- [Announcer] Coming up on "One Detroit," we'll preview this weekend's Detroit Jazz Festival lineup and show you the 2024 winning poster design, plus a harp belonging to the late jazz great Alice Coltrane will be in the spotlight at this year's jazz festival.

Also ahead, we'll hear from the Jazz Festival's Artist in Residence Award-Winning Drummer, Brian Blade.

It's all coming up next on "One Detroit."

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Among the state's largest foundation's committed to Michigan-focused giving, we support organizations that are doing exceptional work in our state.

Learn more at dtefoundation.com.

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(light upbeat music) - [Announcer] Just ahead on "One Detroit," it's all about the Detroit Jazz Festival.

Harpist Brandee Younger talks about her opening night performance featuring jazz artist Alice Coltrane's restored harp.

Plus, drummer Brian Blade opens up about his love of jazz and his role as Artist in Residence for the Detroit Jazz Festival.

But first up, the 45th Annual Detroit Jazz Festival is expected to attract tens of thousands of music fans to downtown and midtown over the Labor Day weekend to hear artists from around the globe.

The performances are free and some will take place at the new Gretchen C. Valade Jazz Center on Wayne State University's campus, named after the festival's late sponsor and foundation chair.

"American Black Journal" host, Stephen Henderson, spoke with Detroit Jazz Festival Foundation President and Artistic Director Chris Collins, along with this year's official poster artist, Jess Fendo, and Wayne State's Vice President for Government and Community Affairs, Patrick Lindsay.

(light upbeat music) - Chris, I'm gonna start with you.

We do this every year.

I'm always blown away by what you manage to put together for Detroit, every Labor Day, every Labor Day weekend, tell me about this year's Jazz Fest.

- Well, you know, we have an incredible team at Jazz Fest Foundation, and we're in such an incredible city with partners like Wayne State University and "American Black Journal" and others, get the word out and let everyone know how special this thing really is and how fragile it can be.

But after 45 years, we're still free and we're still one of the premier real jazz festivals in the world.

So, to that end, as always, our programming, we look to have those legacy artists, Billy Chiles, Monty Alexander, Christian McBride Quintet, James Blood Ulmer, talk about cats, and we have the incredible world-class artists that are right here in Detroit, living here and coming from here are legacy artists, the great Wendell Harrison, and the Walter White Big Band and some upcomers, Mark Rosenblatt and HAKI!.

These are cats looking to the future where jazz is gonna go.

So mix that with our Artist in Residence, the great Brian Blade, who will be playing with the Jazz Fest Big Band.

He'll be playing with Octet and of course the Fellowship Band.

So it's gonna be quite special.

- Yeah, yeah, 45 years.

That's an incredible, that's an incredible run.

Talk about how significant that is for Detroit.

This is not just about us, but it does feature us and it features us to the world in a way that I'm not sure everybody who lives here quite understands.

The festival is so much different and bigger than it has been in the past.

It really is a worldwide phenomenon.

- It is.

And everything we do in Detroit, these kind of things that draw tourists, jazz festivals now drawing 1/3 of its audience in person, it's about 325,000 people from outside the region, outside the country.

Our streams, which we have metric by professional companies, so there's no hyperbole.

They're free and they reach, last year they reached 1.6 million people in 32 countries.

And so it's a jazz vessel that's in a city that has a symbiotic relationship between its culture and jazz.

They feed one another, they always have.

And it's also in the city, the city, the architecture and the skyline, the community is the backdrop for the entire festival.

So we're really proud of being able to be an ambassador to the artists, to the patrons, and all around the world because Detroit's a very special place.

And when they come here, they're rather blown away by that connectivity.

So that's along with our last economics thing showed a little over $30 million in economic development over the four days of Jazz Fest.

So we're trying to do everything we can to be great citizens, keep this thing alive, and keep it available to everyone by keeping it free.

Although when people can, we ask 'em to join our sponsors and our donors and help us reach that $4.5 million note every year to keep it alive.

- Jess, tell me about the poster.

