• Remember to spring forward for daylight saving time on Sunday morning.  That’s an hour less to party and sleep on Saturday night.
• Curbed featured a wonderful fixer upper in Hamilton Heights available through realtor Willie Kathryne Suggs.  It looks as if this house has a lot of potential for the right buyer who is willing to invest the time and energy to restore it to it’s original glory.  Purportedly the house is the former Sugar Hill Hostel.  Perhaps it can be reincarnated to include another neighborhood business.
• Curbed’s sister site, Eater, was kind enough to feature UPTOWN flavor in the Wednesday listage.  Thank you Eater!
• We are still accepting nominations for your favorite places in Harlem.  We want to hear from you.
• The Harlem Blues Cafe on 116th seems to keep late hours on weeknights. The only information we could find on this cafe located across the street from Le Baobab is the announcement of it’s opening about 2 years ago by Joe.  There is no website and we haven’t seen any published reviews.  If anyone has been there please let us know about your experience.
• The Columbia Spectator published a feature on 125th Street, "Harlem’s Main Street."
• Thursday’s am New York featured the interesting neighborhood of Marble Hill in the city living section.  They did a similar feature of Manhattan Valley back in January.
   
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NEW boutique, N, opened last week in Harlem. The store will carry a mix of national brands and work by designers based in the neighborhood.   Women’s lines at the store include Nicole Miller, Tracy Reese, Miss Sixty and Juicy Couture; men’s designs include Denim Factory, Modern Amusement and Earnest Sewn. The store also carries clothes by G-Star, Hugo Boss, Chip & Pepper, Marimekko and Paper Denim & Cloth for men and women.    In addition it will have skin care lines like I-Iman, Skyn Iceland and Barc skin care for men and housewares by Jonathan Adler, Marimekko Home and Umbra. At 114 West 116th Street, between Seventh and Lenox Avenues, (212) 961-1036.

Source: New York Times, By ANNA BAHNEY

Related: NY Post 

Best Un-Landmarked Music Landmark (Uptown) - Renaissance Ballroom

Harlem used to be known for the swank of its dance palaces, but time hasn’t been gentle with them. Urban renewal wiped out the Savoy (it used to stand at 596 Lenox Avenue) and the Cotton Club (644 Lenox Avenue). The shell of Small’s Paradise (229 1/2 Seventh Avenue) is barely recognizable, and the Manhattan Casino (Eighth Avenue and 155th Street) is a parking lot. But the old Renaissance Ballroom�where bands like Fletcher Henderson’s, Jimmie Lunceford’s, and Count Basie’s used to tack ‘em down�still stands on the southeast corner of Seventh Avenue and 133rd Street, mossy, boarded up, and sporting the occasional sapling growing from the cornice, but unbowed and clearly recognizable. If you stand there long enough, you’ll swear you can hear Louis Armstrong and Lester Young blowing through the weathered plywood.      

-David Wondrich

Seventh Avenue and 133rd Street, Manhattan

Source: Village Voice Best of NYC :: More: The Best of NYC, Harlem ::

1. "I just stopped by Sugar Hill Cafe and it’s GORGEOUS. The latte was delicious and the owner herself was manning the counter. I’ll be back!" [Sunday A.M. in Harlem]

 2. "As a person who has visited all…I find that Londel’s is not worthy of being on the list." [Take the A Train]

3. "Thanks for this informative post! This is a great blog, I have to keep track of it." [Interview with the Curator…]

4. "I’m planning a trip to NY this year. I’m going to have to stop here to check on where to and what to [do] first [Emergence-See]

5. "Wow I have to check this out no question, thanks-a-mil" [Hip Hop History Tours]

6. "I‘ve been so excited by the places I’ve found on your site. In fact I’ve got an appontment at Turning Heads for a manicure and just went to my first session at Ta Yoga, both things I found through you." [via email:The Rebirth of Cooling Out]

Harlem’s Lonely Streets

Displaced Vendors Experience Dwindling Crowds on 116th Street

Apufia S. Beko, who sells Ethiopian art in the market on weekends and has a full-time job with the city, is one of many vendors suffering from the slow business. Beko has been working in the market for nearly three years. She used to sell on the street, but after hearing about the market, she applied every year for five years, and was finally accepted. Each time she applied, Beko was asked if she was Muslim. Each time she refused to answer the question and left the interview. The year she was finally accepted, 2003, she was not questioned about her religion.

The rent of the market has increased to $119 per week, a hefty increase since 1994, even when adjusted for inflation. For Beko, a good week means breaking even. When asked about her business, she replied, referring to the lack of customers, “This is our market, what do you see?” The most she has ever made in one week is $200, not including expenses for the material and products she buys, which are usually out of pocket.

