***For Immediate Release***
What: 2017 Jimmie Lunceford Jamboree Festival & Wreath Laying Ceremony Planning Meeting
When: Saturday May 6, 2017 @ 10:00AM Central Time (90 minutes)
Where: Whitehaven Public Library. 4120 Millbranch Rd., Memphis, TN 38116.
Official Website:
We will be having the kickoff meeting for the 2017 Jimmie Lunceford Jamboree Festival & Wreath Laying Ceremony Planning Committee scheduled on Saturday, May 6, 2017 at 10:00 am. The meeting will be held at Whitehaven Public Library. The Library is located at: 4120 Millbranch Rd., Memphis, TN 38116. Use the map-quest link below to get directions if needed:
https://www.mapquest.com/directions.
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Instructions:
When:
Date and Time:
05/06/2017 10:00 AM - (US/Central)
Duration:
1.5 hours
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Access Code:
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About The 2017 Jimmie Lunceford Jamboree Festival
"Jimmie Lunceford has the best of all bands. Duke [Ellington] is great, [Count] Basie is remarkable, but Lunceford tops them both."-- Legendary Swing Band Leader Glenn Miller (Determeyer, 2006)
“The music still sounds good, and it still inspires me, you know. I just think that band had everything. It was just one helluva band.”--Jazz Great Horace Silver (Determeyer, 2006)
"Manassas had the first orchestra of any school in the city with Mr. Lunceford. He was a good disciplinarian, a good teacher, and the students just had a fit over him. Lunceford played sophisticated jazz. I used to practice with them."-- Kathryn Perry Thomas, Beloved Memphis Educator & Manassas High Class of 1932 (JimmieLunceford.com, 2008)
"He would come over to the school each and every time he would play Memphis. His band would perform for the [Manassas] student body, and our band, the Little Rhythm Bombers, would play for him. This is where most of us, as students, saw him. He would bring the big band over to Manassas and perform."
--Memphis Music Great, Educator & Manassas Rhythm Bomber Emerson, Jr. (JimmieLunceford.com, 2008)
WeAllBe's next project is the 2017 Jimmie Lunceford Jamboree Festival. This year will mark the 115th anniversary of Jimmie Lunceford's birth and the 70 year anniversary of his death. Ronald Herd II aka R2C2H2 Tha Artivist, founder of The WeAllBe Group Inc., learned about Jimmie Lunceford, Charlie Parker and James Reese Europe from being exposed to the history and sounds of jazz music during his freshman year at Washington University in St. Louis. This revelation allowed him to become a genuine fan of the unsung music genius known as Jimmie Lunceford. Herd was anointed to do this work because he later he found out that his paternal grandmother was a dancer for Lunceford when he came to Kansas City along with his great uncles being childhood friends with jazz great Charlie Parker.
He illustrated, wrote and self-published a book on James Reese Europe entitled 'James Reese Europe: Jazz Lieutenant.' The book is listed on the Smithsonian Institute's 'Jazz Books For Kids & Young Adults' List. Herd later met the late great Mr. Emerson Able, Jr., a Memphis music legend in his own right and a fellow Lunceford enthusiast, in 2007 and they became partners in crime as they went beyond trying to give honor to Jimmie Lunceford. Their collective grassroots effort led to Jimmie Lunceford finally receiving a brass note on Beale Street in 2009. The late Mr. Able was a wonderful and great 'Jegna' (A Better Word Than 'Mentor') to Herd and his legacy will live on through Herd's works on Lunceford.
Even when they gave Lunceford his Blues Trail in his hometown of Fulton, Mississippi they used some of the wording that Herd had created for Jimmie Lunceford. Herd even got Wikipedia to correct Lunceford's state of birth from Fulton, Missouri to Fulton, Mississippi.
See Also...
W.E. A.L.L. B.E. News: Jazznocracy At Its Finest: Jimmie Lunceford Mississippi Blues Trail Marker Ceremony
Jimmie Lunceford taught the first high school band in the Memphis City Schools system along with having four other responsibilities (taught English and History along with being the Basketball and Football coaches). Jimmie Lunceford may have been the first person to teach jazz studies in an educational setting in any place in the world!!! He made history by bringing together his best high school band students along with his fellow Fisk alum musician buddies to form the popular locally Chickasaw Syncopators which later became world wide famous as the Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra. They ruled the Cotton Club as the official house band for several years starting in 1934 and was the most popular act at the legendary Apollo Theatre for 10 yrs. They consistently beat out Duke Ellington, Count Basie and other great bands during that era and Jimmie Lunceford was known as the King of the Battle of the Bands and his band was nicknamed the Harlem Express because they were the number one band of choice for African American dancers in the United States. I could go on and on, but I think you get the point. Miles Davis in his autobiography gave honor to Manassas High School for producing world class musicians. Now it is time to give honor to Jimmie Lunceford.
We have several activities planned to give honor to his legacy and you will be provided the agenda later.
Below is the link to the Jimmie Lunceford Official Jamboree Festival Website:
Jimmie Lunceford and his dance orchestra:
Jimmie Lunceford A Memphis Legend:
Interviews with Jazz Great Gerald Wilson as he remembers the Master Teacher of Swing, Jimmie Lunceford:
