Freedom Sounds Like…: Exploring Multi-dimensionality, Identity & Personhood

Jazz is a freedom sound. This Black Music Month, 651 joins with the Jazz Generations Initiative to explore the movements, meanings and legacies of jazz in American society, with free events across four Tuesdays in June. Each is paired with a show (also free) that Thursday at Café Erzulie.

Doors: 5:45 PM
Start Time: 6:00 PM
Duration: 75 minutes

ABOUT THE EVENT

What is the sound of perception colliding with reality? In the experience of Black women, especially Black-women artists, what does it look like to safeguard one’s own relationship to multidimensionality? To “define myself for myself,” in the words of Audre Lorde? Dr. Farah Jasmine Griffin will join Devon Gates and Liany Mateo, two young bassists, bandleaders and scholars, and vocalist-flutist Melanie Charles and vocalist and curator Faith Quashie, to discuss in an open-ended format these questions of creativity and self-preservation. The conversation will find multiple jumping-off points within the works of Dr. Griffin, on such figures in the music as Billie Holiday, Abbey Lincoln and Geri Allen. Presented by the Jazz Generations Initiative.

Gates and Mateo perform with their ensemble on June 25 at .

FEATURED ARTISTS & SPEAKERS

Devon Gates

Devon Gates is a Brooklyn-based bassist, vocalist, and composer whose work sits at the intersection of jazz, chamber music, and social storytelling. A Harvard-trained anthropologist and Berklee-sharpened improviser, Gates has worked with esteemed artists including Terri Lyne Carrington, Vijay Iyer, Jen Shyu, Nicole Mitchell, Susie Ibarra, and Sara Serpa, and performed at venues including The Jazz Gallery, the Monterey Jazz Festival, London Jazz Festival, Montreal Jazz Festival, DC Jazz Festival, Winter JazzFest, the Roulette Intermedium, and SFJazz. One of 2024's Up and Comers of the Year (The New York City Jazz Record), she was featured on bass and vocals in Terri Lyne Carrington’s newest Grammy-nominated release, We Insist 2025, a tribute to the seminal Abbey Lincoln/Max Roach recording, and is a 2026 Next Jazz Legacy Awardee. She is currently faculty at The New School, and a teaching artist for Musicambia, an NYC-based nonprofit that facilitates music education in prisons.

Liany Mateo

Liany Mateo, a jazz bassist from Jersey City, NJ, has already studied and performed with some of the country’s top names in jazz. While in high school, she studied under renowned bassist Ben Wolfe. Through her involvement with the New Jersey Performing Arts "Jazz for Teens"program she has been able to work with vocalist, Jazzmeia Horn, saxophonists, Mark Gross and Wayne Escoffery, and drummer Alvester Garnett. Liany has received numerous honors as an aspiring jazz musician. In 2016, she had the honor of performing with an all-star band that included drummer, Jerome Jennings and pianist, Benito Gonzalez in Newark, NJ, Sarah Vaughan’s hometown, during the U.S. Postal Service’s ceremony unveiling of the Sarah Vaughan Commemorative Stamp. Notably, in 2015, she received the Governor of New Jersey’s Award in Arts Education, and was awarded the first place title in the Hudson County, New Jersey’s Solo Strings Competition. Liany is currently studying with the legendary bassist, Rodney Whitaker at Michigan State University where she is pursuing a Bachelor's degree in Jazz Studies.

Farah Jasmine Griffin

Farah Jasmine Griffin is a University Professor at Columbia University, where she also served as the inaugural Chair of the African American and African Diaspora Studies. Professor Griffin received her B.A. in History & Literature from Harvard and her Ph.D. in American Studies from Yale. She is the author or editor of eight books including Who Set You Flowin?: The African American Migration Narrative (Oxford, 1995), If You Can’t Be Free, Be a Mystery: In Search of Billie Holiday (Free Press, 2001), and Harlem Nocturne: Women Artists and Progressive Politics During World War II (Basic Books, 2013). Griffin collaborated with composer, pianist, Geri Allen and director, actor S. Epatha Merkerson on two theatrical projects, for which she wrote the book: The first, “Geri Allen and Friends Celebrate the Great Jazz Women of the Apollo,” with Lizz Wright, Dianne Reeves, Teri Lyne Carrington and others, premiered on the main stage of the Apollo Theater in May of 2013. The second, “A  Conversation with Mary Lou” featuring vocalist Carmen Lundy, premiered at Harlem Stage in March 2014 and was performed at The John F. Kennedy Center in May of 2016. Her most recent book, Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature was published by W.W. Norton in September 2021. Griffin is a 2021-22 Guggenheim Fellow and Mellon Foundation Fellow in Residence. 

Melanie Charles

Melanie Charles is one of the very few artists whose sound can capture the sentiments of a generation. Over the past few decades, the Brooklyn native’s dynamic engagements with jazz, soul, and R&B have been embraced by a range of artists including Wynton Marsalis, SZA, Mach-Hommy, Gorillaz, and The Roots. In 2021, she appeared on NPR’s Tiny Desk and stunned with her eclectic style. Through it all, she has remained committed to making music that pushes listeners to consider new possibilities—both sonically and politically. “Make Jazz Trill  Again,” a project that she launched in 2016, demonstrates her allegiance to everyday people, especially the youth and is focused on taking jazz from the museum to the streets. “I love jazz, I really fell in love with it deeply. But I was interested in young people interacting with it,” Charles says. The album Y’all Don’t (Really) Care About Black Women is reflective of Charles’ tremendous versatility and imagination as an artist but of also her deep care for community. 

Faith Quashie

Faith Quashie intertwines her West Indian roots with the vibrant heartbeat of Brooklyn, NY, as contemporary vocalist and an artist who resonates far beyond soundwaves. She is the recipient of two coveted DownBeat Magazine Awards and a seasoned traveler across stages. Collaborating with luminaries like Cyrille Aimee, Candice Hoyes, and Sasha Berliner through the Women in Jazz Organization, Faith is not just a vocalist, but a catalyst for change. She is a recent participant in The Woodshed Network Residency program alongside the legendary Dee Dee Bridgewater. Beyond the stage, Faith stands as a driving community force in the movement to elevate women in music, including as curator and member of the Jazz Generations Initiative team.

ABOUT JGI

The Jazz Generations Initiative cultivates creative futures in jazz performance and scholarship by celebrating the music’s past and keeping its present rooted in community.

ABOUT 651 ARTS

Since 1988, 651 ARTS has championed contemporary African Diasporic performance by supporting emerging artists, convening community and advancing new artistic visions. Rooted in Brooklyn, 651 ARTS preserves and celebrates Black cultural expression while serving as a home for innovation across the African Diaspora.

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