Even though business isn’t good, she loves Ethiopian art and likes the idea of having her own business. “We brought Africa to you … here is Africa,” she said.

When asked why she thought the market has declined, she said, “Nobody is promoting this place. Nobody cares about this place.” She cited poor marketing and the vendors’ inability to do the marketing themselves. “Once in a blue moon, a tour bus comes,” said Beko. She also noted the change of the racial composition of the neighborhood. “With gentrification, local people used to live here and buy from the market. They’re not here anymore.”

Construction of a new mosque is currently beginning on the property, as well, and the management has mentioned moving the market to 123rd Street and Park Avenue, where there is currently a parking lot.

But whether or not another relocation can revive this once-enthusiastic market is still unclear. Without a strong resurgence of consumer power, the open-air market may fade entirely away.

Source: Columbia Spectator  

Related: Gotham Gazette :: TONY ::

 

(New York NY, March 10, 2006)- The world famous Apollo Theater today announced the April kick off of the Apollo Salon Series sponsored by Altria. The Salon Series spotlights four compelling programs of new works that combine a variety of theatrical forms including spoken word, poetry, theater and music. The performances will take place on the Apollo Theater Soundstage, an ideal space for artists to cultivate their work.

Artists scheduled to participate in the April 2006 Salon Series includes works-in-progress by:
Jazz composer/trombonist Craig S. Harris (Thursday, April 6 and Friday, April 7 ); Obie award-winning theater artist Dael Orlandersmith (Friday, April 14th and Saturday, April 15th); poetry theater ensemble UNIVERSES (Friday, April 21st and Saturday, April 22nd) and “PEACHES” a play by Cristal Chanelle Truscott, performed by Progress Theater ensemble (Friday, April 28th and Saturday, April 29th). All tickets are $15 and are available through the Apollo Theater Box Office, 125th Street between 7th and 8th Avenues, 212/531-5305 and Ticketmaster, (212) 307-7171, www.ticketmaster.com.

Source: Salon Series [pdf]

The Harlem Tea Room (c) D. Bell

Submit your photos to the UPTOWNflavor photo pool 

The Jazz Museum in Harlem
104 East 126th Street
New York, NY 10035
212 348-8300

Jazz Museum in Harlem Celebrates Women’s History Month

Legendary Organist Sarah McLawler at Harlem Speaks!

Sarah McLawler, Organist/Vocalist: March 30, 2006
Cobi Narita, Producer: April 13, 2006
Delilah Jackson, Historian: April 27, 2006

Hammond B-3 organist and singer Sarah McLawler is the jazz museum’s Harlem Speaks guest on March 30, 2006.

She was raised in the church with gospel music, and studied organ at an Indiana Conservatory. Influenced heavily by the music of the big bands, McLawler used to sneak into clubs in Indianapolis to hear Lucky Millinder’s big band, with whom she ended up going on the road. She later formed an all-woman band, the Syn-Co-Ettes. They spent some time as a house band at Chicago’s Savoy Club.

After meeting Richard Otto, a classical violinist who also performed jazz, at a residency at a Brooklyn club, she married him and the two spent years touring and recording together. As fixtures on the New York jazz scene in the 1950s, they became close to with the likes of Milt Jackson, Errol Garner, Dinah Washington, Cab Calloway, Nat Cole, Tony Bennett, Sammy Davis, Jr. and others. Washington was so taken with her playing, she once offered to be her manager.

During the 1950s, McLawler recorded singles for the King and Brunswick labels that are now collectors’ items: “I Can’t Stop Loving You” “Love, Sweet Love,” as well as “Red Light” “Tipping In” “Let’s Get the Party Rocking” and “Blue Room.” Her recordings with her husband, violinist Richard Otto include “Somehow,” “Yesterday” “Body & Soul” for Brunswick, and “Babe in the Woods” “Relax, Miss Frisky” ”Flamingo” “Canadian Sunset” and “At the Break of Day” for Vee-Jay.

McLawler continues to breathe life into jazz standards, performing major shows at the Newport Jazz Festivals and the Newark Jazz Festival. She’s lived in Harlem for many years, and regularly performs at Chez Josephine restaurant in midtown Manhattan.

A beacon of jazz for over 40 years in New York City, Cobi Narita joins the Harlem Speaks roster on April 13, 2006. She carved a unique position for herself in the jazz world by founding a nonprofit educational group, the Universal Jazz Coalition, in the late 1970s. The group’s purpose was to help musicians manage their own business affairs when they lacked managers and bookers. This led to her becoming a concert promoter and producer. Narita even hired well- known musicians to teach workshops for newcomers. Soon she noticed that women were having even more difficulty than young, struggling men in jazz, so she founded a women’s jazz festival in New York to give women a chance to play in public. The festival is housed at Cobi’s Place in Manhattan at 158 West 48th Street, fourth floor, between Sam Ash and Manny’s.

