A MUSIC PRESENTING NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION COMMITTED TO CULTIVATING AND REVITALIZING JAZZ CULTURE IN LOS ANGELES
Los Angeles has long acted as a touchstone for change in improvisational music. Where crowded New York forced musicians together to shape the shared code of bebop in the 1940s, spacious Los Angeles encouraged individual thought, the kind that arrives like a light through a window or a quiet voice in a desert.
The original name of this city — “El Pueblo de la Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles” — reminds us that an angel is a messenger of change. Mary of Nazareth, the prophet Isaiah and the patriarch Jacob could testify that the message does not always gain quick acceptance. But its authority prevails. In our conscious and subconscious minds, creative music has affected the way we see the world.
Since 2008, Angel City Jazz has striven to continue the message of L.A. prophets such as Ornette Coleman, Billy Higgins, Eric Dolphy, Charles Mingus, Charlie Haden, Don Cherry, Horace Tapscott, John Carter and Bobby Bradford, and subsequent luminaries such as Vinny Golia, Richard Grossman, James Newton, Adam Rudolph, Wadada Leo Smith, Quartet Music (the band that launched Nels Cline, Alex Cline and Jeff Gauthier), Emily Hay, Ellen Burr, Bonnie Barnett, Kamasi Washington, and Dan Rosenboom. All have made individualistic music; most have formed communities to foster innovative thought. Let it fly.
An angel is a messenger of change. Mary of Nazareth, the prophet Isaiah and the patriarch Jacob could testify that the message is not always easily accepted. But its authority prevails.
Our programs have been supported in part by grants from:
