A list of upcoming deadlines for musician/dancer/artist grants, fellowships, and more. To be featured here, please email tabitha@artsforart.org

RAUSCHENBERG DANCER EMERGENCY GRANTS | DEADLINE AUG. 19TH | This program provides one-time grants of up to $5,000 to professional dancers in need, who have a dire financial emergency due to the COVID-19 pandemic and its consequences. Our aim is to allow dancers to move forward and gain stability by providing up to three months of essential expenses. You must demonstrate an urgent and critical need for emergency support in order to apply. LEARN MORE 

MID ATLANTIC ARTS USArtists International | DEADLINE SEPT. 1ST | Support for the presentation and touring of performing artists is central to the work of Mid Atlantic Arts. USAI® supports in-person and virtual performances by American artists at engagements at international festivals and global presenting arts marketplaces outside of the United States. The program funds individuals and ensembles across all performing arts practices and disciplines. LEARN MORE 

ALICE M. DITSON FUND FOR RECORDING PROJECTS | OPENS OCT. 15TH | Provides grants for non-profit professional or student performance ensembles, presenting institutions and non-profit or commercial recording companies. Most grants range between $1000 and $5000. LEARN MORE 

FOUNDATION FOR CONTEMPORARY ARTS EMERGENCY GRANTS | ROLLING DEADLINE | Created in 1993 to further FCA's mission to encourage, sponsor, and promote work of a contemporary, experimental nature, Emergency Grants provide urgent funding for visual and performing artists who have sudden unanticipated opportunities to show their work in public and/or who incur unexpected expenses for projects close to completion with committed presentation dates. LEARN MORE 

NEW MUSIC USA REEL CHANGE FILM FUND | ROLLING DEADLINE | Reel Change is a five-year grants and mentorship program for composers of diverse backgrounds who have been marginalized in film composition. LEARN MORE 

Arts for Art and The Vision Festival stand for ideals. We stand for Freedom & Justice

"All human life is sacred. A woman's life is sacred. A child's life is sacred. A fetus is not more worthy of our protection than its mother. Our humanity is at risk. Vote in the primaries. Vote for democracy. Vote for humanity. Act with humanity and compassion. Never give up. Our spirit is undying and filled with love. We must continuously stand up for compassion and justice. Honor women and children and all of life. Let us support each other as people of Vision and as people of compassion."

                                                                 -Patricia Nicholson, Arts for Art Founder & Artistic Director

2022 Primary Election Dates, from time of publication forward
Vote early if you can!

June 28, 2022

• Colorado
• Illinois
• New York (more info)
• Oklahoma
• Utah

July 19, 2022

• Maryland 

August 2, 2022

• Arizona
• Kansas
• Michigan
• Missouri
• Washington

August 4, 2022

• Tennessee

August 9, 2022

• Connecticut
• Minnesota
• Vermont
• Wisconsin

August 13, 2022

• Hawaii

August 16, 2022

• Alaska
• Wyoming

August 23, 2022

• Florida
• New York* (NY Congressional Primaries; more info)

September 6, 2022

• Massachusetts

September 13, 2022

• Delaware
• New Hampshire
• Rhode Island

November 8, 2022

• Louisiana

To view an interactive calendar that includes number of incumbents by party in each state's major races, and for other information regarding upcoming elections, please visit The New York Times' 2022 Midterm Primary Election Calendar. SHARE THIS TO SPREAD THE WORD!

Vision Festival 2022 Conference: Legacies of Black Creative Music - A Path Towards Justice

A poem by Patricia Nicholson

Shown: Young adults creating a mural in Pittsburgh.

We cannot stand by while they gun us down
We cannot stand by while they gun down our children 
How many too many How Many Too Many
The prayers of the hypocrites rub salt in the wounds of we who grieve
These people who cry for their rite of guns
Claim control of women's bodies
Out of respect for the life of the unborn while they fail to protect the Child
They are stewing in their hate
Let us Resist Resist Never Give Up

We offer up music to heal spirits and souls
Music filled with love outrage and compassion
​

A very special selection of songs, curated by Patricia Nicholson & Eriq Robinson.
​
PLEASE NOTE: The Soundcloud playlist below autoplays. To take it off and explore the individual tracks shown below, hit PAUSE on the Soundcloud player. Also note, not all selections in the master list are in the Soundcloud playlist (for copyright reasons). All songs included here have been submitted by the artists themselves for this project and all selections are featured here with permission.

Issues accessing the Soundcloud playlist emebdded here? Click this SECRET LINK.

Music for the Children - Full List

​“PARK: Observe, Strut” by Cooper-Moore Unreleased (c) 2022 geney. ashton Created -performed by Cooper-Moore

​Where is Home - Sam Newsome & Lucian Ban from “The Romanian - American Jazz Suite” (Jazzaway Records 2008) with Sam Newsome (soprano saxophone) and Lucian Ban (Piano)

​FIND THIS ON APPLE MUSIC

Time for Change - Nicole Mitchell from “Hope, Future and Destiny” (Dreamtime 2004), with Nicole Mitchell’s Black Earth Ensemble: Nicole Mitchell (flute, vocals, composition), David Boykin (tenor sax), Corey Wilkes (trumpet), Bryan Nichols (piano), Josh Abrams (bass), Arveeayl Ra (drumset) Juan Pablo Carletti( “interferences” and tongue drum)

FIND THIS ON SPOTIFY

Recall - William Parker from the album “Migration of Silence Into and Out of The Tone World” (Centering Records 2021) with William Parker (bass) and Raina Sokolov Gonzalez (voice).