The April 27, 2006 guest, cultural historian Delilah Jackson, has worked with Cobi Norita to co-produce numerous tap concerts and film showings at Cobi’s Place. She is founder and artistic director of the Black Patti Research Foundation (named after Sisseretta Jones who organized the most prestigious group of touring black troubadours at the turn of the century), and has amassed one of the most extensive collections of African American expressive culture anywhere– more than 1000 rare slides, photos, and vintage films documenting the performances of musicians, singers, actors and dancers of Harlem during he 1920s and 1930s.

Bobbi Humphrey, special guest of Harlem Speaks on March 16, 2006, told story after story of her youth, her early career in New York, her cognizance of the history of jazz as well as her philosophy on life and music.

Her family lived across the street from a juke joint in which Humphrey heard the blues as she slumbered in the front room of the family home in Dallas, Texas. She regularly attended church in those days, so she was also marinated in gospel music. At school, she learned about European classical music, and became enamored with the flute upon hearing a beautiful flute part of Tchaikovsky’s Peter Gunn at the age of 11. But she didn’t pick up the instrument until she was 15, by when she had taken to jazz.

She progressed on the instrument rapidly, so much so that when Dizzy Gillespie judged a solo competition in Texas where she took second place, he urged her to go to New York. “He told me that he voted for me,” Humphrey remembered, “and that if I went to New York I would find a place in the music industry, while no one would remember the guy who won.”

So, she took her country self to New York intent on getting a recording contract. Eliciting barrels of laughter, Humphrey related her experiences upon arriving to New York and meeting a crazy person who called himself “the wild man,” and being rescued by none other than flute virtuoso Hubert Laws, who met her in his Porsche, which she thought was a Volkswagen!

Literally within days, she found herself on a bus with the Duke Ellington Orchestra, with whom she played “C Jam Blues” at a venue in New Jersey, and then at the Apollo Theatre Amateur Night, where she met members of the Four Tops and Stevie Wonder, who became her life- long friend.

She also told the audience the tale of walking into the United Artists building, only to discover that the offices of Blue Note records were there. With youthful confidence and naivet she sauntered to the front desk in hot pants, and announced that she was there because she was ready to make a record! The secretary was so impressed, and moved at seeing Humphrey’s disappointment after being told that she had to have an appointment before seeing Dr. George Butler, that she took Humphrey’s 8-track tape recording of her playing and gave it to her boss.

Within days, Humphrey got a call from Butler, who signed her immediately. She soon recorded a straight-ahead Blue Note date with Philadelphia trumpet legend Lee Morgan, who then played on her first recording date a few months later.

She also discussed her own hit recordings; her social and cultural contributions via civic engagement; and her business dealings with Warner Brothers as a manager of R&B singer Tevin Campbell, and why she doesn’t buy the notion that playing fusion and “cool jazz” is selling out: “When someone once asked me if I had ’sold out’ I told him that I hoped my recordings sold out at the record stores!” She believes her music is based in love, and reaches the hearts of people.

After fielding questions from the audience, she concluded the evening by explaining the basis for her love of Harlem, where on any given day she can be found at her “office” at Nubian Heritage on 126th and Fifth Avenue, or restaurants such as MoBay Uptown or the new eatery/ club Baton Rouge. The bi-weekly Harlem Speaks series is produced by the Jazz Museum in Harlem’s Executive Director, Loren Schoenberg, Co-Director Christian McBride, and Greg Thomas Associates. The series occurs at the offices of the Jazz Museum in Harlem, located at 104 East 126th Street, between Park and Lexington Avenues, from 6:30pm-8:00pm.

This discussion series is free to the public. To view the photo archives of Harlem Speaks:

Visit website

Concert
Annual Women’s Jazz Festival
Imani Winds

Monday, March 27, 2006
7:00 PM

Langston Hughes Auditorium, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, 515 Malcolm X Boulevard, (Enter at 103 West 135th Street), New York, NY 10037-1801 (directions)

Imani Winds

The Schomburg Center celebrates Women’s History Month with extremely talented female artists, featuring Tulivu Donna Cumberbatch, The Spelman Jazz Ensemble, Sage, and Imani Winds.
Tickets for individual concert dates: members, $18; non-members, $22.50. Series tickets: members, $68; non-members, $86. For ticket charge, call the Schomburg Shop at (212) 491-2206. Ticket charge hours, Tuesday through Saturday, noon to 6 p.m.

Cost:  Tickets for individual concert dates: members, $18; non-members, $22.50. Series tickets: members, $68; non-members, $86. For ticket charge, call the Schomburg Shop at (212) 491-2206. Ticket charge hours, Tuesday through Saturday, noon to 6 p.m.

