************************************************************
******************Earl Hazell as a professional
************************bass-baritone singer has
************************subsequently performed,
************************amongst other works and
************************artists, with
************************Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln in
************************Lincoln Center and the
************************Umbria Jazz Festival in Perugia,
************************Italy; Jessye Norman and
************************Elton John in the heralded
************************concert JESSYE NORMAN
************************SINGS FOR THE HEALING
************************OF AIDS in New York,
************************nationally televised
************************on PBS; both James Levine
************************and
************************Zuben Mehta, with the
************************New York Philharmonic--
************************most notably in
************************performances of the
************************Beethoven Ninth Symphony
************************in the United Nations;
************************the Britten WAR REQUIEM
************************in the Cathedral of
************************St. John the Divine;
************************the Schoenberg
************************GURRELIEDER in Avery Fisher
************************Hall, Lincoln Center, and the
************************Centennial Celebration of
************************Carnegie Hall. He has also
************************performed the roles of
************************Henry Davis of Kurt Weill's
************************STREET SCENE; Colline of
************************ LA BOHEME; Sparafucile of
************************ RIGOLETTO;
************************Booker T. Washington of
************************RAGTIME; Die Sprache of
************************DIE ZAUBERFLOTE; Joe of
************************Kern's SHOWBOAT and
************************several others with houses
************************and production companies
************************throughout Europe and the
************************continental United States.
************************His first performance of his own
************************poetry in 1999, selections from
************************his book NAIMA--written in
************************homage to John Coltrane--
************************took place in
************************St. Mark's Church of the
************************Bowery in New York, where
************************Kahlil Gibran's THE PROHPET
************************was first read to an
************************American audience
************************seventy-five years earlier.
************************************************************
**************It was his accidental discovery
************************of the most popular opera in
************************American history, however, that
************************led to the next phase of his
************************artistic development.
************************The jazz/folk opera
************************PORGY AND BESS, by
************************New Yorker,
************************jazz/classical pianist &
************************composer George Gershwin
************************and his poet/lyricist brother Ira,
************************about the arc of an
************************unexpected love affair in the
************************ Black/African Gulla community
************************ of "Catfish Row" in 1920s South
************************Carolina, "discovered him" in
************************1993.
************************Soon after earning his
************************bachelor's degree in voice,
************************he first performed in the opera
************************under the directorship of the
************************German legend Gotz Friedrich
************************in the Theatre Des Westens,
************************Berlin. He has subsequently
************************become a familiar staple in the
************************globalized world of PORGY via
************************performing the character roles
************************of Jake, Jim, Robbins,
************************the Undertaker and
************************Lawyer Frazier with several
************************companies and productions
************************around the world—from the
************************Royal Albert Hall of London;
************************to the Lyric Theatre in Sydney;
************************to the Centro de Belem of
************************Lisbon; to the Teatro dell'
************************Opera in Rome.
************************He continues to do so
************************throughout the continental
************************United States,
************************continental Europe,
************************the United Kingdom and the
************************Pacific Rim.
************************************************************
**************His treasured relationships
************************with the women performers he
************************has come to know via
************************performing the opera globally
************************is celebrated in his
************************soon to be published book of
************************poetry
************************THEY IS OUR WOMEN NOW:
************************A Celebration of the Women
************************of the Gershwins'
************************PORGY AND BESS.*******************************************************
***********************And it is from this book of
************************poetry that the
************************innovative "Jazzoperetry"
************************ensemble
************************OUR WOMEN NOW was born.
************************Following the guiding lights of
************************Jon Hendricks, Bill Evans,
************************Bobby McFerrin, Gil-Scott Heron,
************************Maurice White,
************************Sweet Honey in the Rock,
************************Jessye Norman, Nina Simone,
************************Jill Scott, M'shelle Ndegeocello
************************and the Imamu Amiri Baraka,
************************Earl Hazell, with this
************************innovative ensemble,
************************focuses his
************************inter-disciplinary creative voice
************************into one living love letter
************************to his parents, his culture,
************************the arts of jazz, opera &
************************poetry, and the
************************glorious women who have
************************so deeply
************************touched
************************his
************************life.
