Spotlight on Genticorum

The fast-rising Canadian band Genticorum is a Québécois acoustic power trio with a distinctive sound that is at once both ancient and modern—what Sing Out calls “a very full and glorious noise, both instrumentally and vocally.” The charismatic young group won two Canadian Folk Music Awards (Junos) this year: Ensemble of the Year, and Nagez Rameurs won Traditional Album of the Year. Hear what the buzz is all about on Saturday, February 25 as we wrap up this year's Celtic Series.

Better Together

Partnerships are wonderful for all sorts of reasons. Strengthening alliances with family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, businesses – it is fundamental support. Knowing that others share your passion, being able to share tasks, giving and receiving commitment, having others to call on, standing tall with colleagues at your side, looking proudly together on an accomplishment - these are just some of the inherent perks of partnership.

Well let me just list some of the amazing alliances we’ve been fortunate to build in the planning process for Culture Builds Community!

• Dayton Public Schools’ Neighborhood School Centers
• The Fitz Center, University of Dayton
• Art Street, University of Dayton
• The Women’s Center, University of Dayton
• East End Community Services 
• Unified Health Solutions
• YMCA
• McClendon Institute
• Stivers School for the Arts
• Turkish Cultural Center(s)
• Central State University
• Omega Baptist Church
• Hispanic Catholic Ministries
• Sinclair Community College
• Muse Machine
• Dayton Masonic Center

…and these are organizational partners. You can imagine the numbers of people involved! This is before we add the young participants up to 25 per school/neighborhood), who, of course, are partners as well. This is CBC’s fundamental support system, ever growing, and reminding us through each day of the process that we are, indeed, BETTER TOGETHER!

The Original Johnny Otis

Years ago, when my nascent interest in blues and jazz was just a bud on the vine, I heard a record that spun my head around. It was sensual, mysterious and hinted at the beautiful bounty that lay just around the bend. It was the Johnny Otis version of "Harlem Nocturne." It led to a pile of music that Otis left his fingerprints on: Big Mama Thornton, Esther Phillips, Mel Walker, Pete Lewis and that place between 1945 and 1950 where jazz, gospel and blues morphed into rhythm and blues and paved the highway for rock and soul. Born John Alexander Veliotes, this son of Greek immigrants operated at the center of black music for a decade and a half before concentrating on other interests in his life including organic farming, politics and the civil rights movement.

I recently re-read the extensive interview that Arnold Shaw did with Otis for his book Honkers and Shouters: The Golden Years of Rhythm and Blues. It reveals a stunningly versatile musician and entrepreneur who literally did it all. To excerpt it would be to not do it justice. Otis also turns up in Jon Hartley Fox's recently published history of Cincinnati's King Records, King of the Queen City: The Story of King Records (Music in American Life). As both musician and talent scout for King founder Syd Nathan, Otis figured in the careers of Jackie Wilson, Hank Ballard, Johnny "Guitar" Watson and many others. He was the kind of "jack of all trades" that was essential to the success of every independent label.

Just a few weeks ago, Art Snyder, longtime blues host on WYSO, sent this YouTube clip  from the television show Otis hosted in Los Angeles in the 50s and 60s. It's a version of his 1958 hit "Willie and the Hand Jive".


Want more? Listen to an interview with Otis on Fresh Air and read an homage to him in his New York Times obituary.

Soul Rhythms Start Beating

by Ellen Jackson
Culture Builds Community Intern

Planning is well under way for this year's Culture Builds Community project, Soul Rhythms, and I have just joined the team as CBC Intern!

In my first week here with Cityfolk, I have met artists and educators from throughout Dayton who show genuine enthusiasm and commitment toward the vision of Soul Rhythms. This program has already become a chance for artists to share their cultures in the community and will soon invite students to celebrate and learn about their longstanding traditions in new ways. 

In the next month, local artists will perform community "teasers," introducing families in each community to their local artists' forms of traditional music and dance. These community performances will also be a way of inviting students and community members to participate in Soul Rhythms.

Curriculum development, a new part of the CBC program this year, is also in the works thanks to collaborations with Muse Machine, UD, and Sinclair. Through curriculum-based activities, students will have opportunities to learn more about the history and traditions of the cultures represented in Soul Rhythms.

As a part of my role with CBC, I will coordinate food for the post-performance celebration. We are hoping to connect with restaurants and community members who can provide foods from each culture represented in Soul Rhythms. Our multicultural performance will be an even deeper exploration of the five cultures with a sampling of tasty ethnic foods.

As an intern, I am at Cityfolk to both contribute and to learn. I am already amazed by what I see happening with CBC and I can’t wait to share this energy with student participants and the larger Dayton community. Soul Rhythms is off to a promising start and I am honored and excited to be a part of it!

Global Fest

The national conference of the Association for Performing Arts Presenters (APAP) is held in New York City in January. The long weekend gives Cityfolk and our peers the chance to talk to agents, network with each other, take part in workshops about the field of presenting and see artists perform. As with any professional conference, it was exhausting and exhilarating and overwhelming by turns.

