Featured writer: Larry Tye; Moderator: Gregory Royal Pratt. Accompanied by live jazz from the Richard D. Johnson Trio.
The story of the first legendary jazz greats — Basie, Ellington, Armstrong — comes to life in Larry Tye’s book The Jazz Men; book discussion features music from local jazz musicians.
Book signing times (all signings take place in the Winter Garden, 9th Floor)
🖊️Gregory Royal Pratt: 4:00 – 4:20
🖊️Larry Tye: 4:00 – 4:20
FULL SCHEDULE
About the writers:
RICHARD D. JOHNSON was invited to become a member of Wynton Marsalis’ Septet and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, which he did from 2000-2005. As a representative of the United States through the U.S. State Department, Richard was named United States Musical Ambassador. Currently Richard is the founding member of “AFAR music” a jazz record label focusing on Jazz and Salsa musicians. Also Richard has been an Assistant Jazz Piano Faculty member at Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD since 2019. Richard also serves as the piano instructor for the Ravinia Jazz Program located in Chicago, IL.
GREGORY ROYAL PRATT covered every day of Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s term and was deeply sourced in City Hall, as well as in the other offices of local, state, and national politics that shaped the mayor’s administration. Pratt has won several national awards for his political and investigative reporting and he is a regular commentator about the city on local and national media, including appearances on CNN and NPR.
LARRY TYE is a former reporter at the Boston Globe, off now writing books and running a Boston-based fellowship program for health journalists. The Jazzmen is his ninth book, with others including Home Lands, the upbeat tale of a thriving Jewish diaspora; Superman, the biography of America’s longest-lasting (Jewish) hero; and Bobby Kennedy, which looks at RFK’s transformation from Joe McCarthy’s protege to a liberal icon. Tye graduated from Brown University and was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard. Tye is co-spearheading a drive to revive local journalism on Cape Cod, where he spends 90 percent of his time.
Books by these writers:
VIEW FESTIVAL READING LIST
The City Is Up for Grabs: How Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot Led and Lost a City in Crisis by Gregory Royal Pratt
The first comprehensive behind-the-scenes look at the tumultuous single term of Mayor Lightfoot and the chaos that roiled the city and City Hall.
The Jazzmen: How Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Count Basie Transformed America by Larry Tye
A sweeping and spellbinding portrait of the longtime kings of jazz who, born within a few years of one another, overcame racist exclusion and violence to become the most popular entertainers on the planet.