What inspired you?

What does this this poster kind of mean to you?

What do you think it means to the festival and the city?

- So when I saw the open call at first, like, I was thinking about what I could possibly do because I love jazz music, so I knew I wanted to apply for this opportunity.

And so one of the first things I thought of when I was thinking of the Detroit Jazz Festival was community.

I mean, that's one of the biggest jazz festivals ever.

You have a whole bunch of people like flocking down to downtown Detroit, all with the same appreciation of loving jazz music.

I knew that I wanted to use bright colors and not like super, like stereotypical dark blue, like, jazzy, like, super deep colors.

Like, I wanted to be like a celebration.

I wanted it to be fun.

There's literally like women dancing on the roof.

And like, I wanted to show what I felt like when I go to the jazz festival and I see people having fun and being free and coming all together as one to like celebrate like one thing that brings us together as a community 'cause Detroit's been doing that forever.

It's like a celebration of history.

The graffiti on the side of the building is to pay homage to like every great jazz musician.

I guess you could say that there was.

And just to show that, like, we still appreciate that, you know, after they transcended and moved on from that, and we still have such a big appreciation for jazz music in Detroit.

And that's basically just what I wanted to showcase.

- Yeah, yeah.

And tell us a little bit about you, Jess, what's your story?

- Well, I do a whole bunch of different types of art in Detroit, I've been here for a while now.

I'm a student at College for Creative Studies.

I'm studying illustration and entertainment arts.

I love doing gallery shows.

I love doing murals.

I recently just did a sculpture work with City Walls for the NFL draft.

And I just love doing stuff for like, nonprofits, with the Steam Foundation and helping the Belle Isle Conservancy, and I just love giving back to the community.

So any way that I can volunteer, that I could also use my art to help, it's like a win-win for me, so.

- Yeah.

Patrick Lindsay, I wanna bring you into the conversation here.

This year's festival, of course, will feature the Gretchen C. Valade Center Jazz Performance Center on Wayne State University's campus.

I actually have had a chance to be there a couple times already.

it is a mind-blowing experience.

I predict that this will be, if not the premier, it will be one of the premier music venues in the city just because of how great it sounds, how great it looks, how great it feels.

I mean, it is a stunning achievement.

- Well, thank you, Stephen.

I couldn't say it any better.

As you can see, I am keeping Gretchen close to my heart.

Municipal aid's generosity not only to Wayne State, but to the world relative to building a world-class center where artists can come and be featured and do it in such an intimate setting.

But in such a dynamic place such as Wayne State, it is a great honor for us to host it and to welcome the community into this space.

You know, I grew up here in Detroit.

Detroit is a place in my opinion, where music is just a part of the fabric of our culture.

And music is the most universal language I know, and we are most fluent in it here in Detroit between jazz, R&B, hip hop, gospel, classical, and the many other genres.

How blessed are we to have such richness here?

But the Valade Center, in my opinion, will help to catapult and cultivate jazz even more so because of its strong, rich year, people will be able to experience it, to learn it, and to grow it here in the city and world.

- [Announcer] A highlight of this year's Detroit Jazz Festival is a performance featuring a restored harp that belonged to the legendary jazz musician, Alice Coltrane.

Grammy Award Nominated Harpist, Brandee Younger, will play the refurbished instrument on the festival's opening night, accompanied by Alice's son, Ravi, Reggie Workman, and the Detroit Jazz Festival, Chamber Orchestra.

"One Detroit" contributor, Cecelia Sharpe of 90.9 WRCJ, spoke with Younger about Alice Coltrane's legacy, the restored harp, and her upcoming Jazz Festival performance.

(light upbeat music) - I am here with Grammy Nominated Harpist, Brandee Younger.

She's going to be here in Detroit for the 45th Annual Detroit Jazz Festival playing on the restored harp of Alice Coltrane.

Let's lay the foundation.

For those who may not know about Alice Coltrane, explain to us the legacy and work that Alice Coltrane as a harpist, as an organist, and pianist contributed to jazz and to music.

