Echoes | Gestures

01.24.2023

The National Jazz Museum in Harlem 58 West 129th St, New York, NY 10027

“All over America black musicians are ... preparing to blow away the white dream. you can / hear them screeching love in rolling sheets of sound.”

—Larry Neal  

The Studio Museum in Harlem, in collaboration with The National Jazz Museum in Harlem, invites you to celebrate the release of Kwami Coleman’s new soundscape, “Echoes | Gestures | Abolition.” Created on the occasion of Studio’s community partnership with The Fortune Society, this program pays homage to the many Black musicians who created music while incarcerated, and who have used their music as a means of processing, releasing, and protesting our prison system.  

Registration for this event is closed. The soundscape, resources, works of art, and activities are available to explore below.

Live ASL interpreters will be present. 

Echoes abolition listening session participants

Kwami Coleman

Kwami Coleman is a musician, composer, producer, and musicologist specializing in improvised music. His research and published work are focused on experimental music history, jazz history, Black music and the African Diaspora, the political economy of music, music technology, aesthetics, and cultural studies. Kwami's first recording as a bandleader, Local Music, was released in 2017. It features ten original pieces, some of which are molded around field recordings taken around his childhood home in Harlem. His nearly completed book, Change: Modern Jazz and the “New Thing,” is a short history of the jazz avant-garde of the 1960s. He is an assistant professor of music at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at New York University. 


Lionel "Doc da Edutainer" Limage

Lionel "Doc da Edutainer" Limage is an artist and activist. Doc enjoys learning and teaching through the arts, thus the moniker Da Edutainer. A self-taught artist who discovered and developed his gifts while incarcerated, he plays keyboards, writes songs and poetry, and records and produces his own material.  The Brooklyn-born, Queens-raised artist has been involved in all things art-related since his release in 2018. He is now a proud member of the Fortune Society's Creative Arts program. IG: @smash4202 

Echoes abolition listening session partners

Partners  

National Jazz Museum in Harlem preserves, promotes, and presents jazz by inspiring knowledge, appreciation, and the celebration of jazz locally, nationally, and internationally.  

Fortune Society supports successful reentry from incarceration and promotes alternatives to incarceration, thus strengthening the fabric of our communities. 

Echoes listening resources

On related programming


On the criminalization of Black jazz musicians in Harlem




On the history of Black music and the role it plays in liberation movements





Learning and Engagement Funder Credits 2023

This program is made possible through a Building Capacity, Museum Association of New York (MANY) grant supported by an IMLS CARES Act grant. Additional program funding provided by the Ford Foundation.

The Studio Museum in Harlem’s Learning and Engagement programs are supported by the Thompson Foundation Education Fund; Van Cleef & Arpels; William R. Kenan, Jr. Charitable Trust; Con Edison; May and Samuel Rudin Family Foundation; Sony Music Group; and Joseph and Joan Cullman Foundation for the Arts. Additional support provided by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and New York State Council on the Arts.

Echoes | Gestures

01.24.2023

The National Jazz Museum in Harlem 58 West 129th St, New York, NY 10027

“All over America black musicians are ... preparing to blow away the white dream. you can / hear them screeching love in rolling sheets of sound.”

—Larry Neal  

The Studio Museum in Harlem, in collaboration with The National Jazz Museum in Harlem, invites you to celebrate the release of Kwami Coleman’s new soundscape, “Echoes | Gestures | Abolition.” Created on the occasion of Studio’s community partnership with The Fortune Society, this program pays homage to the many Black musicians who created music while incarcerated, and who have used their music as a means of processing, releasing, and protesting our prison system.  

Registration for this event is closed. The soundscape, resources, works of art, and activities are available to explore below.

Live ASL interpreters will be present. 

Echoes abolition listening session participants

Kwami Coleman

Kwami Coleman is a musician, composer, producer, and musicologist specializing in improvised music. His research and published work are focused on experimental music history, jazz history, Black music and the African Diaspora, the political economy of music, music technology, aesthetics, and cultural studies. Kwami's first recording as a bandleader, Local Music, was released in 2017. It features ten original pieces, some of which are molded around field recordings taken around his childhood home in Harlem. His nearly completed book, Change: Modern Jazz and the “New Thing,” is a short history of the jazz avant-garde of the 1960s. He is an assistant professor of music at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at New York University. 


Lionel "Doc da Edutainer" Limage

Lionel "Doc da Edutainer" Limage is an artist and activist. Doc enjoys learning and teaching through the arts, thus the moniker Da Edutainer. A self-taught artist who discovered and developed his gifts while incarcerated, he plays keyboards, writes songs and poetry, and records and produces his own material.  The Brooklyn-born, Queens-raised artist has been involved in all things art-related since his release in 2018. He is now a proud member of the Fortune Society's Creative Arts program. IG: @smash4202 

Echoes abolition listening session partners

Partners  

National Jazz Museum in Harlem preserves, promotes, and presents jazz by inspiring knowledge, appreciation, and the celebration of jazz locally, nationally, and internationally.  

Fortune Society supports successful reentry from incarceration and promotes alternatives to incarceration, thus strengthening the fabric of our communities. 

Echoes listening resources

On related programming


On the criminalization of Black jazz musicians in Harlem




On the history of Black music and the role it plays in liberation movements





Learning and Engagement Funder Credits 2023

This program is made possible through a Building Capacity, Museum Association of New York (MANY) grant supported by an IMLS CARES Act grant. Additional program funding provided by the Ford Foundation.

The Studio Museum in Harlem’s Learning and Engagement programs are supported by the Thompson Foundation Education Fund; Van Cleef & Arpels; William R. Kenan, Jr. Charitable Trust; Con Edison; May and Samuel Rudin Family Foundation; Sony Music Group; and Joseph and Joan Cullman Foundation for the Arts. Additional support provided by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and New York State Council on the Arts.

The National Jazz Museum in Harlem 58 West 129th St, New York, NY 10027