Sheldon Museum of Art, Columbia U. partner in jazz film series in Lincoln

Released on 01/20/2010, at 2:00 AM
Office of University Communications
University of Nebraska–Lincoln

WHEN: Monday, Mar. 8, 2010, through Apr. 5, 2010

WHERE: Sheldon Museum of Art, 12th and R Streets

Lincoln, Neb., January 20th, 2010 —

Film has returned to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Sheldon Museum of Art with a Jazz Film Series.

The series, which was started last fall in collaboration with Columbia University scholar Robert O'Meally and the Center for Jazz Studies at Columbia, continues this semester with two events:

* Monday, March 8, 5:30 p.m. -- Author Farah Jasmine Griffin will present film shorts of jazz pianist, composer and arranger Mary Lou Williams and dancer/choreographer Pearl Primus. Griffin will lead a discussion after the screening.

* Monday, April 5, 5:30 p.m. -- "Round Midnight," featuring saxophonist Dexter Gordon, will be shown. Maxine Gordon, his widow and a jazz scholar, will give a talk about the making of the film and will lead a discussion after the showing.

The series is funded in part by a grant from the Nebraska Humanities Council. The screenings are free and open to the public.

"We are delighted to inaugurate this series as part of the expanded programming at the Sheldon Museum of Art," said museum director J. Daniel Veneciano. "The series returns film to Ethel S. Abbott Auditorium, and examines jazz -- a quintessentially American art form -- in cultural context. Jazz has become a staple offering at Sheldon with our Jazz in June Festival and our Tuesday Night concert partnership with the UNL School of Music. Now we are privileged to bring national scholars from the Center for Jazz Studies for this series."

Griffin is a professor of English and comparative literature and African-American studies and director of the Institute for Research in African-American Studies at Columbia. She is the author of numerous books, including "If You Can't Be Free, Be a Mystery: In Search of Billie Holiday" and "Clawing at the Limits of Cool: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and The Greatest Jazz Collaboration Ever" (with Salim Washington).

Gordon is senior interviewer and jazz researcher for the Bronx African American History Project at Fordham University and project director of "Women Who Listen: An Oral History with Women Jazz Fans." She has written numerous conference papers and essays on jazz.

Sheldon Museum of Art houses a permanent collection of more than 12,000 objects, primarily focusing on American art. Sheldon, 12th and R streets on the UNL City Campus, is open free to the public during regular hours: Tuesday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Wednesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sunday, noon to 5 p.m.; closed Mondays. For information or to arrange a tour, call (402) 472-4524. Additional information is available on the Sheldon Web site, www.sheldon.unl.edu.

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