Todd Barkan on Founding Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola
ESTABLISHING DIZZY’S CLUB IN NYC [:89]
NOW, A JAZZ MOMENT
TWENTY YEARS AFTER RUNNING THE KEYSTONE KORNER IN SAN FRANCISCO, PRESENTER TODD BARKAN BUMPED INTO WYNTON MARSALIS ON THE STREET IN NEW YORK CITY. AND … WELL, LET’S LET TODD TELL YA WHAT HAPPENED NEXT.
Todd Barkan: And he says to me, “I’m starting Jazz at Lincoln Center, and we’re going to have a jazz club in there, and maybe you should come there and work. That’d be a wonderful thing.” And lo and behold, I’m working with a guy that I had first worked with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers 20 years before in my own club. I wind up helping to start Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola and do so much other work with Wynton Marsalis at Jazz at Lincoln Center. And doing more important work with our music.
I wound up creating the Women in Jazz Festival at Dizzy’s, and the Generations in Jazz Festival at Dizzy’s….and very soon became an international Mecca for the musicians coming and musical fans coming from all over the world.
“Con Alma” composed by Dizzy Gillespie and “Guarachi Guaro” composed by Dizzy Gillespie and Gilbert Fuller, and both performed by Carlos Henriquez from his album Dizzy Con Clave: Live from Dizzy’s Coca Cola Club, used courtesy of RodBros Music and by permission of Dizlo Music Corporation a/c of Sony/ATV Music Publishing (ASCAP) and Music Sales Corp (ASCAP), respectively.
THIS JAZZ MOMENT WITH EMPRESARIO TODD BARKAN WAS CREATED BY THE NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS.
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