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UN / JAZZ CONCERT PREVIEW
STORY: UN / JAZZ CONCERT PREVIEW
TRT: 3.55
SOURCE: UNTV
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / FRENCH / NATS
DATELINE: 29 APRIL 2012, NEW YORK / FILE
FILE – 2011, UNITED NATIONS HEADQUARTERS
1. Wide shot, exterior United Nations Headquarters
29 APRIL 2012, NEW YORK
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Sheila E., US American percussionist:
“That’s what’s so great about jazz music, is that it touches so many lives. It doesn’t matter what nationality or what colour, or what language you speak, the language here is music, and that’s very important.”
3. Zoom in, Hugh Masekela on the trumpet
4. Wide shot, Stevie Wonder being led onstage
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Hugh Masekela, South African trumpeter, composer, producer and activist:
“Jazz came from brothels, which were called jazz joints. But to jazz was to, like, get down, horizontally, intimacy, horizontal intimacy between the sexes was called jazz. So that’s where the word originates from. It’s a media word. I’ve never heard Louis Armstrong, or Dizzy Gillespie, or Coltrane, or Miles Davis, or Louis Jordan say ‘I sing jazz’ or ‘I play jazz’ – it was music.”
6. Various shots, Shankar Mahadevan and Dee Dee Bridgewater rehearsing
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Shankar Mahadevan, Indian singer and composer:
“Music is such a powerful medium. It’s such a medium in which you can communicate. It transcends all barriers. It does not have the concept of religion, or country, or borders, or boundaries. And because at the end of the day, wherever you are, whichever part of the world you are, it’s about twelve notes. And those twelve notes can be communicated in millions of ways.”
8. Various shots, Shankar Mahadevan and Dee Dee Bridgewater rehearsing
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Zakir Hussain, Indian tabla player, composer and producer:
“It’s being able to hold hands together, flying the same wavelength together, and being able to be free together. And that’s the kind of message that I would imagine the International Day of Jazz and the freedom of that kind of expression communicates to the world and hopefully to the UN and maybe the UN can take some examples from there.”
10. Close up, tabla drums
11. Zoom in, Zakir Hussain on tabla drums
12. SOUNDBITE (French) Lionel Loueke, Beninois guitarist:
“As a jazz musician, what you do is you improvise, and I think this goes for jazz as well as for life in general, you need to be able to express yourself freely. In all the countries of the world where you have freedom of expression, you generally have more peace. So you see, they go together.”
13. Various shots, Angelique Kidjo rehearsing with Christian McBride and Lionel Loueke
14. SOUNDBITE (French) Angelique Kidjo, Beninoise singer/songwriter and activist:
“Slavery is not an event in human history that we could be proud of. And out of this horrible event emerged something that is fantastic, which is music that has allowed people who were being reduced to animals, to preserve their human dignity.”
15. Wide shot, Lionel Loueke and Christian McBride rehearsing
16. SOUNDBITE (French) Angelique Kidjo, Beninoise singer/songwriter and activist:
“For me, music serves fundamentally to connect people. When I’m on stage, the people I’m facing, these are human beings who come from everywhere, who don’t necessarily speak my language. But my music allows me to speak with them. That’s very powerful.”
17. Various shots, Angelique Kidjo rehearsing
Dozens of jazz greats from around the globe are expected at United Nations (UN) headquarters tonight (30 April) for a star-studded concert in celebration of the first annual International Jazz Day, which seeks to spotlight the historic influence of jazz in connecting people and igniting social change.
SOUNDBITE (English) Sheila E., US American percussionist:
“That’s what’s so great about jazz music, is that it touches so many lives. It doesn’t matter what nationality or what colour, or what language you speak, the language here is music, and that’s very important.”
The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), along with the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, is hosting the concert which will feature an all-star cast of performers, among them Herbie Hancock, Tony Bennett, Chaka Khan, Angélique Kidjo and Romero Lubambo. Co-hosts include actors Robert De Niro, Michael Douglas and Quincy Jones.
Some of the performers rehearsed yesterday inside the UN’s General Assembly Hall, including iconic South African trumpeter Hugh Masekela and Stevie Wonder.
In an interview with UN Radio, Masekela talked about the origins of the term “jazz”, saying that actual jazz musicians would never use it.