One of the highlights of my last couple of trips to APAP was globalFEST. This indoor festival is open to the public, not just aimed at presenters, and it's chock full of amazing music from around the world. NPR's All Songs Considered covered the event this year, and in their words,  "Twelve bands, 17 different countries, three stages, one frenzied night: That's the promise of globalFEST, a yearly showcase for international musicians." Six hours of band after band, it's also exhausting and exhilarating and overwhelming. In a very good way.

Thanks to the folks at All Songs Considered, you can hear all of the amazing performances from globalFEST 2012 in their entirety. Music from Cape Verde, Italy, Ireland, China, Mali and beyond. Amazing stuff to warm a winter day.

Spotlight on Dailey & Vincent

Dailey & Vincent, who made their Cityfolk debut at the 2010 Cityfolk Festival, are returning on February 11 for a concert at the Dayton Masonic Center. Their newest album, The Gospel Side of Dailey & Vincent, was just released on Monday, January 9. The pair only formed their band in 2008, but skyrocketed straight to the top, winning scads of IBMA awards and wowing audiences. Here's a little taste of why: their humor between songs, in addition to the amazing vocal harmonies and masterful musicianship.

Raisin' The Roof With The Stivers School for the Arts Jazz Orchestra

With the 2011 National High School Champions jazz trophy from the Berklee School of Music already on the mantle, the Stivers School for the Arts Jazz Orchestra (SSAJO) is headed to Gotham for the New York Jazz Festival. To raise money for the March trip, the band is performing a fundraising concert at Stivers Centennial Hall on Saturday, January 21st at 8 PM. Tickets are only $10.

Derrick Gardner, an explosive trumpeter who has been prominently showcased in the Count Basie Orchestra, Harry Connick's Jazz Orchestra and the Jazz Prophets, will be the featured soloist that evening. The Stivers repertoire, as exciting and diverse as any big band you will hear--in any age group--will include original arrangements created for Gardner's album "Echos of Ethnicity" plus works by Phillip Michael Mossman, Mike Tomero and Bob Mintzer. Gardner has established a deep partnership with SSAJO director Claude Lucien Thomas and orchestra musicians over the past several years.

If you've enjoyed hearing the Stivers School for the Arts Jazz Orchestra at the Cityfolk Festival, in showcases with visiting artists such as Mulgrew Miller and Steve Wilson, or as part of the Celebrating Billy Strayhorn sequence three years ago, you know what a superb and dynamic band this is. And if you have not made it to Stivers Centennial Hall, here's a chance to experience one of the city's best new venues.
The concert is presented by the Jazz Studies Department and the Seedling Foundation. All proceeds will go to funding this trip. Stivers School for the Arts is located at 1313 East Fifth Street. Tickets are available online or by calling 937-546-1675

Hold the Dates: 2012 Cityfolk Festival

Cityfolk is delighted to announce the dates of the 2012 Cityfolk Festival:

Friday, June 29 - Sunday, July 1

Bonerama packed the house at the 2010 Cityfolk Festival.
Photo by Tom Underwood

City of Dayton Fireworks will end the Festival on Sunday night at 10:00 PM.

Artist booking has begun, food vendor applications will go out soon, the material culture theme has been chosen and we're figuring out what sort of activities to include for kids this year. Also exciting is a new volunteer database system which we hope to unveil by early March. We'll start announcing specifics here on the blog in the coming weeks.

Mark your calendar now so you're sure to be there for all the fun!

We want you with us every step of the way!

What gets you out of your seat?

Really. What motivates you in such a way as to make you active?

More specifically, in the realm of things you don’t HAVE to do, but might enjoy doing, what gets you going, nudges you into activity??

For some of us, it might be other people that motivate us. “If she’s gonna go, I’ll go.”

For others, maybe we have family involved, someone we really want to support.

Maybe we hope to learn or gain from an event. Or hope to create similar events ourselves. Perhaps you easily follow your curiosity to new things. Maybe you honor perceived obligations. Hey, hey – maybe you won free tickets!!

Whatever your motivation, we want you to get out of your seat for Soul Rhythms, the unique, unmistakable Culture Builds Community project for 2012. Soul Rhythms will be a practical example of communities coming together. If you live in Dayton, you are the very face of this community. You are the gifted participants that build community, YOU are part of WE and WE are who we’ve been waiting for!!!

From March 5 through April 22, Cityfolk will join a network of partners, merging performers, distinctive cultures, rich Dayton neighborhoods and middle school students together in school buildings around the city. The task: make art, make friends, make history – together. We will see the fruits in performance on April 22 at 3:00 pm at the Dayton Masonic Center. Tickets will be on sale soon! And Hey, Hey: you might WIN free tickets! Keep an eye on the Culture Builds Community page on Facebook! Or check the website! We want you with us every step of the way!

However you take part in Soul Rhythms—learning online (blog or Facebook) or at the schools (Neighborhood School Centers), participating on stage (culmination performance at the Dayton Masonic Center), or watching from the audience (our best tellers of the tale)—DO IT! Your own soul rhythm will be glad you did!