A Conversation with the Jazz Griot Award Recipient Dorthaan Kirk
Thursday, January 5, 2023
12:00 PM – 12:50 PM US EST
Location: Clinic Room #5/St. Cloud
The Donald Meade Legacy Foundation and African American Jazz Caucus are committed to recognizing and celebrating individuals who have demonstrated a dedication to jazz music, history and culture through the vehicle of the story. The Griot emerged from West African traditions as a storyteller, historian, chronicler and keeper of the timeline - remembering through word and song the important events and experiences of a particular community. The Griot holds sacred the collective memory of a community preserving it for future generations. Join us to meet this year’s honoree, Ms. Dorthaan Kirk.
ABOUT DORTHAAN KIRK
The Donald Meade Legacy Society in conjunction with the African American Jazz Caucus confers the 12th Annual Donald Meade Legacy Jazz Griot Award to tireless jazz advocate, Dorthaan Kirk. A 2020 A.B. Spellman NEA Jazz Masters Fellowship for Jazz Advocacy recipient, Kirk has been a major force at WBGO Jazz 88.3 FM, Newark Public Radio for more than four decades. Steadfast and relentless in her chosen pursuit to orchestrate a better world and called “Newark’s First Lady of Jazz,” Kirk is an active curator and producer of jazz events, and supporter of musicians and jazz education for children and communities.
Kirk presents the Jazz Vespers series at Bethany Baptist Church of Newark and consultant producer for a monthly jazz brunch series, named “Dorthaan’s Place” in her honor at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center’s Nico Kitchen & Bar. These events bring in such artists as Jimmy Heath, Jon Faddis, Gregory Porter, among others, to the communities. Kirk has received awards from the City of East Orange, City of Newark, and New Jersey State Assembly for her work in the arts. In 2013, she received the Humanitarian Award from the American Conference on Diversity, Essex County Chapter – and, in 2018, the Dorthaan Kirk Scholarship Opportunity Fund was created to support jazz students in the Newark area in honor of her 80th birthday.
Before retiring in 2018, Kirk was the special events and community relations coordinator, the curator of station WBGO's art gallery, which is open to the public, and managed the annual WBGO Jazz-a-thon and the WBGO Children’s Jazz Series, which offers free jazz concerts by top-name musicians specifically for young people since 1993. She continues to be the keeper of the flame of her late husband’s musical legacy, Rahsaan Roland Kirk: managing his music and publishing company, and organizing special events in his honor.