​FIND THIS ON BANDCAMP
​

With the Morning, Hope - Steve Swell ​​from the album "Slammin' the Infinite" (Cadence Jazz Records, 2003) with Sabir Mateen (flute), Matt Heyner (bass), Klaus Kugel (drums).

​FIND THIS ON APPLE MUSIC
​

Is This a Joke - Ava Mendoza from “Unnatural Ways” (New Atlantis 2015)  with Ava Mendoza  (guitar), Dominique Leone (keys), and Nick Tamburro (drums).

FIND THIS ON BANDCAMP
​

Broken Earth - William Parker from the album "Flower In a Stained-Glass Window & The Blinking of The Ear" with William Parker (bass), Leena Conquest (vocals), Steve Swell (trombone), Abraham Mennen (tenor sax), Isaiah Parker (piano), Kesivan Naidoo (drums).

​FIND THIS ON BANDCAMP
​

Nature Boy (Radio Version) - Dave Sewelson from the album "Smooth, FreeJazz" (Mahakala Music 2022) with Mike Neer (lap steel guitar), Bernice "Boom Boom" Brooks (drums), Dave Hofstra (bass).

​FIND THIS ON BANDCAMP
​

To Be Alone - Mara Rosenbloom from “Songs from the Ground” with Mara Rosenbloom (solo piano).

FIND THIS ON BANDCAMP

Seashore - Fay Victor from the album “Absinthe & Vermouth” (Greene Avenue Music 2013) with Fay Victor (voice), Anders Nilsson (guitar), Ken Filiano (double bass).

​FIND THIS ON BANDCAMP
​

Alpha Omega - Tracie Morris & Elliott Sharp from "Morrisharp Duality" (zOaR Records 2021) with Tracie Morris (voice), and Elliott Sharp (guitar).

​FIND THIS ON BANDCAMP
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3Billie - Brandon Lopez Unreleased with Brandon Lopez (bass).

​memories for jake - Qire from “Black Sheep People” (2014) with Eriq Robinson (synths, electronics).

​FIND THIS ON BANDCAMP
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Soledad Saboteur - Anteloper from “Tour Beats Vol. 1” (International Anthem 2020) with Jaimie Branch (trumpet, synths), Jason Nazary (drums/synths), and “Young Solé” (vocals).

​FIND THIS ON BANDCAMP
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Moon Hunger - Joshua Abrams from Represencing (Eremite Records 2020) with Joshua Abrams (guimbri, harmonium, ms20, composition), and David Boykin (tenor saxophone).

​FIND THIS ON BANDCAMP
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Without Habits - Leo Chang (vocalnori and piri)

​FIND THIS ON BANDCAMP
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Don’t Go Crazy - Oliver Lake from “Jump Up” (Gramavision 1982) with Oliver Lake (saxophone), Pheeroan Aklaff (drums), Jerome Harris (synth), Brandon Ross (guitar), Billy Grant (bass)

FIND THIS ON SPOTIFY

To Be - Luke Stewart  Unreleased

Relief - Mara Rosenbloom from “Songs from the Ground” with Mara Rosenbloom (solo piano).

FIND THIS ON BANDCAMP
​

Hover - Gerald Cleaver from “Adjust” (Fresh Sound New Talent (2001) with Gerald Cleaver (drums), Reid Anderson (Bass), Andrew Bishop (soprano sax), Ben Monder (Guitar), Craig Taborn (Keyboards).

​FIND THIS ON BANDCAMP

As we ramp up for The Vision Festival in New York City next month, Arts for Art has created a very special livestream event for you. On TUESDAY, MAY 24TH @ 7 PM EASTERN TIME, you can support Arts for Art & The Vision Festival by purchasing tickets for:

Celebrating Wadada Leo Smith & Oliver Lake: A Special Livestream Fundraiser
GET YOUR TICKETS - LIVESTREAM ONLY, STREAMING WORLDWIDE

This limited livestream-only event features Wadada Leo Smith & Oliver Lake talking about their life’s work and performing a short solo each. You will get an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at two titans of FreeJazz, in performance and conversation, before they accept their Vision Festival Lifetime Achievement Awards on June 21 and June 26, respectively.

Please get your tickets at Eventbrite and donate generously to benefit Arts for Art/ The Vision Festival & our 2022 Lifetime Achievement Award honorees!

For more information on The Vision Festival, please visit artsforart.org/vision

April is Jazz History Month/ Jazz Appreciation Month. In celebration, we've asked our resident armchair historian, Bill Mazza,  to share the most essential Free Jazz literature picks. With every new #JazzHistoryMonth social media post, we will expand this list of links to purchase pages for referenced works, provided they are still in print. To follow along in real time, follow @artsforart on Instagram.

