Jazzmen

Lar­ry Tye is a for­mer reporter at The Boston Globe, off now writ­ing books and run­ning a Boston-based fel­low­ship pro­gram for health jour­nal­ists. The Jazzmen is his ninth book, with oth­ers includ­ing Home Lands, the upbeat tale of a thriv­ing Jew­ish dias­po­ra; Super­man, the biog­ra­phy of America’s longest-last­ing (Jew­ish) hero; and Bob­by Kennedy, which looks at RFK’s trans­for­ma­tion from Joe McCarthy’s pro­tege to a lib­er­al icon.

The Jazzmen looks main­ly at these three mae­stros’ lives off the band­stand, and how they wrote the sound­track for the civ­il rights rev­o­lu­tion. It also explores the Black-Jew­ish alliance of old— one where each of these African-Amer­i­can band­lead­ers had a Jew­ish man­ag­er and band­mates —and how that might offer a mod­el for today.

The George Scott Big Band will also being performing at this event! The band has been a staple of Western New York’s music scene since 2000, bringing big band jazz to venues across the region. Originally known as the “James White Apollo Big Band,” the group was renamed when George Scott became its youngest bandleader. Over the years, they’ve performed at major events like Canalside’s July 4th celebrations, the Queen City Jazz Festival, and the Lewiston Jazz Festival. With a talented lineup of musicians, including vocalist Donna DeLano-Kerr and a full brass and rhythm section, the George Scott Big Band continues to captivate audiences with classic and contemporary big band sounds.