Jazz is a multicultural music; and these presentations serve our students by amplifying the connection between music and message, between passion and art, between art and life.
Plunky Branch: “Speaking Out”
It is important to highlight Richmond’s own roots in social justice and the arts. Saxophonist J. Plunky Branch is an experienced performer, songwriter, and music and film producer. He is president of his own independent record label, N.A.M.E. Brand Records, through which he has released over 25 albums. His long friendship with revered South African musical statesman Ndikho Xaba and his wife, Nomusa Xaba, with whom VCU students and faculty spent time in Durban, presents a bridge between the civil rights struggles in South Africa and the United States. He has appeared on avant-garde jazz albums by Pharoah Sanders and Hamiett Bluiett and performs rousing funk, R&B, jazz, African, reggae, gospel, and rap.
Plunky has toured Europe and twice toured Ghana, West Africa—once for the Ghana National Commission on Children, and again as a cultural specialist for the U.S. Information Agency. For more than 15 years Plunky has toured with support from the Virginia Commission for the Arts. He is a two-time recipient of NEA Jazz Fellowships and was appointed to the Governor’s Task Force for the Promotion of the Arts in Virginia. In 2015 the Library of Virginia selected Branch as one of the “Strong Men & Women in Virginia History.” His recent book “Plunky: Juju Jazz Funk & Oneness” documents his career in music and arts activism with an insider’s look behind the scenes of the independent Black jazz and soul music business.
Activities would include a multimedia presentation on his history in the arts and in social justice, an exploratory dialogue with students about the times we live in and the times that have led to it, and collaborative rehearsals, leading up to an evening concert of relevant music performed by Plunky with VCU student combos and potentially guest faculty.
John Santos: “Salsa for Social Change”
Seven-time Grammy-nominated percussionist John Santos is one of the foremost exponents of Afro-Latin music in the world today. He was raised in the Puerto Rican and Cape Verdean traditions of his family and has studied informally in New York, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Brazil, and Colombia. Performance credits include Cachao, Dizzy Gillespie, Tito Puente, Bebo Valdés, Max Roach, Eddie Palmieri, Patato Valdés, Paquito D’Rivera, Poncho Sanchez, Danilo Perez, Oscar Castro Neves, Arturo Sandoval, Jovino Santos Neto, and Carlos Santana.
Widely respected as one of the top writers, teachers, and historians in the field, Santos was a member of the Latin Jazz Advisory Committee of the Smithsonian Institution. He is currently part of the faculty at the California Conservatory of Jazz (Berkeley, Calif.), Laney College (Oakland,Calif.), and the College of San Mateo (Calif.) and has contributed to the international magazines Percussive Notes, Modern Drummer, Modern Percussionist, and Latin Percussionist.
Santos has presented the music of “Salsa for Social Change” for over 25 years. The San Francisco Bay Area community has presented him with numerous awards and honors for artistic excellence and social dedication, including receiving the Community Leadership Award from the San Francisco Foundation in 2011. He was presented with the San Francisco Latino Heritage Award in 2012, Certificates of Recognition from the State Assembly and State Senate, and a Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition from the U.S. House of Representatives. In 2013 Brothers on the Rise (Oakland,Calif.) selected him for its Man of the Year Award. A photo of John from 1987 by pioneering Puerto Rican photographer/activist Frank Espada hangs in the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. His work has been recognized and supported by the Monterey Jazz Festival, the Smithsonian Institution, the California Arts Council, United States Artists, the Zellerbach Family Fund, the Fund for Folk Culture, the Ford Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlitt Foundation, the East Bay Community Foundation, the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture, the Creative Work Fund, and the City of Oakland. The City of San Francisco issued a mayoral proclamation declaring November 12, 2006 “John Santos Day.” He is an advisory board member of the Afro Latin Jazz Alliance (NY) and the Oaktown Jazz Workshop (Oakland, Calif.), and a Trustee of SFJAZZ, for whom he served as 2013-2014 Resident Artistic Director.
Santos has directed and recorded numerous award-winning ensembles with special guests from Puerto Rico, Cuba, New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, mostly on his Machete Records label that he founded in 1984 and continues today.
“Salsa for Social Change” draws upon the historical role of Salsa music and its precursors as documentor of a social reality from the perspective of resistance—and how that positive thread remained vital despite commercial, industry, and other internal and external pressures. The presentation to students includes recorded examples from the last 100 years, with exploratory dialogue regarding the present. The performance element of the residency would focus on half of the VCU Jazz Orchestra II’s existing concert date, adding student vocalists who speak Spanish and performing big band arrangements of Santos’ combo works that would be commissioned of VCU alumni for the occasion, possibly adding some VCU faculty as guest performers. The rest of the concert would be the JO II’s non-Salsa repertoire.
Submitted by Tony Garcia, director of Jazz studies, Department of Music
Award: $10,000
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