That same year of 1966 also saw publication of A.B. Spellman’s seminal Four Lives In The Bebop Business: Ornette Coleman, Herbie Nichols, Jackie McLean, and Cecil Taylor, notable not only for Spellman’s examination of the then-controversial musics of artists like Coleman and Taylor, but also for it’s mix of biography leaning heavily on the artist’s own words and the insight into the social, professional, and economic challenges the life presented for even the most notable voices in the scene.

1960s BOOK LIST:
Blues People 
Four Jazz Lives 
Black Music  

1970s edition, a decade of liberation movements, outspoken artists like Archie Shepp and Bill Dixon, and Free Jazz Lit was in full swing. 1970 saw both Valerie Wilmer’s “Jazz People,” whose format helped establish oral history as a primary methodology for Free Jazz writing, and Frank Kofsky’s “Black Nationalism and the Revolution In Music (later expanded as “John Coltrane and the Jazz Revolution of the 1960s”), with Kofsky approaching the music and industry from a Marxist perspective. 

In 1977 Valerie Wilmer’s groundbreaking, “As Serious As Your Life,” also leaned heavily on oral history but also offered cogent context for the shifts birthing the often misunderstood and maligned ‘free’ music. Wilmer’s book is also perhaps the first to apply feminist theory to the scene by including a chapter on how the mostly male scene was often subsidized anonymously by partners, most often women, whose incomes helped offset the economic realities of an industry offering little support. Finally, drummer Arthur Taylor’s, “Notes and Tones: Musician to Musician Interviews" (1977) added to the lively conversation.

1970s BOOK LIST:
Jazz People 
John Coltrane and the Jazz Revolution of the 1960s 
Free Jazz / Black Power 
John Coltrane 
Notes and Tones 

Loft Jazz

With perfect subjectivity, let’s give special attention to “Loft Jazz: Improvising New York in the 1970s” by Michael Heller (2017, University of California Press) who — full disclosure — was on staff with AFA / Vision while researching some of this book. Or, as William Parker blurbs on the back cover, “A long-awaited, in-depth study of the loft music phenomena of the 1970s. Based on firsthand accounts, it tells the story of musicians, largely African American, in this time of intense creativity and of self-determination. It is a story that needs to be told as the musical evolution, largely ignored, continues into the present.”.

Heller’s excellent book, along with the histories of various overlapping and interlaced artist cooperatives, collectives, and community centers across the US, foregrounds the development of music intimately tied not only to the resurgent popularity of Free Jazz, but also to the fabrics of better documented popular (often white) music to follow in the punk rock, art rock and indie rock scenes of the 80s, and/or the experimental chamber music scene.

Whether tracing the history of DIY music and art in post-war US, or the shift in dominance from light-opera to blues vocals throughout the 20th century, or the broadening acceptance of dissonance and an expansion from the 12-tone scale, these paths are rooted in Jazz, and most often lead up through branches of free jazz and creative music. Heller’s book helps map this journey.

LOFT JAZZ BOOK LIST:
Loft Jazz: Improvising New York in the 1970s

Biography

​Even before critical writing on Free Jazz (and even Just Jazz) started to expand in the 1960s, a lot of the history of the music was mostly available through biography and auto-biography. Biography continues to be an excellent source for piecing together the context of the music’s development, though much like the scene itself up through the new millennium, the publishing centers almost exclusively on men in the field. Which hopefully will change to reflect this millennium's hard-won progress in that area...

Here are some favorites in order of publication:

01. "Forces in Motion: Anthony Braxton and the Meta-reality of Creative Music: Interviews and Tour Notes, England 1985" by Graham Lock (1988)by 

02. "Ornette Coleman: A Harmolodic Life" by John Litweiler (1992)

03. "Space Is The Place: The Lives And Times Of Sun Ra," John F. Szwed (1998)

04. "Dixonia: A Bio-Discography of Bill Dixon" by Ben Young (1998)

05. "The William Parker A work in progress," by Rick Lopez (2014)

06. "Music to Silence to Music: A Biography of Henry Grimes" by Barbara Ina Frenz (2015)

07. "Universal Tonality: The Life and Music of William Parker" by Cisco Bradly (2021)

BONUS, not Free Jazz but adjacent:

08. "I Put a Spell On You: The Autobiography of Nina Simone" (1991)

09. "The Last Holiday: A Memoir" by Gil Scott-Heron (2012)

*Links for each book are above; click on book titles.

Jazz Women
​
No secret that Jazz / Free Jazz fell behind other musical genres in gender parity both recorded and on-stage. Therefore this post veers off the Free Jazz focus to writings by and about women in Jazz. As women’s liberation and 2nd wave feminism set out to reclaim women’s history, music was included. As early as the 1960s we saw a resurfacing of women traditional jazz and classic blues artists like Ida Cox, Alberta Hunter, Billie Pierce, Victoria Spivey, and Lil Green, and revival projects like Rosetta Records, founded in 1979 by jazz historian and feminist Rosetta Reitz.

By the 1980s we began to see historical & contemporary writing by and about women in jazz. Here's a sample:

1. “Jazzwomen: 1900 to the present” (my computer just autocorrected “jazzwomen” to “jazzmen.” Twice. BTW) by Sally Placksin (1982)

2. “Stormy Weather: The music and Lives of a Century of Jazzwomen” Linda Dahl (1984) — also a biographer of Mary Lou Williams

3. “Mama Said There’d Be Days Like This: My Life In The Jazz World,” by Val Wilmer (1989), wherein the author/photographer talks about being a white, lesbian covering the Free Jazz scene

4. “Mad At Miles: A Blackwoman’s Guide to Truth,” by Pearl Cleage (1990). Not technically a jazz book, this Cleage Group pub uses the jazz world as one starting point to discuss Black feminism

5. “Madame Jazz: Contemporary Women Instrumentalists” Leslie Gourse (1995)

6. “Giving Birth to Sound: Women in Creative Music” co-edited by Renate Da Rin and William Parker (2015)

7 & 8. “The Art Of Being True: M³ Anthology of Essays," edited by Jordannah Elizabeth (2022). Also not a 'jazz' book but an anthology "archive of writings that takes control of the narrative with regard to the work of underrepresented musicians" including free jazz and improv musicians.

*View all covers in our original Instagram post
​
*Book links are above; click on book titles. Please note, not all titles are linked because some books are out of print.
​

4. Intervalss Book 2: More Poems & Words of Musicians (2001), with writing my musicians complied by poet Steven Dalachinsky and Herschel Silverman, with layout by Yuko Otomo.
​
5. Fred Ho - Wicked Theory, Naked Practice (2009)

The 80s-on, and new writing about the new music

Not even the music industry was immune to the nostalgic conservatism of the Reagan era, as the business of jazz turned away from the experimental, and toward familiar sounds of bop, hard bop, and 'classic' jazz. However, the literature about Free Jazz—and it’s relevance both domestically and as part of a global or ‘world’ music—kept growing, as did both listeners, and generations of young musicians increasing exposed to the music though performances by the elders and via digital archives and reissues of even the most obscure, often self-released, titles. Here’s a too-short list of favorite books from the last four decades working to meet the music on its own terms. I find the best writing on Free Jazz tends to move away from traditional criticism, exploring social context and new methodologies. Only five titles listed here - please share your own favorites books in the comments.

1. "The Freedom Principle: Jazz After 1958" by John Litweiler (1984), important critical historic look at the lineage of post-Bop experimentation, following the innovations of the elders.

2. "Avant-Garde Jazz Musicians: Performing 'Out There' " by David G. Such (1993), taking a deep dive into interviews and performance practice with musicians in the "out jazz" scene, as well as cultural context, to broaden conversations.

3. "Blutopia: Visions of the Future and Revisions of the Past in the Work of Sun Ra, Duke Ellington, and Anthony Braxton" by Graham Lock (1999)

4. "The Fierce Urgency of Now: Improvisation, Rights, and the Ethics of Cocreation" by Daniel Fischlin, Ajay Heble, George Lipsitz (2013), collaboratively written about relationship between improvisational practice and the dynamics of human rights struggles.

​ 5. "Epistrophies: Jazz and the Literary Imagination" by Brent Hayes Edwards (2017), wherein the author examines the written or spoken textual aspects of jazz that are often overlooked, including scat, liner notes, poetry, and song titles, to complexify meaning in jazz practice.

​*Book links are above; click on book titles. Please note, not all titles are linked because some books are out of print.

The Poets: First Generation (See all book photos for this post)
The Free Jazz movement has been multi-arts since it's inception. We've covered artists cooperatives and collectives where musicians interacted freely with dancers, poets, and visual artists. But this post looks at some of that first generation of jazz-linked authors identified primarily as writers.
​​
Amiri Baraka often wove in and out of music whether talking horns in "Am/Trak" (1979), or "In the Tradition (for Black Arthur Blythe) (1980), or "Later Trane" (2003), or this 2001 brochure for a performance of the band "Blue Ark"

Jayne Cortez recorded 9 albums of poetry music in addition to her published work. Pictured are "Scarifications" (1973), "Mouth on Paper" (1977), and two later in-print collections "Jazz Fan Looks Back" (2002) and Jayne Cortez: On the Imperial Highway (2009)

Ted Joans - surrealist, Beat, musician, and painter - published "Black Pow-Wow" (1969) and "A Black Manifesto in Jazz Poetry and Prose" (1971) Nikki Giovanni - Black Arts Movement member, activist, and recording artist published "Recreation" (1970) with poems written for Aretha Franklin and Nina Simone.

Sonia Sanchez, another Black Arts Movement member started publishing in the late 60s but pictured here is "Does Your House Have Lions" (1998), whose title is taken from a conversation between Joel Dorn and Rahsaan Roland Kirk. Sekou Sunidata published "FREE!" in 1977 but is perhaps best known as an organizer, educator, recording artist and collaborator including his long-working association with Craig Harris.