Program Information:
To order tickets for Schomburg Center programs, please call The Schomburg Shop at (212) 491-2206, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Saturday.
For membership information: (212) 491-2252.
For program and exhibition information: (212) 491-2265.
Priority in ordering tickets for events with admission fees is given to members of the Schomburg Society. Member discount is limited to the purchase of two tickets per event.

_____ 

 Editor’s Note: This was received VERY last minute but if you are in the neighborhood you might be able to make it there in time.

• Do you have a favorite restaurant?  Zagat wants to know about it.  Cast your vote in the Zagat Survey through May 14th in order to receive a free 2007 Zagat’s Guide.
  
• Help keep our neighborhood clean. Hate litter? Request a litter basket for your corner submit a request.
  
• Harlemite, plus size model and former beauty contestant Sharon Quinn gives a nice review of Melba’s Restaurant and brief mention of Earl Monroe’s on her blog.
• Only a week away from springing your clocks forward for daylight-saving time.  Thank goodness for automatic updates on cell phones, cable boxes and computers.
• E.R. Shipp clears the confusion about the Harlem Empowerment Zone and the million dollar business loans that magically appeared out of the blue.  Her Op-Ed piece in the Daily News states, "So it doesn’t bother me that a bowling alley received $350,000 while smaller companies were turned down. Or that the legendary Earl (The Pearl) Monroe, who is black, partnered with a white businessman and then pulled out, leaving the partner as sole proprietor with a loan of $380,000."

This is an excerpt from an article that originally appeared in Essence Magazine 3 years ago.  Some of the restaurants featured in the original article have closed their doors for one reason or another. It seems as if restaurants in Harlem stand about the same chance of success as contestants at the Apollo.  Amateurs need not bother opening up an establishment in Harlem unless they are going to come correct with the taste factor and the general atmosphere.

Harlem is home to great places to eat. Most are modest, with reasonable prices and hearty portions. No matter which eatery you choose, you’re bound to have a dining experience with local color and character. In addition to traditional and contemporary takes on southern cooking, you’ll find places specializing in African, Caribbean. Latin and East Indian fare. Follow this guide for uptown restaurants to match your every dining mood.

We polled locals for their favorite spots, and these are the enthusiastic recommendations:

Starting around noon, deals are the order of the day at Londel’s Supper Club. Politicians, business leaders and other pacesetters gather to talk and enjoy lunchtime dishes like savory carrot soup, fried whiting sandwiches and grilled chicken salads. And most know to save room for the warm bread pudding with caramel sauce. 2620 Frederick Douglass Blvd.; (212) 234-6114.

GOSPEL BRUNCH

Copeland’s is one of many restaurants that can make your taste buds sing and your toes tap on a Sunday afternoon. There’s a live show and a buffet laden with jambalaya, fried apple rings, warm biscuits and other Southern classics. 549 W. 145th St.; (212) 234-2356. Sylvia’s also features uplifting, after-church meals and music.

COZY CORNERS

Bayou, just off bustling 125th Street, has a mellow vibe. Creole and Cajun specialties, like the spinach salad with fried crawfish tails, practically transport you to the Big Easy. 308 Lenox Ave. (aka Malcolm X Blvd.); (212) 426-3800.

CLASSIC SOUL

Miss Mamie’s Spoonbread Too feels like a country kitchen with its full menu of sentimental favorites. Can’t make up your mind? Try the generous sampler plate. 366 W. 110th St.; (212) 865-6744. Sister restaurant Miss Maude’s Spoonbread Too is at 547 Lenox Ave.; (212) 690-3100.

Sylvia’s–Sylvia Woods, known as the Queen of Soul Food, opened her restaurant in 1962, and it has become known around the world. 328 Lenox Ave.; (212) 996-0660.

Perk’s Fine Cuisine–This long-running establishment, serving soul and standard American fare, sits in a row of timeless brownstones. 553 Manhattan Ave.; (212) 666-8500.

Amy Ruth’s–Famed for generous portions of well-prepared dishes as well as celebrity patrons, it quickly became a dining landmark. 113 W. 116th St.; (212) 280-8779.

Africa–Its Senegalese fish and vegetable stew, thiebu djen, draws a dedicated following. 247 W. 116th St.; (212) 666-9400.

HOT NEWCOMERS

Home Sweet Harlem Cafe, with easy chairs and a homey setting, offers soups, sandwiches and salads made with natural and organic ingredients. 270 W. 135th St.; (212) 926-9616.

Revival--Soulful cooking in an artsy environment. 2367 Frederick Douglass Blvd.; (212) 222-8338.

