The Music

About the Composer

John Blake, Jr.
Jazz Violinist, Composer, Producer, Teacher, Lecturer, Author

The late John Blake, Jr. was one of the world’s leading jazz violinists for over four decades. A four-time winner of the Down Beat Critics’ Poll Violinist Deserving Wider Recognition category he was also one of the top two jazz violinists in the 49th, 50th, and 51st Down Beat Readers’ Poll, Classically trained, Blake first gained recognition on early-’70s recordings he made with Archie Shepp and in the mid-70s became established with a global audience during three years recording and touring as a member of Grover Washington, Jr.’s popular “crossover” jazz band. He then spent five years working extensively as a member of various ensembles led by pianist McCoy. Among other artists with whom Blake has performed and/or recorded with are the Duke Ellington Orchestra, Turtle Island String Quartet, Quartet Indigo, the Steve Turre Sextet, the Billy Taylor Trio, Avery Sharpe, Cecil McBee, Jay Hoggard and James Newton. Blake released his recording debut as a leader and composer, Maiden Dance, in 1984, the first of five well-received projects on Gramavision Records including one that teamed him up with fellow jazz violinists Michal Urbaniak and Didier Lockwood. He released his sixth album, Quest that reunited him with Grover Washington and featured Joe Ford, Charles Fambrough, Ben Riley, Omar Hill, Joey Calderazzo, on Sunnyside Records 1992. Blake’s first recording with his current quartet, The Traveler, was released in 2007.

Born in Philadelphia on July 3, 1947, Blake began studying violin in that city’s public school system and at the Settlement Music School. After graduating from West Virginia University he did postgraduate work at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Montreux, Switzerland and received a grant to study studied East Indian music. In addition to his work as an instrumentalist performing with his quartet and as a featured guest soloist at concerts and on studio sessions, Blake is also an accomplished composer, arranger and producer as well as an author, teacher and lecturer who presents hundreds of workshops annually to musicians at all levels. He co-wrote with Suzuki educator Jody Harmon J.I.M.E., the definitive beginning string jazz method book and CD in use around the world. In addition to lecturing on campuses throughout the US, Blake is on the faculty of the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and at the Manhattan School of Music in New York City, and has been a guest lecturer at Berklee College of Music in Boston. In 2004 he was appointed to the Basler Chair of Excellence for the winter semester at East Tennessee State University and that year also was awarded a Chamber Music America Jazz Composer Grant.

For more about Mr. Blake, visit his website: http://www.johnblakejr.com

About the Librettist

Charlotte Blake Alston
Master Storyteller, Narrator, and Singer

Charlotte Blake Alston is an internationally acclaimed storyteller, narrator and librettist who performs in venues throughout North America and abroad. Her stories are rooted in African and African American oral traditions. She has made multiple appearances at the Smithsonian Institution, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and at numerous festivals around the country including the National Storytelling Festival, the National Festival of Black Storytelling and the Timpanogos Festival. She has been a presenter and featured artist at festivals in Ghana, South Africa, Ireland, Switzerland and more recently in Austria and Brazil. She has been commissioned to create libretti and narrative texts for the Opera Company of Philadelphia, The Philadelphia Orchestra, the Commonwealth Youthchoirs and Singing City Choir and has appeared as a narrator for orchestras around the country. The 2021-2022 season marks her 28th as the host of The Philadelphia Orchestra’s preschool concerts and her 31st as a host and narrator on the orchestra’s Family, School and subscription concerts. For 17 years, she was the featured host, storyteller, and narrator on the Carnegie Hall Family and School Concert series and performed as an artist for the Lincoln Center Institute. She is the narrative voice of Health Training Videos for UNICEF and Global Health Media. She has performed at both Presidential and Gubernatorial Inaugural celebrations. She was one of two storytellers selected to represent the National Association of Black Storytellers at the opening of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. Honors include a Pew Fellowship in the Arts, the Commonwealth of PA Artist of the Year Award, the National Storytelling Network’s Circle of Excellence Award, the Zora Neale Hurston Award and two Best of Philly® awards. Her latest audio installation, Voices in the Landscape: Deeply Rooted… at Longwood Gardens ran from January through March 2021 and will be remounted in the spring of 2022. In the summer of 2021 she was named the Philadelphia Orchestra’s Official Storyteller, Narrator and Host. The Good Raised Up was written in partnership with her brother, the late Jazz Violinist and Composer, John Blake, Jr. 

For more about Ms. Alston, visit her website: http://www.charlotteblakealston.com