Anne Waldman continues to shape poetry and performance with both the cadence of her readings and her ongoing live and recorded collaborations with musicians. Pictured here is "Fast Speaking Woman" (1974), the year the New York School poet co-founded the influential Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poets.

​​*Book links are above; click on book titles. Please note, not all titles are linked because some books are out of print.

Vision Poets
And, to follow up on the post from yesterday (of first and second gen Free Jazz poets), here's a mixtape of poets who've appeared at recent Vision Festivals (and if you aren't featured here it's not because we don't love you, it's just a space and time thing-  aren't relativities the worst?)

1. Yoko Otomo - two examples from this longtime Vision poet and visual artist, "Pink" (2007, Sisyphus Press), and "Study" (2013, Ugly Duckling Presse), cover designed by the author

2. Steven Dalachinsky, poet, performer, critic, visual artist, "Trust Fund Babies" featuring collage art by Dalachinsky on the cover (2011, Unlikely Books)​

3. Patricia Spears Jones, "A Lucent Fire" (2015, White Pine Press)

4. Fred Moten, "Black and Blur" (2017, Duke University Press), a collection of interrelated essays by the poet and academic

5. Latasha N. Nevada Diggs, "Twerk" (2013, Balladonna*) by the interdisciplinary poet and sound artist

6. David Mills, poet and playwright, "The Sudden Country" (2013, Main Street Rag)

7. Thomas Sayers Ellis, poet, photographer, and founding member of the band Heroes are Gang Leaders. Shown here is "Crank Shaped Notes" (2021, Arrowsmith Smith Press)

​ 8. Camae Ayewa (Moor Mother), poet, musician, and activist, and co-leader of Irreversible Entanglements with "Fetish Bones" (2016, The Afrofuturist Affair/House of Future Sciences Books) and "Analog Fluids" (2019, The Afrofuturist Affair/House of Future Sciences Books)

​*Book links are above; click on book titles. Please note, not all titles are linked because some books are out of print.

International friends and followers of Arts for Art on social media have been inquiring about Virtual/ Livestream ticketing availability for the Vision Festival: A Light in Darkness (June 21-26, 2022). Daily Livestream passes are available on Eventbrite for just $15 + $2.55 USD in Eventbrite fees. If you can't make it to NYC this summer or you'd simply prefer to attend the Vision Festival remotely this year, you can review daily lineups and click through to get your Livestream Tickets using the links provided below. See in-person day pass tickets via Eventbrite here. 

> Download the 2022 Vision Festival Program we are handing out at Roulette and The Clemente. You can also view it at the bottom of this post!

Now, here are the day-by-day breakdowns and direct links to all Livestream ticketing pages:

Day 1- JUNE 21 | Wadada Leo Smith: Celebrating a Lifetime of Achievement
FEATURING: Wadada Leo Smith - trumpet / Pheeroan akLaff – drums / Thulani Davis - poet with RedKoral Quartet: Shalini Vijayan – violin / Mona Tian – violin / Andrew McIntosh – viola / Ashley Walters – cello Purple Kikuyu: Erika Dohi – piano / Sylvie Courvoisier – piano / Shalini Vijayan – violin / Mona Tian – violin / Andrew McIntosh – viola / Ashley Walters – cello

• SEE DAY 1 PROGRAM/ SCHEDULE
• GET YOUR LIVESTREAM TICKETS

Day 2- JUNE 22 | Matthew Shipp Quartet / Staircase in Space / Fearon + McGinnis / Heart Trio / Rothenberg + Courvoisier + Drake
FEATURING: Matthew Shipp Quartet | Matthew Shipp – piano / Jason Kao Hwang – violin / Michael Bisio – bass / Jay Rosen – drums Staircase in Space | Whit Dickey – drums / Rob Brown – alto sax / Mat Maneri – viola / Brandon Lopez – bass Davalois Fearon – dance / Mike McGinnis – sax Heart Trio | William Parker – bass, percussion / Hamid Drake – drums, frame drum / Cooper-Moore – homemade instruments Ned Rothenberg – reeds / Sylvie Courvoisier – piano / Hamid Drake – drums

• SEE DAY 2 PROGRAM/ SCHEDULE
• GET YOUR LIVESTREAM TICKETS

Day 3- JUNE 23 |  Yoshiko Chuma and The School of Hard Knocks / C’est Trois / Unnameable Element / Red Lily Quartet / Nicole Mitchell Ensemble
​FEATURING: Yoshiko Chuma, Miriam Parker, Emily Mare Pope - dance / Jason Kao Hwang – violin / Steve Swell – trombone / Christopher Mclntyre – trombone jaimie branch – trumpet/ Luke Stewart – bass / Tcheser Holmes – drums Leo Chang – voice, piri/ Chris Williams – trumpet / Lester St. Louis – cello / Miriam Parker – movement James Brandon Lewis – tenor sax / Kirk Knuffke – cornet / William Parker – bass / Chad Taylor – drums Nicole Mitchell - flutes, composition / Ken Filiano – bass / Joshua White - piano / Val Jeanty – electronics, percussion / Terri Lyne Carrington – drums

• SEE DAY 3 PROGRAM/ SCHEDULE
• GET YOUR LIVESTREAM TICKETS

Day 4- JUNE 24 |  Isaiah Collier & The Chosen Few / SPARKS / Ahmed Abdullah & Francisco Mora Catlett / Angelica Sanchez Trio / Fay Victor’s SoundNoiseFUNK
​FEATURING: Isaiah Collier / Eri Yamamoto / William Parker /Ahmed Abdullah / Francisco Mora Catlett /Angelica Sanchez / Fay Victor / Sam Newsome ... and many others!

