Past Event
Sunday, March 5, 2017, 2 p.m.
Drumfolk: The Legacy of Bessie Jones
5148 Market Street, San Diego, 92114
Cost: Free
The event features a hands-on partipatory workshop facilitated by master percussionist David Pleasant. Bessie Jones was a leading member of the famed Georgia Sea Island Singers. That group featured the original form and content of early African traditions in America. She coined the term Drumfolk to show the close relationship between song, movement, and percussion in the living soul of Gullah-Geechee culture. As a pre-jazz, blues, and gospel form, it combined all elements of life (work, play and praise) filled with recrimination, power, and struggle. The group’s music was a primary force in many of the Civil Rights and later Black Power legacy chants which grew from the March on Washington 1963. Instruments will be provided.