Infamous MIT-Educated Philosopher Offers Streetside Wisdom

Over the course of the last 30 years, Ben Armstead and his wife Gale have set up a folding table on the sidewalks of 125th Street to sell books and pamphlets on metaphysics and give open-eared strangers a crash course in spirituality.

Named the “Best Harlem Street Vendor-Philosopher” by the Village Voice last year, many hail Armstead as an unofficial historian of the area. Also known for his deep knowledge of astrology, his first question to any stranger is, “What’s your sign?”

But the 66-year-old man-about-town’s opinions sometimes stand out as much as his bushy jet-black eyebrows.

“He’s been consistent over the years with his mission,” Ra said. “He never let up.”

Over the years, the vendors have developed a sense of community. On the weekends, around a hundred vendors set up shop on 125th Street, selling everything from books and music to scented oils and shea butter.

And the Armsteads are there, too, spreading their message every Saturday and Sunday from one to five p.m., around 125th Street and Seventh Avenue, making sure to ask anyone who comes by, “What’s your sign?”

Spurred by the "hoopla" raging over at Curbed.com earlier in the week the editors of UPTOWN flavor decided to compile a weekend activities guide to Harlem. The first weekend of spring offers a variety of events across Harlem. As we move into summer this list is sure to grow. As an aside, thanks to Joe from Plastic Animals for the shout out.

• Go to the Magic Johnson theater to see Inside Man, 16 Blocks or Madea’s Family Reunion
• Go bowling at Harlem Lanes
• Go to Riverbank State Park for Blades Over Broadway
• Go to Aaron Davis Hall for Jazz featuring McCoy Tyner, Savion Glover and Ravi Coltrane
• Visit the Museum of New York to see the Carl Van Vechten photo exhibit and witness AUDELCO award winning actress Wendi Joy Franklin transform into the elegant Lena Horne in "A Song For You."
• Go see Roberta Flack perform live or attend the special screening of Been Rich All My Life at the world famous Apollo Theater
• See New York artist Alethia Brown merge performance and visual arts at Creole
  
• Visit the Jazz Museum in Harlem
• Dine at one of the new restaurants that have opened recently.

Can’t get enough of UPTOWN flavor?  Subscribe to receive email notifications and be the first to know what’s really good in the neighborhood.

Meet the Silver Belles, the classiest, sassiest Harlem chorus girls ever to grace the stage … then and now. Ranging in age from 84 to 96, the women of this affectionate, be-bopping documentary are still dancing, relishing life and sharing a friendship that makes it all worthwhile. Weaving together their life stories—their glory days as the original 1930s Apollo Theatre Rockettes; working alongside the likes of Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald; USO tours and wartime work as barmaids and ship welders—director Heather Lyn McDonald conveys how deeply their art has kept these funny, passionate, fiercely independent women connected to each other and to the world around them. Newsreels and vintage stills illuminate their tales, creating a vivid picture of the past, while current rehearsals, performances and laughter-and-tears moments form an intimate, lovely portrait of a group of artists gleaming in their golden years.—D. Quinones

Directors: Heather Lyn MacDonald
Producers: Heather Lyn MacDonald
Cinematographers: Heather Lyn MacDonald, Jon Miller
Editors: Heather Lyn MacDonald, BB Jorissen

Official Website: www.tootscrackin.com

Special Screening: Been Rich All My Life
Event: Sunday Mar. 26, 2006

NYWIFT members are invited to the Apollo Theater for a screening of Been Rich All My Life and a special live tribute to Harlem’s legendary chorus dancers. The event will be a tribute to the original Apollo dancers who led the strike that established the American Guild of Variety Artists.

The film features five of the last surviving chorus dancers of Harlem’s golden age. Seventy years later, these 84-96 year-old tap dancing divas are performing again as the “Silver Belles” to standing ovations. Been Rich All My Life is produced and directed by Sundance Award-winning filmmaker Heather Lyn MacDonald (Ballot Measure 9). Mercedes Ellington directs the live tribute program, with original Apollo dancers and special guests.

Sunday Mar 26   
4:00 PM to 6:30 PM

Apollo Theater 253 W. 125th St. (between 7th & 8th Avenues) 

NYWIFT members receive 10 percent discount (code: BRAM)
Tickets: $10, $18, $30 plus $2 facility fee

Order tickets from Apollo Theater Box Office,
212-531-5305 or Ticketmaster, 212-307-7171;
ww.ticketmaster.com

Apollo Theater
253 W. 125th St.  | Map
Manhattan, NY
212-531-5305

A talent competition where up-and-coming artists in music, comedy, and other fields vie for audience approval.  Wednesday nights.

