119th birthday of Melvin Tolson

(Born 6 February 1898, Moberly, Missouri, US)

Award-wining prodigiously creative poet, playwright, essayist and academic whose works include Rendezvous with America ([poetry] 1944), The Fire in the Flint ([play] 1952), Libretto for the Republic of Liberia ([poetry] 1953), Harlem Gallery, Book 1, the Curator ([poetry] 1965) and A Gallery of Harlem Portraits ([poetry] 1979) and whose mentoring and training of the celebrated Wiley College (Marshall, Texas) students’ debating society in the 1930s is the focus of the film The Great Debaters (2007), directed by Denzel Washington who also plays Melvin Tolson’s character

(John Coltrane Quartet, “My favorite things” [personnel: Coltrane, soprano saxophone; McCoy Tyner, piano; Jimmy Garrison, bass; Elvin Jones, drums; recorded: live, Comblain-la-Tour, Hamoir, Belgium, RTBF radio & television network, 1 August 1965])

Twitter@HerbertEkweEkwe

104th birthday of Rosa Parks

(Born 4 February 1913, Tuskegee, Ala, US)

Eminent African American freedom movement exponent – appositely reminds the world: “You must never be fearful about what you are doing when it is right”

(Thelonious Monk Quartet, “Bolivar blues” [personnel: Monk, piano; Charlie Rouse, tenor saxophone; John Ore, bass; Frankie Dunlop, drums; recorded: Columbia 30th Street Studio, New York, US, 31 October 1962])

Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe

85th birthday of Stuart Hall

(Born 3 February 1932, Kingston, Jamaica)

One of African British preeminent intellectuals – cultural theorist, editor, academic, radio & television analyst

(Miles Davis Quintet, “Sid’s ahead” [personnel: Davis, trumpet, piano; Julian  “Cannonball” Adderley, alto saxophone; John Coltrane, tenor saxophone; Paul Chambers, bass; Philly Joe Jones;, drums; recorded: Columbia 30th Street Studio, New York, US,  4 March 1958])

Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe

103rd birthday of William Ellisworth Artis

(Born 2 February 1914, Washington, NC, US)

CELEBRATED versatile sculptor and academic

Artis working on A Mother’s Love (1963)

(Sonny Rollins Quartet, The Bridge [personnel: Rollins, tenor saxophone;  Jim Hall, guitar; Bob Cranshaw, bass; Ben Riley, drums; Harry 
“HT” Saunders, drums {on “God bless the child” – track five – only}; recorded: RCA-Victor Studio B, New York, US, 30 January/13-14 February 1962])

Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe

43rd anniversary of first open heart-surgery in Biafra/southwestcentral Africa

(1 February 1974: operation performed, Nsukka University Teaching Hospital, Enuugwu, Biafra)

Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe

FIRST OPEN heart-surgery in Biafra/southwestcentral Africa was performed at the Nsukka University Teaching Hospital, Enuugwu, Biafra, on 1 February 1974 – four years and just over a month to the day after the formal end of phase-III (beginning of phase-IV) of the 44-month long Igbo genocide, foundational genocide of post-(European)conquest Africa, perpetrated by Nigeria and its suzerain state Britain in which 3.1 million Igbo or  25 per cent of this nation’s population were murdered.

The surgeons who worked on the surgery included CH Anyanwu, DC Nwafor, FA Udekwu and M Yacoub. In the subsequent 26 years, i.e., by 2000, a total of 102 (one hundred and two) open heart-surgeries were carried out at the Enuugwu centre.

Forty-three years since the first surgery, Africa and the rest of the world cannot wait for the triumph of the Biafra freedom movement to witness the expansion of the stretch of such creative and transformational energy by Biafrans  – an African people building and reconstructing on their land and on their own terms; definitely not an engagement and process seen in Africa for ages... Here, it is indeed “Morning Yet On Creation Day” as the Father of African Literature reminds us.

(Thelonious Monk Quintet, “Brilliant corners” – personnel: Monk, piano; Ernie Henry, alto saxophone; Sonny Rollins, tenor saxophone; Oscar Pettiford, bass; Max Roach, drums; recorded: Riverside studio, New York, US, 15 October 1956)

Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe

115th birthday of Langston Hughes

(Born 1 February 1902, Joplin, Missouri, US)

One of the most distinguished alumni of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s-1930s – prolific award-winning poet, novelist, playwright, columnist, freedom movement exponent

First published in 1926 by Hughes, just 24, the poems here in The Weary Blues are a preview of the enduring liberatory portraiture of a stretch of anthologies and other writings that the savant contributes to African American and world literature

(Wynton Marsalis Septet, “Black codes from the underground” [personnel: Marsalis, trumpet; Wycliffe Gordon, trombone; Wes Anderson, alto saxophone; Todd Williams, tenor saxophone; Marcus Roberts, piano; Reginald Veal, bass; Herlin Riley, drums; recorded: Berlin Jazzfest, Germany 3 November 1989])

Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe

48th birthday of Joshua Redman

(Born 1 February 1969, Berkeley, California, US)

One of the most inventive saxophonists (tenor, soprano, alto) and composers of his generation

(Joshua Redman Quartet, “Mischief” [personnel: Redman, tenor saxophone; Brad Mehldau, piano; Christian McBride, bass; Brian Blade, drums; recorded: Power Station, New York, US, 8/9/10 March 1994])

Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe