UW Blue Note Ensemble wth Benjamin Barson & Gizelxanath Rodriguez

Free.

media release: Join saxophonist Benjamin Barson and vocalist/guitarist Gizelxanath Rodriguez to celebrate the publication of Barson's book Brassroots Democracy: Maroon Ecologies and the Jazz Commons. Named a top book of the 2024 by PopMatters, Brassroots Democracy celebrates the African American and Afro-Latinx grassroots labor organizers, civil rights activists, and blueswomen who in 1890s New Orleans came together to create the music we now call jazz. Barson and Rodriguez will be performing songs depicted in the book, and especially the revolutionary anthems from Haiti and Mexico which circulated in New Orleans during this period. Joining Barson and Rodriguez will be UW-Madison's Blue Note Ensemble, under the direction of Johannes Walmann, director of Jazz Studies at the Mead Witter School of Music.