Through Mar. 31

"Latinas Don’t PMS"

A comedic play hosted by Iris Silverio and Imma Heredia

Mar. 25

Roberta Flack

The soul singer performs

Mar. 27

"V-Day Harlem 2006"

A benefit production of "The Vagina Monologues" to raise awareness and funds for local organizations working to end violence against women and girls. Proceeds will benefit Girls Educational & Mentoring Services. Call for ticket information

Apr. 2 - Apr. 6

"Demon Days Lives"

Featuring Grammy Award winners, Gorillaz

Related: A Star is Reborn :: Sonny Rollins :: A Great Night :: Been Rich ::

UPTOWN flavor gets a little recognization from Curbed.  Thanks Lockhart!

Related links: Lockhart’s Story [vid] :: New York Magazine :: Business Week ::

The Hallelujah — Harlem Public Art Fest will spotlight sculptures in the park, digital and sound installations to be enjoyed by both residents and visitors. Our goal is to create a nurturing environment that will support a diverse public art scene that has never happened in Harlem before.

The Hallelujah Public Art Fest will begin from July 8th through September 30, 2006. Sites include Harlem’s four historic ribbon parks, Trinity Cemetery from Amsterdam Avenue to Riverside Drive, Riverbank State Park, Grant’s Tomb and various East Harlem and church sites.

In addition to the festival itself, WHAF will be launching the Harlem-Heights Culture Loop that will help tourists move in and out of the streets of Harlem more easily. Most important, our all day hop off/hop on loop will help visitors mingle with fellow Harlemites and enjoy our shops and restaurants.

Submission Requirements

LOCATION (S) OF ARTWORK
The West Harlem Art Fund, Inc. and the Artists Selection Committee are seeking proposals that embrace strong visual appeal and sensitivity that will attract more visitors and residents to several private and public locations including all four historic Harlem parks. Placement and installation at park locations will require input from the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation’s Temporary Public Art Coordinator and Park District Managers. The West Harlem Art Fund, Inc. will provide comprehensive general liability insurance, the bond and public relations support. Email info@myharlem.org for detail description and pictures on the following sites:

City/State Parks
Cemetery
Historic monument
Museum
Sidewalks

APPLICATION PROCEDURE
A written description of your art work including: medium, dimensions (LxHxW and weight), installation method and anchoring procedure.

A resume and artist statement

The location of specific site(s) for the installation and the reasoning leading to the specific site(s) choice or general description of the type of environment for which the installation is designed.

Up to (10) prints of the artist’s previous works. If providing slides, please label and enclose them in a slide sheet. Any other materials, such as prints color copies, or brochures, must fit within a 9”x12” self-addresses enveloped with the appropriate amount of postage to be returned.

DO’S AND DON’T’S

DO visit our sites and observe the activities that take place there.

DON’T submit proposals for non-existing works.

ARTIST’S RESPONSIBILITIES

Bringing artwork to the site and for removal.
Any maintenance to the artwork during exhibition period.
Any repair to the installation site if necessary (i.e. sod).
Must sign a waiver exempting The West Harlem Art Fund, Inc. from any damage to the artwork during exhibition.

ARTIST FORUM

Applicants can attend an artist forum to ask questions and learn more about this process. All forums will be held at our location – Church of the Intercession, 550 West 155th Street between Amsterdam Avenue and Broadway in the Parish House.

SUBMISSION
Mail proposal(s) to The West Harlem Art Fund, Inc., 550 West 155th Street, New York, N.Y. 10032. For questions and other concerns, you can email Savona Bailey-McClain, Director of The West Harlem Art Fund, Inc. at info@myharlem.org

Although care will be taken in the handling of all submissions, The West Harlem Art Fund, Inc. nor the Artists Selection Committee cannot be responsible for any materials that are lost, stolen, or damaged while in our possession or in transit.

Source: My Harlem

One local artist brings her muses with her wherever she paints. So for those who have ever wondered how artwork gets made, it’s a lesson in art creation and inspiration. As NY1’s celebration of Women’s History Month continues, Stephanie Simon takes us to East Harlem for a multi media experience.

Artist Alethia Brown doesn’t just create art, she creates art experiences.

Inside the East Harlem restaurant Creole, Brown is perfecting her brand of performance art, painting to live music and poetry.

"What happens is you hear things in little nuances and tones with the instruments and sounds, and even the wind that’s being breathed into the instruments, that give you a different spin on what you are going to start applying to the paper. So I translate sound into color and into image," says Brown.

With the vocal stylings of Letha Francis and spoken word poetry of Bliss moving her, Brown begins to paint.

The audience can see the evolution of several paintings throughout the evening. As the sounds change so does the artist’s movements and colors. Her finished artwork also hangs at Creole.

The Restaurant’s owner Kevin Walters calls the overall experience a celebration of community through food, music and art.

"It’s almost like a circus. Everyone comes to look, and they want to touch, they want to see it, they want to be a part of it," he says.

