Sarah Ziebell's blog

I manage the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Project for the Library for the Performing Arts, a two-year endeavor funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation to present, document, and preserve jazz, contemporary dance, and theater performances and related oral histories.

The project is entering its final season this fall, and we have an exciting lineup of artists performing in our Duke Jazz Series: Drew Gress and 7 Black Butterflies (August 26), Brian Lynch and Spheres of Influence (September 23), and Peter Apfelbaum and The New York Hieroglyphics (November 13). Further information is available from our most recent press release.

Most of the live performances and oral histories we have recorded as part of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Project are now available for viewing/listening at The Library for the Performing Arts. To view a full list, search “Doris Duke Charitable Foundation” as a note in The Catalog.

I will be taking a brief hiatus from the project during the late summer and early fall to travel to Kabul, Afghanistan, where I will be training staff at the American University of Afghanistan in library cataloging procedures and assisting the University library in getting its online catalog up and running.  read more »

Double bassist Ben Allison has emerged as one of the rising stars of jazz in the last decade. He has performed all over the world with musicians ranging from saxophonist Lee Konitz to legendary performance artist Joey Arias. He has appeared on over 25 albums by various artists and has written music for film, national television and radio, including the theme for the National Public Radio (NPR) show "On the Media" and the score for Two Days, a play written by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Donald Margulies. Allison’s most recent album, Little Things Run the World, reached #1 on the CMJ National Jazz radio charts and remained in the top 20 for over four months.

Allison, along with his group, Medicine Wheel, will be playing here at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts as part of the Duke Jazz Series on Friday, May 1, at 7:30. They will be performing selections from their Chamber Music America-commissioned album, Peace Pipe.

The Duke Jazz Series is part of the two-year Library for the Performing Arts’ project funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation to present, document, and preserve jazz, contemporary dance, and theater performances and related oral histories. One of the goals of the NYPL’s Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Project is to draw attention to talented performing artists who may still be somewhat under the radar in terms their holdings at the Library. Right now, Ben Allison’s clipping file, a limited number of sound recordings and tap dance performance tapes for which he was a contributor, and one CD of his compositions may be found in our collections. We want to change that! As part of our Duke Jazz Series endeavors, we will soon be able to present not only Ben Allison in person, free of charge, to our May 1 audience (which we hope will include you!), but also Ben’s commercial recording of Peace Pipe, DVD and CD versions of the Ben Allison/Medicine Wheel live performance, and an audiorecorded oral history with Ben Allison, in which he will discuss his career with jazz journalist David Adler.

The Ben Allison/Medicine Wheel concert is free and open to the public on a first-come, first-served basis. It will be held at the Bruno Walter Auditorium at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center, 111 Amsterdam Avenue @ 65th Street. For more information, please call 212.870.1793 or visit nypl.org/lpaprograms.

And finally, for a taste of Ben’s work: Ben's group, Man Size Safe, performing "Respiration"

Did you know that jazz musician Jane Ira Bloom...

...prodded by her friend, the actor Brian Dennehy, wrote a letter to NASA to ask what they thought about the future of the arts in space and ended up as the first musician ever commissioned by the NASA space program and with an asteriod (6083janeirabloom) named in her honor?

...had to relearn the saxophone while studying as a girl with Joe Viola at Berklee College? ("My embouchure was all wrong!")

...while walking around the dicey neighborhoods surrounding the New England Conservatory in the early 1970s, carried her alto sax in one hand, soprano in the other, and a chain attached between them? "I don't know what I thought, but nobody was gonna get those instruments!"

...was in the fourth class of women at Yale in 1972 and was part of the "The New Haven Renaissance" of jazz improvisers?

...found inspiration in the work of both top fuel race car driver Shirley Muldowney and British ice dancers Torvill and Dean?

Oh, there is so much more! Jane Ira Bloom recently sat down with Lara Pellegrinelli for a three-hour, two-part interview here at The Library for the Performing Arts as part of our Duke Jazz Series concert and oral history program, and the two had fascinating and, as you can see, wide-ranging conversations about the nature of her work as a jazz saxophonist. The interview should be available for listening to here at the Library within the next month or so, and I highly recommend it!

But, even sooner, you can see Jane Ira Bloom perform at the Library for the Performing Arts' Bruno Walter Auditorium, free of charge, with her Quartet, next Friday, February 20 at 7:30 p.m. as part of our Duke Jazz Series. The Bruno Walter Auditorium is located at 111 Amsterdam Avenue (at 65th Street). Doors open at 7:00. Hope you can join us!

Through the exceptional generosity of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Library for the Performing Arts’ Music and Dance Divisions and the Theatre on Film and Tape Archive have been awarded two years of funding to present, document, and preserve jazz, contemporary dance, and theater performances and related oral histories. Those of us on the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Project have the distinct pleasure of leading these efforts.

Doris Duke was an avid jazz fan. In her honor, the Library is kicking off this fall a run of exciting programs focused on jazz, the Duke Jazz Series, Duke Jazz Talks, and Duke Jazz Histories. The Duke Jazz Series features eight live jazz performances from Chamber Music America award-winning ensembles and oral histories with each ensemble leader. Duke Jazz Talks put the spotlight on four GRAMMY-nominated and -award winning jazz artists and are hosted live by music curator and scholar Bob Santelli, Executive Director of The GRAMMY Museum. Jazz at Lincoln Center is our partner in producing the Duke Jazz Histories, private interviews with ten musicians performing in the 2008-2009 and 2009-2010 Jazz at Lincoln Center seasons.  read more »