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Wednesday, March 15th
6 — 7:30 p.m.
The Jazz Salon: Photographer Clemens Kalischer at Music Inn
Robert Mills Carriage House : 1616 Blanding Street, Columbia, SC 29201
What happens when a refugee from Hitler’s Germany, a man whose faith in art and social justice sustained him through three years in concentration camps, finds himself in the presence of gospel matriarchs Mahalia Jackson singing the blues, free jazz pioneer Ornette Coleman singing Bach chorales, and Harlem dancers Leon James and Al Minns taking flight to execute their Lindy Hop air steps?
University of Vermont Professor John Gennari will talk about that moment at the Music Inn in the 1950s as seen through the photographs of Clemen Kalischer, with music from the time performed by the Mark Rapp Group. Through a dialogue of spoken word and music, The Jazz Salon will highlight the intersection of jazz, post-Holocaust Jewish cultural life, black-Jewish interactions, and the movement for black freedom and equality.
The event is free and open to the public, but registration is required. A reception in My Mother’s Garden at Robert Mills will follow the program.
This event is co-presented by Historic Columbia, University of South Carolina's History Center, Institute for Southern Studies, and Humanities Collaborative, and ColaJazz.
About the Presenters
John Gennari
John Gennari is Chair and Professor of English at the University of Vermont. He is the author of Blowin’ Hot and Cool: Jazz and Its Critics (University of Chicago Press, 2006), winner of the ASCAP/Deems Taylor Award for Excellence in Music Criticism and the John Cawelti Award for Best Book in American Culture Studies. His most recent book is Flavor and Soul: Italian America at Its African American Edge (University of Chicago Press, 2017). He is an American Studies-trained cultural historian (BA Harvard, MA/PhD University of Pennsylvania) with teaching and research interests in jazz and popular music, the performing arts, race and ethnicity, expressive culture, and cultural criticism.
Mark Rapp
Trumpeter, composer, arranger and bandleader Mark Rapp is the founder of ColaJazz.com, a jazz initiative to grow and support jazz in and around Columbia, SC through events, education, recordings, and advocacy. In 2019, ColaJazz was 1 of 15 jazz organizations in the country chosen to beta-test the new Jazz at Lincoln Center After-School Content. ColaJazz brings jazz to the Children Hospital, retirement communities, schools and communities in need. In partnership with the Koger Center, Rapp presented a “Jazz for Young People” concert to 700 kids in the Boys & Girls Clubs and shortly after, Rapp presented a “SC Jazz Culture” concert for 2000 Richland One 3rd graders. He is also the co-creator and Artistic Director of the “Live in the Lobby: Koger Jazz” series.