Everyone can be part of it. While brown is busy making her artwork, she encourages the audience to get up and make a little art of their own on what she calls her canvas dress.

"When people get up to see what it feels like to work on canvas, and they see how thick the paint is or how difficult it is to stroke on the canvas surface, they get a different appreciation of what we as artists do," says Brown.

The native New Yorker says this entire process is a celebration of Women’s History Month.

It’s about all women celebrating their voices. And my visual voice is all around the room in multiple layers," she says. "By incorporating and welcoming other people to be participating, I am celebrating all of the people that I care about."

She is women see her roar at Creole and other venues around town.

Creole
www.creolenyc.com
2167 Third Avenue at 117th Street
(212)876-8838

Aleathia Brown

alethiab@msn.com

Official Website

Brown’s upcoming performances at Creole:
Friday March 24th at 9 p.m.
Tuesday March 28th at 7 p.m.

- Stephanie Simon

Source: Top News • NY1 Living

March 21, 2006

Harlem is music – among other things – and some of its leading ladies of jazz are showing off their stuff. As part of NY1’s tribute to Women’s History, Stephanie Simon filed the following report.

Ladies sing the blues at Lincoln Center, with a rhythm all their own.

At the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, an exhibition that celebrates the musical traditions of Harlem turned its attention to Harlem’s leading ladies of song, vocalists who are today’s keepers of the flame, like “Lady Cantrese,” who was born and raised in Harlem.

“Jazz is in my heart. It’s in my soul – and the blues – all of that music is just a part of me,” says Cantrese.

Community Works Founder Barbara Horowitz helped organize the exhibition called Harlem Is… Music and this special one night tribute called “Ladies Singing the Blues.”

“They’re the heart and soul of music in Harlem and the world. They stand on the shoulders of Billie Holiday and Dinah Washington and Sarah Vaughn, and these ladies are singing in Harlem every night at small pubs that are keeping that tradition alive,” says Horowitz.

Ladies like Leeolive Tucker.

“Very few people wake up happy in this world – I’m sorry to say – and music is one of the few things that makes everyone happy,” says Tucker.

One of the evenings special honorees was the legendary Gloria Lynn. She’s not only one of the all time greats to hail from Harlem, but she continues to sing and to be influenced by the women who set the gold standard.

“Dinah, Carmen McRae, all of the greats I had to look up to when I was coming a long, so that’s not too bad. That’s not bad,” says Lynn.

Tonight wasn’t just a celebration of jazz vocalists but jazz venues as well, as hot spots such Shoeman’s, St. Nick’s Pub and Lenox Lounge were honored.

“We’re recognized for keeping jazz alive in Harlem, and there’s been a lot of lean days of jazz up in Harlem,” says Lenox Lounge owner Alvin Reed.

Reed says Harlem and it’s musical scene is going through a second renaissance.

And great music always deserves an encore.

www.communityworksnyc.org

www.nypl.org

- Stephanie Simon

Jazz man just gets better with time

BY BRETT O’BOURKE

Miami Herald

MIAMI - Sonny Rollins is the last living jazz giant.

The 75-year-old sax player has outlived the likes of his contemporaries such as Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, Clifford Brown, Art Blakey and John Coltrane.

But Rollins is not ready to be retired to the jazz pantheon quite yet.

"I’m trying to improve, trying to practice, trying to keep my game up to do what I have to do to make a successful presentation," says Rollins. "It’s a constant struggle. I don’t have time to listen to accolades from people, though I appreciate them."

That sentiment is the essence of Sonny Rollins: a man constantly struggling to improve, to explore deeper both personally and musically, a man forever in search of just the right notes.

Rollins was born in 1930s Harlem, the epicenter of jazz.

"Harlem was the place. All the bands came through Harlem and everybody played up at the Apollo Theater. We used to hear guys like James P. Johnson and Fats Waller was on the radio. I was right in the middle of it and I lived music," Rollins says.

He began playing the piano at age 7 and picked up the sax in elementary school.

"When I heard some records by Louis Jordan I said, `I don’t know about you people but I’m getting me one of them shiny saxophones."’

By the time he was in his late teens he was leading a band that included future jazz greats Jackie McLean, Kenny Drew and Art Taylor and had gained a reputation as a hard-charging improviser.

"Miles Davis heard me at that time and offered me a position in his band with Coltrane. I was beginning to get into big company."

In the early ’50s, Rollins’ career took off. He played and recorded regularly with Davis, Monk, Coltrane and his idol Charlie Parker. But, like so many jazz musicians of the day, Rollins became addicted to heroin.

"Everybody was doing drugs at one time. Charlie Parker, the great saxophone player, he played a big part in getting me off drugs. He was hooked on drugs himself. Everybody knows that, but what everybody doesn’t know is that Charlie Parker began to see all his young followers using drugs, and that was tearing him up," says Rollins.