• SEE DAY 4 PROGRAM/ SCHEDULE
• GET YOUR LIVESTREAM TICKETS

​Day 5- JUNE 25 | Music is Mine Vision Ensemble / Jason Kao Hwang / Knife & Rose / Watershed / Monique Ngozi Nri & Ahmed Abdullah / Natural Information Society
FEATURING: AFA's student band, "Music is Mine" directed by William Parker, PLUS Hamid Drake, Jason Kao Hwang, Patricia Nicholson, Steve Swell, Karen Borca, Monique Ngozi Nri & Ahmed Abdullah, Joshua Abrams ...and many others!

• SEE DAY 5 PROGRAM/ SCHEDULE
• GET YOUR LIVESTREAM TICKETS

​Day 6- Oliver Lake: Celebrating a Lifetime of Achievement
FEATURING: Oliver Lake, Andrew Cyrille, JD Parran, World Saxophone Quartet...and many others!

• SEE DAY 6 PROGRAM/ SCHEDULE
• GET YOUR LIVESTREAM TICKETS

Questions? Email us at info@artsforart.org

Read the official Press Release and schedule announcement in the Blog Post below.
​If you're looking for the FULL Vision Festival schedule, ticketing & venue information click:

“New York’s ICONIC free-jazz festival…keeping its central focus on radical improvisation and political engagement.” - The New York Times

“...one of New York’s most essential art events.”- The New York Times

NEW YORK CITY | Announcing the FULL SCHEDULE AND LINEUP OF PERFORMERS for Vision Festival 26, “A Light in Darkness” - bringing together the bright, beautiful voices of hundreds of artists in the vibrant Arts for Art (AFA) community to showcase the FreeJazz aesthetic of creative improvisation. AFA’s Artists are prepared to BE THE LIGHT with sights and sounds of hope and peace. In addition to the exciting lineup of performers across six nights and two New York City venues, this year The Vision Festival will celebrate the Lifetime Achievement of not one, but TWO titans of FreeJazz: Wadada Leo Smith and Oliver Lake. Mr. Smith and Mr. Lake have curated their evenings to share with us what they feel is most important to their legacies.

On the opening night of the festival (June 21st, 2022), Wadada Leo Smith will present new works that celebrate the heroism of Flight 93 In “Pennsylvania’s Sky: No Greater Love - A Remembrance of Their Beauty & Courage.” Mr. Smith’s performance will serve to punctuate 80 years, in a career full of enough achievements for several lifetimes. On the closing night of The Vision Festival (June 26th, 2022), AFA pays tribute to Oliver Lake’s legacy--from his early years as a co-founder of Black Arts Group (BAG) in St. Louis--with a multi-discipline work by JD Parran, as well as Oliver Lake’s own new piece entitled “Justice.” The final night of The Vision Festival will also feature a special performance of the World Saxophone Quartet. Mr. Smith and Mr. Lake join a venerable pantheon of FreeJazz pioneers in receiving the Vision Festival Lifetime Achievement Award including Amina Claudine Myers, Andrew Cyrille, Peter Brotzmann, Cooper-Moore, Milford Graves, Sam Rivers and Kidd Jordan.

Celebrating boundless improvisation and community in the diverse languages of FreeJazz with social justice has been AFA’s credo since 1996. Acknowledging and holding space for the African American voices that defined this aesthetic has been our commitment and our struggle. The artists change, the world changes, but the message remains and AFA continues to bring together varied generations of boundary-breaking, FreeJazz arts that are expressive of the important African American creative lineage and multiculturalism that the genre has embraced.  As such, the lineup is varied and inclusive. The artists define the genre. The genre does not define the artist.

The theme of this years’ festival is “A Light In Darkness.” This is a quote from a song written by William Parker in the late 1970s and “A Light” is what the Artist is called to be as people across the globe struggle to stay safe while fear and tyranny walk hand in hand, and justice and freedom seem to be losing ground. The bright light of Creativity with Compassion is what will be our guide; as it becomes safer and we become smarter about how to navigate our new normal, we’ll gather to shine the light on our shared Vision for a better world.