- We actually don't have time for all of that because it is just monumental what she's done as a musician and also as a spiritual leader.

But her first records were recorded in the late '60s, early '70s, right on Long Island where I'm from, which now it's the Coltrane Home, the John and Alice Coltrane home.

And actually, Alice Coltrane didn't have a harp Long Island.

So this harp did not live in Detroit.

This will be like christening, I'm like over the moon, this is literally bringing the harp to her home.

She had so many albums.

So she recorded the first few on Long Island right there in the home studio, which was John Coltrane's wish for the home to have a studio.

Sadly, he did not live to see it, but she saw it to fruition after his death.

She moved to California and she did record more albums, but then really focused on her spirituality where she could continued to always play music and to record music, but stopped commercially recording until she recorded "Translinear Light" after a long, long hiatus of commercial recording, which is an incredible album.

- Rewinding, going back to John Coltrane, he had an untimely death at the young age of 40 years old, and he was really moving his music forward in a different direction, in a spiritual direction.

It was building on the harmonies and sound of the music.

And so shortly after his passing, there was a knock on Alice Coltrane's door, and there was a harp delivered, but she didn't even play the harp at that time.

- So you're absolutely right, she learned the harp.

- Right.

- But the harp did take a year to complete.

So John Coltrane never saw it.

It's really sad, but also really beautiful how she really took to it, and took to it in her own way, which is really, really special and really important when we hear the sound that she creates with the instrument.

- And now it's been restored, which is not a minor undertaking.

How did the process of restoring Alice Coltrane's harp come about?

- So the harp lived at Michelle's house, and a few years back I came over the house and I looked at it and of course fell in love with the harp.

Had a harp technician look at it just to see like, it's been a number of years, you just wanna make sure that it's up and running the way it should.

So the bottom of the harp, right, which is called the base, we had that repaired and also the neck, had that repaired.

And of course that means we also get new strings.

We also get some of the gold.

It's 18 karat gold.

- That's amazing.

- Yeah, yeah.

It's really beautiful, and it's a special instrument.

- Brandee Younger will be performing on Alice Coltrane's restored harp at the 45th Annual Detroit Jazz Festival as a part of the "Translinear Light," the music of Alice Coltrane featuring Robbie Coltrane with special guest, of course, Brandee Younger, Reggie Workman who recorded with John Coltrane and collaborated with Alice Coltrane.

How exciting and what an honor it must be for you to have this privilege to perform on the harp in Detroit, the birth home of Alice Coltrane.

- It's truly an honor.

I've had the opportunity to play Alice Coltrane's music with Ravi twice before in the past.

The first being shortly after her memorial.

We did a beautiful tribute to her.

And then a few years ago, again, but so much time has passed, there's been a resurgence in all things Alice Coltrane, and we've got this harp on stage.

(laughs) So I am really particularly, I mean, I'm always excited to do it, but this one just feels really monumental.

- What are you cooking up for us in this performance that's coming up at the Detroit Jazz Festival?

- For everyone that has heard all of the past tributes that we've done together, this one is going to be absolutely different.

Ravi picked all of the music, I have my go-tos that people just expect to hear me play.

We're not playing any of those.

So this is going to be, do the kids still say this, epic?

- [Announcer] And you can see more from their conversation at onedetroitpbs.org.

Award-winning drummer, composer, and band leader, Brian Blade, is this year's Detroit Jazz Festival Artist in Residence.

In addition to performing at the festival, Blade is taking part in educational initiatives and community outreach programs presented by the Detroit Jazz Festival Foundation.

John Penney of 90.9 WRCJ sat down with the two-time Grammy Award-winning musician to talk about his passion for jazz.

(light upbeat music) (light jazzy music) - Brian Blade is the 2024 Artist in Residence at the 45th Detroit Jazz Festival.

It is an honor, a pleasure, and a privilege to sit here and talk to you today after an incredible workshop with students at Wayne State University.

You are celebrated as one of the greatest jazz drummers playing today.