Rollins checked himself into a rehabilitation clinic in Lexington, Ky., in the mid-’50s. Parker passed before Rollins got out.

"I was really anxious to show him that I had gotten his message but it wasn’t to be. But I got the message myself and straightened myself out. I never looked back."

In 1955, Rollins played with the Clifford Brown-Max Roach Quintet ("the highlight of my life," he says) and with the Miles Davis Quintet.

Leading his own bands he released some of the greatest jazz recordings of all time: "Saxophone Colossus" (1956), "Way Out West" (1957) and "Freedom Suite" (1958).

Then in August 1959, he walked away.

"I had some discouraging nights, one in particular where things just didn’t work out and I was very despondent and I said wait a minute now, I’m not really playing the stuff I want to play."

From the fall of ‘59 to November ‘61, Rollins quit recording and playing at clubs.

"I said I’m going to what we call go in the woodshed. My woodshed turned out to be the Williamsburg Bridge on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. I could play my horn all hours of the day or night. So that’s what I did and I went up there and got my stuff together."

Over the following decade, Rollins would put all manner of styles into the tumbler of his tenor saxophone to see what kind of shine he could put on them: calypso, Latin, avant-garde, free jazz. He wrote the film score for "Alfie," for which he was nominated for a Grammy (he has won several, including a lifetime achievement award).

In 1968, he traveled to India to study Eastern religions and yoga.

He returned in 1971 and has continued to record and now plays about 30 gigs per year.

"You have to follow your own inner convictions," Rollins explains. "That’s what the bridge really represents. It represents somebody realizing what they wanted to do in life and doing it."

BATON ROUGE IN HARLEM

[Excerpt…]

"All of our dreams were realized the day the doors opened and we were able to provide for our neighborhood," says Jones, co-owner of Sugar Hill. "We designed the house to be a true community gathering place with the jazz lounge on the first floor, dining room on the second, and community space on the top two floors; we wanted our neighbors to think of this space as their own."

Sugar Hill Bistro served the Harlem community well, but its doors have long been closed. Now another eatery and gathering place has come to take its space on 145th Street–Baton Rouge, a New Orleans style restaurant and lounge. Real estate broker Brian Phillips of Sotheby’s International Realty sold the Sugar Hill building to its new owners Sheron and Joe Barnes, who before bringing MoBay Uptown to Harlem, first launched MoBay, a popular Brooklyn-based Caribbean eating place.  With Baton Rouge, Sheron and Joe have opened what will certainly be another colorful culinary treat.

Source: Uptown Magazine [website]

In conjunction with the Harlem Is… exhibition currently on display
The Museum of the City of New York presents: A Tribute to Lena Horne

A production with music about the life of the extraordinary artist
Lena Horne during the Civil Rights era written and performed by Wendi
Joy Franklin.

Saturday, March 25, 2006 @ 2:00 PM

  The Museum of the City of New York
  1220 Fifth Avenue
  NY, NY 10029 212.534.1672
  Website

Performance: A Tribute to Lena Horne

"A Song for You: A Civil Rights Journey of a Negro Woman: Lena Calhoun Horne"
is an insightful, dramatic and musical production about the life of the
extraordinary artist Lena Horne during the Civil Rights era. Written
and performed by Wendi Joy Franklin, the play follows Horne from her
childhood in the South during the 1920s through her early music and film
career, to the March on Washington and her work as a Civil Rights
activist. Presented in collaboration with Community Works and New
Heritage Theatre Group in association with the Harlem Arts Alliance.

  __________


harlem is…Music: Portraits by Carl Van Vechten
Jan 28 through Apr 17

  The Museum of the City of New York
  1220 Fifth Avenue, NY, NY 10029 212.534.1672
  http://www.mcny.org/exhibitions/current/321.html

harlem is…Music: Portraits by Carl Van Vechten features original
black-and-white photographs of African-American musicians, singers,
composers, and arrangers–all with a connection to Harlem–whose work
encompassed a variety of musical styles, from blues, jazz, and folk to
classical and show music. Together, their stories create a snapshot
not only of the entertainment world but also of the social and
political milieu of New York in the 1930s through 1950s.

This installation is presented in connection with the Community Works
exhibition, harlem is…Music, at the Lincoln Center Library for the
Performing Arts and is made possible by funding from the New York
Council for the Humanities, a state affiliate of the National
Endowment for the Humanities.
   
 __________________



OCTAVIA BUTLER BOOK CLUB TRIBUTE TO HER LIFE AND WORK
MARCH 25, 2006 at 6 PM

Hue-Man Bookstore & Cafe
2319 Frederick Douglass Blvd
Between 124th and 125th Streets
New York, NY 10027