About the Vision Festival
In 1996 the First Annual Vision Festival took place at The Learning Alliance on Lafayette Street near Houston Street in NYC. The idea was to bring together luminaries from the different avant-garde music scenes and, for the first time since the Sound Unity Festivals in the mid ‘80s, celebrate the important African American leaders of the music. Featuring artist Milford Graves, that first Vision Festival was unique in its multi-arts focus featuring poets such as Amiri Baraka, dancers such as Rod Rogers, and visual artists such as Jeff Schlanger, in collaboration with the music.    Each year the Vision Festival also brought attention to issues of social justice by curating panel discussions, such as “Decolonizing the Music: Reclaiming the Power of Creative Music in Communities of Color” and “How Funding Affects Creative Choices.” The Vision Festival has created and guaranteed a space for improvisation as a leading creative language, and has been heralded as “one of New York’s most essential art events” (New York Times). The Vision Festival continues to honor and amplify the careers of legendary artists who are too often under-appreciated, such as aforementioned 2022 honorees Wadada Leo Smith and Oliver Lake, as well as Fred Anderson, Kidd Jordan, Bill Dixon, Sam Rivers, Connie Crothers, and many others.

About Arts For Art
Since its inception in 1996, the nonprofit Arts for Art (AFA) and its founder and Artistic Director Patricia Nicholson Parker have advocated for human rights and justice, and in support of FreeJazz improvised music and art. FreeJazz is recognized for its variety of highly developed and personalized improvisational languages. AFA works to preserve the legacy of FreeJazz through its multi-arts programming, as well as ensuring the vital future for the improvised arts through their reimagining by new generations of artists. AFA works to ensure that future through music education and mentoring programs offered free to those in need.

About Lifetime Achievement Honoree, Wadada Leo Smith
Trumpeter, multi-instrumentalist and composer Wadada Leo Smith is one of the most boldly original and influential artists of his time. Transcending the bounds of genre or idiom, he distinctly defines his music, tirelessly inventive in both sound and approach, as "Creative Music." For the last five decades, Smith has been a member of the legendary AACM collective, pivotal in its wide-open perspectives on music and art in general. He has carried those all-embracing concepts into his own work, expanding upon them in myriad ways. READ MORE.

About Lifetime Achievement Honoree, Oliver Lake
In 1968, inspired by Association for the Advancement of Creative Music and the Black Arts Movement, Oliver Lake co-founded the famed Black Artist Group (BAG) to bring together young black creatives of St. Louis, find spaces and venues for their creativity, and opportunity for multi-disciplined collaborations. Mr. Lake helped manage BAG, bringing together musicians, actors, poets, playwrights, painters, and dancers. Regarding BAG, Mr. Lake stated in 2014: “There is no separation in what we did. It’s all one thing. And that’s part of the philosophy of the Black Artist Group. And it ended up being my philosophy. I am open to all forms.”  READ MORE.

VISION FESTIVAL DATES ARE
June 19-20- Film Screenings
​June 21st - 25th: Performances at Roulette 509 Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11217 Starting at 7 PM
June 26th: Performances at La Plaza at The Clemente (outdoors) 114 Norfolk Street, New York, NY 10002 Starting at 5 PM

#Vision26 |  #VisionFestival | #Vision2022

MORE:

• To view the full, up-to-date schedule, please visit artsforart.org/vision
• For press inquiries, please emailtabitha@artsforart.org
• Access the Digital Press Kit (Dropbox) ​

Arts for Art will honor two foundational Free Jazz musicians during the 26th Annual Vision Festival this summer. Wadada Leo Smith, as a member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (Chicago), and Oliver Lake, as a founding member of Black Artist Group (St. Louis), forged an inclusive path for the independent cultivation of radical black arts. Many artists and organizations, Arts for Art included, continue to navigate the terrains made clearer by their on-going legacies. 

Mr. Lake has been on the leading edge of creative black multi-dimensional art since founding the Black Artist Group in St. Louis and then joining the New York “Loft” scene in the early 1970s. He has continuously developed a singular repertoire including: a classic recording career with the World Saxophone Quartet, Trio 3, and his own big band and small ensembles in a range of styles; countless compositions; visual art exhibitions; published poetry; and the forming of his Passin Thru’ record label. 

On June 26th, the Vision Festival pays tribute to Mr. Lake’s legacy by highlighting and celebrating the multi-dimensionality of his artistry. The Festival will host:

• A 3-week exhibition of Mr. Lake’s visual art at The Clemente’s LES Art Gallery
• Oliver Lake will premier his new work, entitled “Justice”, performed by Philadelphia based Sonic Liberation Front, supplemented by alto, tenor, and soprano vocalists.  
• The entire evening will feature works by Oliver Lake, including a rare performance of the World Saxophone Quartet

Mr. Lake is a Vision Festival mainstay. The Inaugural Vision Festival presented Trio 3 with special guests Andy Bemkey and Amiri Baraka. Since then, Mr. Lake has made eleven Vision Festival appearances. For his lifetime of creativity, and for forging a path for so many other artists, Arts for Art is thrilled to welcome Mr. Lake into the pantheon of legendary Vision Lifetime honorees.

