Julia Keefe’s Indigenous Big Band

ta ‘c meeywi folks (good Morning)

The Joseph Center was fortunate to have Julia Keefe’s quartet perform here in February. For those who have not followed this Nez Perce musical thread, here is a press release about Julia’s Indigenous Big Band’s upcoming performance at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C.

This press release captures many things that we have worked on at the Center, first and foremost our “Nez Perce Music” exhibit, which traces the use of music in assimilating Indians, and Native peoples’ use of music and the tools of music to resist. That exhibit–which features photos of the Carlisle Boarding school band and an 1890 Nez Perce musician there to Julia Keefe today, photos of an 1800s Spalding Nez Perce hymnal and of Nez Perce drumming and dancing on the Colville Reservation in the early 1900s–just came black from display at Eastern Oregon University, and is available for display elsewhere. Call or email us!

Here’s the link to Julia’s press release:

https://www.juliakeefe.com/so/bcOyxB8d4?languageTag=en&cid=9d221399-b4b1-43c9-a348-807f7d32f0f8

Julia Keefe and Native American Jazz

What a treat! What a performance! On Saturday, wrapping up what looks like it will become an annual “Josephy Fest,” Julia Keefe, the Nez Perce jazz singer, brought her quartet to the Josephy Center, and closed the show. She and her New York drummer, Adam Benham, U of Idaho piano player, Kate Skinner, and Mali Obomsawin, an Abenaki First Nations bass player who also plays in the Julia Keefe Indigenous Big Band, were stunning.Read Rich’s Post →

Nez Perce Music–Three Years Later

Three years ago, we had a summer exhibit featuring Nez Perce music, from drummers and dancers of long ago to the “Nezpercians” and “Lollypop Six” jazz and dance bands of the early and mid-twentieth century. We gave a nod in that exhibit to a young Nez Perce jazz singer named Julia Keefe.

Julia wasn’t done with music and with her Native past. With a grant in hand, Keefe and co-leader, Delbert Anderson of the Dine Tribe of the Navajo Nation, set out to build an all-indigenous big band. They worried that they could find enough talent and interest among indigenous musicians, but, in the end, according to Tom Bance of NPR’s Northwest News Network”:

“Keefe and Anderson said they could have assembled two all-Native big bands with the talent that came out of the woodwork. The selected participants had connections to Native peoples across the Americas, including Alaska, Hawaii, eastern Canada, the U.S. Southwest, the Great Plains and Caribbean.”Read Rich’s Post →