jazz

Todd Lear is a video artist who works and lives in the Philadelphia area.

Rubin Edwards is a Philadelphia producer, songwrite, musician and charter bassist with a jazz-fusion band called Catch 22. He continues to cut hair in Philadelphia and play bass guitar at music events throughout the region, including popular recent stints at the annual Cape May Jazz Festival. He produced contemporary jazz artist Lynn Riley's self-titled album in 2006.

Paul Keene was a Philadelphia-born black artist who earned an prominent reputation at a time when that was exceedingly difficult for artists of his race. He earned three degrees and taught at Temple University's Tyler School of Art and the Philadelphia College of Art. In 1960 he was promoted to Associate Professor of Art at the Philadelphia College of Art. He remained there until 1969, when he left to become a full-time professor at Bucks County Community College in Newtown, Pennsylvania, where he helped to establish a new art department. He retired from teaching in 1985 and took up his brushes full time.

In addition to the Michener Art Museum, Keene's work is in the collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Dallas Museum of Art, Tucson Museum of Art, and the Woodmere Art Museum, among others. His subject matter reflects his personal responses to experiences of African Americans, and his work includes voodoo symbolism, ancient Haitian deities, and depictions of jazz musicians.

Carlton Jones is a working videographer and the head of Carlton Jones Video based in Willow Grove, PA.

The Sedgwick Cultural Center, located in Mt. Airy, the heart of Philadelphia's Historic Northwest, creates an experience that enriches the lives of individuals and of the many communities it serves. The Center's broad spectrum of performing and visual arts programs brings together people of all ages and backgrounds and gives voice and venue to both local and national artists. Drawing on teen jazzophiles from both the city and the suburbs, the Teen Jazz Workshop lovingly spotlighted in the video is one of the Sedgwick programs that create a community of artists to celebrate and advance one of the region's rich musical traditions.

Louis Massiah is the founder and executive director of the Scribe Video Center in Philadelphia, a media arts organization that provides low-cost workshops and equipment access to emerging video and filmmakers and community organizations. He is also an independent filmmaker who has produced and directed a variety of award-winning documentary films for public television.

Known for his explorations of civil rights themes and crises in the African-American community, his credits include two films in the Eyes on the Prize II series and The Bombing of Osage Avenue, about the burning of a black section of Philadephia as a result of the police bombing of the headquarters of the group MOVE. He is also the director of W.E.B. DuBois: A Biography in Four Voices. Massiah has received awards from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the the National Black Programming Consortium, the Pennsylvania Association of Broadcasters, the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame and several Emmy award nominations. In 1996, he was a recipient of a five year John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation fellowship. His current project, Haytian Stories, examines the complex relationship between the United States and Haiti over the last 200 years.

The John W. Coltrane Cultural Society is dedicated to the preservation of the life, memory and works of the great John W. Coltrane and conducts forums, lectures and concerts focusing on jazz and the self-expression found in music. It also offers numerous childrenís music workshops, a live backyard performance series, as well as annual birthday celebrations in remembrance of John Coltrane. The goals of the JWCCS are to develop activities and programs to help young students to achieve self-esteem and accomplish self-expression through music. The society also wishes to make the cultural contributions of African Americans more visible to accessible to Philadelphia communities, especially through storytelling and music.

Toni Cade Bambara authored two short story collections, Gorilla, My Love and The Seabirds Are Still Alive; a novel, The Salt Eaters; and a collection of fiction, essays, and conversations, Deep Sightings and Rescue Missions (all of which are available from Vintage Books). A noted documentary filmmaker and screenwriter, Bambara taught writing workshops at Scribe for many years and collaborated on numerous productions. Her film work includes the documentaries The Bombing of Osage Avenue and W.E.B. Du Bois: A Biography in Four Voices. She died in 1995.

Carlton Jones is a working videographer and the head of Carlton Jones Video, based in Willow Grove, PA.