Month: June 2016

Calling all educators, service providers, social workers, school professionals and community-based organizations!

Here’s your chance to partake in an anti-discrimination clinic that will equip you with the tools to better help youth and families in your communities.

Project Reach, a community organization that has held anti-discrimination and social justice training for 35 years, is hosting a Queens-wide workshop clinic to address issues of bullying, bias and discrimination.

This 6-hour, participant-centered training will also confront identity destruction, inter-group conflict, community disempowerment. Project Reach invites individuals and organizations that want to end discrimination and injustice and institutionalize substantive and sustainable cultural change.

The Queens clinic will be at Flushing Library, located at 41-17 Main Street, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Breakfast will be served at 8:30 a.m.

To register online, visit bit.ly/QnClinic2016. Deadline is today, June 8.

For more information, contact Don Kao at donkao@projectreachnyc.org.

Police say a man stole about 100 articles of clothing from The Children’s Place store located at 40-24 College Point Boulevard on May 27.

According to authorities, the suspect walked in at about 9:45 a.m. and placed all of the clothing inside a black plastic bag. He walked out of the store without paying for any of the merchandise.

Police describe the suspect as a 25 to 30-year-old man with a beard. He was last seen wearing a blue and red shirt with camouflaged pants.

Anyone with information about this incident is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or submit tips by logging onto the Crime stoppers website at WWW.NYPDCRIMESTOPPERS.COM

On June 10, Grammy Award-nominated NEA Jazz Master Jimmy Heath will return to Flushing Town Hall for a performance that will excite music lovers.
The musician, who will turn 90 years old in October, is set to perform a concert honoring his friend and mentor, John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie. In “Dizzy Revisited,” Heath and the Queens Jazz Orchestra will play some of the trumpeter’s biggest hits such as “Groovin’ High” and “A Night in Tunisia.”
Gillespie, originally from South Carolina, became the face of bebop and modern jazz in the 1940s. His beautiful and complex music influenced trumpeters such as Miles Davis, Lee Morgan, Arturo Sandoval and Clifford Brown.
Gillespie, Heath and the legendary Louis Armstrong lived near to each other in Corona during their careers.
Originally from Philadelphia, Heath has been performing jazz music since the 1940s after he was rejected from the World War II draft for being underweight. In 1975, he and his brothers formed a band called Heath Brothers. Besides working with Armstrong and Gillespie, Heath has played alongside Davis, John Coltrane and Wynton Marsalis throughout his career.
During his last performance at Flushing Town Hall in November, Heath was joined by Michael Mossman on the trumpet, Steve Davis on the trombone, Al Foster on the drums and Bob Cranshaw on the bass. Together, the five men performed classic hits, including songs from Davis and Cannonball Adderley.
It’s surprising to hear that although he’s been performing for decades, Heath finds it to be a constant struggle.
“You always have to be your best and present music that is understood by your audience without watering your own concept too much,” he said. “You have to find a happy medium of presenting music that you think is good plus what the audience wants.”
The Queens Jazz Orchestra members include musicians such as Antonio Hart, Mark Gross, Bobby LaVell, Charles Davis, Gary Smulyan, John Mosca, Steve Davis, Jason Jackson, Douglas Purviance, Frank Greene, Michael Mossman, Greg Gisbert, Freddie Hendrix, Jeb Patton, David Wong and Evan Sherman.
Many of the Queens Jazz Orchestra members are also members of the Jimmy Heath Big Band. In fact, two of the orchestra’s members are Antonio Hart, a professor of jazz studies, and Mossman, the director of jazz studies, both at the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College. In the 1980s, Heath was a professor at the school and was one of the individuals to spearhead the creation of a jazz program at the college. Hart was one of Heath’s students.
Tickets for the concert can be found at Flushingtownhall.org. Tickets are $42 per person, $32 for members and $20 for students.