RUSSELL GUNN & THE ROYAL KRUNK JAZZ ORCHESTRA

Special Guests: Weedie Braimah, Stefon Harris, Jazzmeia Horn, and more.

Join us for The Blues and Its People, an electrifying evening-length concert featuring critically acclaimed composer and trumpeter Russell Gunn and his Royal Krunk Jazz Orkestra that brings to life poet and author Amiri Baraka’s groundbreaking work, Blues People: Negro Music in White America. Special guests include Weedie Braimah, Davell Crawford, Miles Griffith, Craig Harris, Stefon Harris, Jazzmeia Horn, Oliver Lake, jessica care Moore, and Leon Timbo. This exciting one-night-only exploration of jazz, gospel, and blues, commissioned by the Apollo, traverses Baraka’s text through song and readings curated by Fredara Hadley, Ph.D, ethnomusicologist at The Julliard School of Music.

Don’t miss this special celebration of the 60th Anniversary of Baraka’s revolutionary text and the enduring legacy of Black music as only the Apollo could tell it. The Blues and Its People is a continuation of the Apollo’s 2022-2023 season, The Next Movement, an exploration of what’s new, now and next in music, dance, art and ideas.