Looking At: Jazz - Latin Jazz and Jazz as an International Music November 29, 2006

Williamsburg Regional Library will host a free six-part film viewing, reading and discussion series called Looking At: Jazz, Americas Art Form. The series includes viewing of specially curated films on the history and styles of jazz in America.

Tonight's program features:
A Night in Havana: Dizzy Gillespie in Cuba

Music, and particularly jazz, knows no borders, and this documentary follows the eminent trumpet great Dizzy Gillespie during a musical tour of Cuba, during which he meets with Fidel Castro, plays music with leading Cuban jazz musicians and muses on the influence of Afro-Cuban and Latin music on jazz.

In the 1940s Bebop was born in the United States. It was a time for daring and innovation, and Dizzy Gillespie was a major innovator in introducing Afro-Cuban rhythms into jazz. Music would never be the same. Forty years later, Dizzy visited Cuba, the wellspring of his inspiration. He performed with then-rising stars trumpeter Arturo Sandoval and pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba, among other celebrated Cuban musicians. This film follows a journey that was a spiritual and triumphal homecoming for Gillespie.

Discussion to follow will be led by Harris Simon, instructor of music at the College of William and Mary and a noted local pianist and harmonica player.

Event submitted by Eventful.com on behalf of programs.