But I think to call you a jazz drummer doesn't really cut it.

It's sort of myopic, your roots are in the church, in Shreveport, your father was the pastor.

- When you talk about the roots, and church, and the gospel, it really is the root of everything is coming up from, you know, no matter where I find myself, at the school, or in that concert hall, or in that dive bar, (laughs) the mission is still the same, touching souls with your conviction and what you feel like your calling is is important to me.

And the music has to speak that same praise.

A dear friend in my hometown, Shreveport, Louisiana, gives me two cassettes when I started driving at age 16 of Joni's music, Hejira and Mingus.

So I'm listening to these recordings, these tapes, you know, driving to school and it's something I've never, didn't grow up with.

And it's speaking to me in a big way.

And, you know, I'd heard Wayne, obviously on Weather Report music and with Miles Davis essentially, and his own records, some of the first records I bought, but I could have never seen ahead, all of a sudden sharing time with my heroes, essentially, making music with my heroes.

- So today you are here at Wayne State University and running a workshop and they were playing some challenging material.

(lively jazzy music) What was it that you were trying to impart to them, what's that all about?

- I was encouraged just to see everyone playing in a band like, you know, the students with their instruments and present and not taking the opportunity for granted.

Mostly today, I wanted to encourage the rhythm section and what I hope is that in terms of approach, of seeing things a different way, that it takes them off the page.

So like, if they can internalize all of that and really be looking not only to Mr. Scott as he's conducting, but to their band mates, and they can express something else, not just the literal part.

Like your role, your part in the thing, like you're standing in it, you're walking in it, you're giving it so that everyone else can just be that much more strengthened and we've made something greater than what we actually imagined because we submitted to each other.

And that's, I think the music, that's when it takes off and it pierces people's hearts because you've given something, not taken something.

So the whole dynamic has to come to a place where it's like, okay, our pianism mode is truly that.

Like, it's even more so, and then our dynamics are also much more dramatic and impactful.

(lively jazzy music) So I hope that the students here at Wayne State University, they would also see through the page, so to speak.

You know, read between the lines so that they can inspire, inspire something else in the ensemble.

- I love that.

So, coming up as the Artist in Residence at the Jazz Festival this year, you are going to have a few performances and bring some sensibilities to it.

What can we look forward to?

- Well, initially, a Fellowship Band Concert, and I'm collaborating with two dear friends of mine, Edward Simon, pianist from Venezuela, I've known a very long time.

And Scott Colley, bassist, we have a project called Three Visitors, appropriately titled for this occasion.

And a feature Becca Stevens, great singer and songwriter, and a string octet composed of Detroit symphonic musicians.

- Wonderful.

- Looking forward to that.

And then a big band that in its core is the Fellowship Band conducted by Jim McNeely and his arrangements of some of my music and Jon's music for the Fellowship Band.

The fact that this festival is open to the public, free, it's really incredible, you know, to me, in the world, it's unique, not just in the country, I must say.

I'm excited about sharing all this with the community here in Detroit.

(lively jazzy music) - [Announcer] And the Detroit Jazz Festival kicks off on Friday and runs through Monday, September 2nd.

You can check out the live stream on detroitjazzfest.org.

We leave you now with a performance from Detroit Jazz Festival Artist in Residence, drummer Brian Blade and the Fellowship Band recorded at the Gretchen C. Valade Jazz Center.

(light jazzy music) (light jazzy music continues) (light jazzy music continues) - [Narrator 1] From Delta faucets to Behr paint, Masco Corporation is proud to deliver products that enhance the way consumers all over the world experience and enjoy their living spaces.

Masco, serving Michigan communities since 1929.

Support also provided by the Cynthia and Edsel Ford Fund for Journalism at Detroit PBS.

- [Narrator 2] DTE Foundation is a proud sponsor of Detroit PBS.

Among the state's largest foundations committed to Michigan-focused giving, we support organizations that are doing exceptional work in our state.

Learn more at dtefoundation.com.

- [Narrator 1] Nissan Foundation, and viewers like you.

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