“Oliver Lake is an amazing musician and poet, a true artist.  He has been a real support for younger musicians, showing up with words of encouragement.  He has been an inspiration for me,  to always dig deeper.”  James Brandon Lewis
​
Additional festival details including performances, schedules, tickets, and more to be announced soon at https://www.artsforart.org/vision

About Oliver Lake
In 1968, inspired by Association for the Advancement of Creative Music and the Black Arts Movement, Oliver Lake co-founded the famed Black Artist Group (BAG) to bring together young black creatives of St. Louis, find spaces and venues for their creativity, and opportunity for multi-disciplined collaborations. Mr. Lake helped manage BAG, bringing together musicians, actors, poets, playwrights, painters, and dancers. Regarding BAG, Mr. Lake stated in 2014: “There is no separation in what we did. It’s all one thing. And that’s part of the philosophy of the Black Artist Group. And it ended up being my philosophy. I am open to all forms.” 

To pursue his musical career, he and other BAG musicians moved to Paris in 1972 where he recorded his first album Point from Which Creation Begins, subsequently released in 1976. Upon his return from Paris, Mr. Lake settled in New York and firmly established himself in the “Loft” jazz scene of the 1970’s. Since then, he went on to produce a body of work that is both expansive and versatile enough to avoid falling solely into the trappings of any single labeling of his art.

In 1977, Kidd Jordan invited Oliver Lake, Hamiet Bluiett, David Murray and Julius Hemphill to form a quartet, later named The World Saxophone Quartet.  They went on to tour internationally, earned a rare major label recording deal with Elektra, expanded the audience of Free Jazz during a decade of its dwindling recognition, and were described by the New York Times as “the most original and important group to emerge since Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane redefined group improvisation in the late ‘50’s.”

Oliver Lake’s work can stand on compositional merit alone, all while he has etched a place for himself as one of the elite saxophone players and improvisers, is a testament to Oliver Lake’s stature as an artist.

The caliber and originality of his compositions have been highlighted in commissions awarded from the Library of Congress, the Rockefeller Foundation, ASCAP, the International Association for Jazz Education, Composers Forum, and the McKim Foundation. Mr. Lake received both the Guggenheim Fellowship and the Mellon Jazz Living Legacy Award at the Kennedy Center in 2006. In 2014, Mr. Lake was appointed for the prestigious Doris Duke Artist Award, a multi-year grant awarded to American artists in the fields of jazz, theater and dance. 

An extensive resume of his collaborations includes work with the Brooklyn Philharmonic, Flux String Quartet, Bjork, Lou Reed, A Tribe Called Quest, Mos Def, Me’shell Ndegeocello, Anthony Braxton, James Blood Ulmer, William Parker, Vijay Iyer, Reggie Workman, Andrew Cyrille and a veritable who’s who of the jazz vanguard. 

A trailblazer through and through, Oliver Lake continues to produce in the vociferous, uncompromising way that is his. 

RELATED: See the FULL PRESS RELEASE for Wadada Leo Smith

About The Vision Festival
In 1996 the First Annual Vision Festival took place at The Learning Alliance on Lafayette near Houston. The idea was to bring together luminaries from the different Avantgarde music scenes and, for the first time  since the Sound Unity Festivals in the mid ‘80s, celebrate the important African American leaders of the music. Featuring artist Milford Graves, that first Vision Festival was unique in its multi-arts focus featuring poets such as Amiri Baraka, dancers such as Rod Rogers, and visual artists such as Jeff Schlanger, in collaboration with the music. 

Each year the Vision Festival also brought attention to issues of social justice by curating panel discussions, such as “Decolonizing the Music: Reclaiming the Power of Creative Music in Communities of Color” or “How Funding Affects Creative Choices.”  

In its totality the Vision Festival created and guaranteed a space for improvisation as a leading creative language, heralded as “one of New York’s most essential art events” (New York Times).

In the current political and cultural climate, Arts for Art’s credo is felt more strongly than ever – using powerful music and art as expressions of commitment to life and justice. Past festival titles have included A Vision Against Violence, Avant Jazz For Peace, Studies in Freedom, The Revolution Continues, The Creative Option and Take a Stand.

The Vision Festival continues to honor and amplify the careers of legendary artists that are too often under-appreciated, such as Fred Anderson, Kidd Jordan, Bill Dixon, Sam Rivers, Connie Crothers, and many others.

About Arts for Art
Founded in 1996, AFA’s work is rooted in a commitment to social justice as equity and the promotion and advancement of FreeJazz, an African American indigenous art form in which improvisation is principle. FreeJazz embodies music, dance, poetry and visual arts. It is recognized for its variety of highly developed and personalized improvisational languages. AFA works not only to preserve the legacy of FreeJazz as an African American multicultural art form, but to ensure a vital future through its re-imagination by new generations of artists. AFA offers multi-arts programs throughout the year that fulfill the role of arts in society, that is, to reflect and respond to the world. Our programming brings together multiple generations of vibrant, diverse and highly skilled artists, including the Artists for A Free World project that includes a band directed by William Parker.  AFA cultivates new audiences to protect this unique aesthetic so as to remain contemporary and available. To further our goals of diversity and accessibility, we foster education through our youth programs.

Arts for Art Mission
Arts for Art is dedicated to the exceptional creativity that originated in the African American multi-arts jazz culture that utilizes improvisation to express a larger, more positive dream of inclusion and freedom.

Visit artsforart.org/vision for more information on Vision Festival 26: A Light in Darkness