SOUNDBITE (English) Hugh Masekela, South African trumpeter, composer, producer and activist:
“Jazz came from brothels, which were called jazz joints. But to jazz was to, like, get down, horizontally, intimacy, horizontal intimacy between the sexes was called jazz. So that’s where the word originates from. It’s a media word. I’ve never heard Louis Armstrong, or Dizzy Gillespie, or Coltrane, or Miles Davis, or Louis Jordan say ‘I sing jazz’ or ‘I play jazz’ – it was music.”
Indian singer and composer Shankar Mahadevan, who will join three-time Grammy award winner Dee Dee Bridgewater in performing Duke Ellington’s classic “Cotton Tail” at tonight’s concert, spoke about the power of music to transcend boundaries.
SOUNDBITE (English) Shankar Mahadevan, Indian singer and composer:
“Music is such a powerful medium. It’s such a medium in which you can communicate. It transcends all barriers. It does not have the concept of religion, or country, or borders, or boundaries. And because at the end of the day, wherever you are, whichever part of the world you are, it’s about twelve notes. And those twelve notes can be communicated in millions of ways.”
Born in the United States at the beginning of the 20th century, jazz is rooted in African traditions, draws from European musical forms, and has evolved into various styles across the globe.
To celebrate the first Jazz Day, concerts are happening in Paris, New Orleans and New York, as well as more than a hundred other cities around the world including Moscow, Muscat, Havana, and Yerevan.
Zakir Hussain, a classical tabla virtuoso and a chief architect of the contemporary world music movement, told UN Radio that he felt blessed to perform in the General Assembly Hall where his father, Ustad Allarakha, had already performed with Ravi Shankar and Yehudi Menuhin in the 1960s.
Music, he said, was the “only positive form of communication.”
SOUNDBITE (English) Zakir Hussain, Indian tabla player, composer and producer:
“It’s being able to hold hands together, flying the same wavelength together, and being able to be free together. And that’s the kind of message that I would imagine the International Day of Jazz and the freedom of that kind of expression communicates to the world and hopefully to the UN and maybe the UN can take some examples from there.”
On the initiative of UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador Herbie Hancock, the international community has proclaimed 30 April as International Jazz Day with the intention of raising awareness of the virtues of jazz as an educational tool, and a force for peace, unity, dialogue and enhanced cooperation among people.
Lionel Loueke, a guitarist from Benin, said his main message was about freedom of expression.
SOUNDBITE (French) Lionel Loueke, Beninois guitarist:
“As a jazz musician, what you do is you improvise, and I think this goes for jazz as well as for life in general, you need to be able to express yourself freely. In all the countries of the world where you have freedom of expression, you generally have more peace. So you see, they go together.”
Loueke will accompany his fellow Beninoise, Angelique Kidjo on the song “Afrika” at tonight’s performance.
Kidjo, who serves as a Goodwill Ambassador for the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), pointed out that jazz had its roots in slavery, and urged people to confront slavery’s modern forms.
SOUNDBITE (French) Angelique Kidjo, Beninoise singer/songwriter and activist:
“Slavery is not an event in human history that we could be proud of. And out of this horrible event emerged something that is fantastic, which is music that has allowed people who were being reduced to animals, to preserve their human dignity.”
Kidjo joined the other artists in saying that the wonderful thing about music was its power to connect people from all walks of life.
SOUNDBITE (French) Angelique Kidjo, Beninoise singer/songwriter and activist:
“For me, music serves fundamentally to connect people. When I’m on stage, the people I’m facing, these are human beings who come from everywhere, who don’t necessarily speak my language. But my music allows me to speak with them. That’s very powerful.”
Tonight’s UN concert will be broadcast live on the UN’s YouTube page and will be available to the public.
Artists confirmed to participate in the concert include Tony Bennett, Terence Blanchard, Richard Bona (Cameroon), Dee Dee Bridgewater, Candido, Robert Cray, Eli Degibri (Israel), Jack DeJohnette, Sheila E., Herbie Hancock, Jimmy Heath, Zakir Hussain (India), Chaka Khan, Angelique Kidjo (Benin), Lang Lang (China), Romero Lubambo (Brazil), Shankar Mahadevan (India), Wynton Marsalis, Hugh Masekela (South Africa), Christian McBride, Danilo Pérez, Tineke Postma (The Netherlands), Dianne Reeves, Troy Roberts (Australia), Bobby Sanabria, Wayne Shorter, Esperanza Spalding, Susan Tedeschi, Derek Trucks, Hiromi (Japan), and others. In New York, George Duke will serve as Musical Director, and confirmed Co-Hosts include Robert De Niro, Michael Douglas, Morgan Freeman and Quincy Jones.
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