In 2000, following a long and successful career as head of his own public relations agency, Jim became a freelance travel writer. In 2003 he was named travel editor at New York Trend. Jim travels widely in North America and Europe and has also visited in Asia, Africa, and Central America. He enjoys writing stories that bring alive his travel experience and entice the reader to visit new destinations. Jim is a member of the International Association of Black Travel Writers.
British filmmaker Steve McQueen will direct a biopic about African American Paul Robeson (1898 – 1976) in the near future. In the 1920s to 1940s, Robeson was a household name as singer, actor and activist known throughout the world. Yet his later life turned tragic and he died in near obscurity. Today, few remember him. […]
“YARDBIRD”, Charlie Parker’s last composition written shortly before his death, will be the first opera ever to be performed at the Apollo Theater and the first time Opera Philadelphia has performed in New York City. Lawrence Brownlee stars as the legendary saxophonist—a role crafted around the effortless, improvisational style that makes him one of music’s most sought […]
Had founding father Ben Franklin had his way the Wild Turkey, not the Bald Eagle, might have been our national emblem. While it is the domestic turkey that graces the Thanksgiving dinner table throughout the nation, its the wild bird that commands our attention. With his awesome fan-like tail, colorful bald head, long beak, and […]
Woodmere Art Museum, located in the Chestnut Hill neighborhood of Philadelphia, will feature more than seventy paintings by African American artists who worked in the city during a fifty year period. The show, “We Speak: Black Artists in Philadelphia 1920s-1970s.”opens on September 26 and continues through January 24, 2016. The works selected for the exhibit […]
A leading figure of 20th Century American art, African American Horace Pippin (1888-1946) is known for his insightful, expressive and bold paintings. An exhibition, at the Brandywine Art Museum, Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, through July 19 examines Pippin’s work. Pippin vividly depicted a range of subject matter, from intimate family moments and floral still lifes to […]
Several communities across America have claimed they were first to provide a golfing facility. The most popular of these claims comes from Yonkers, New York , where two gentlemen from Dunfermline, Scotland, Robert Lockhart and John Reid, constructed a three hole golfing ground in 1888. However, many Sarasotans disagree with the Yonkers claim and local […]
Planned to coincide with Gay Pride Month in June and the 50th anniversary of the first in a series gay rights marches, which took place on the Fourth of July on Independence Mall in Philadelphia, the William Way LGBT Community Center presents “Speaking Out for Equality: The Constitution, Gay Rights, and the Supreme Court.” The […]
The Andy Warhol Museum will present an exhibition entitled Pearlstein, Warhol, Cantor: From Pittsburgh to New York, opening May 30. Andy Warhol, Philip Pearlstein and his future wife artist Dorothy Cantor were art students together at Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Tech (now Carnegie Mellon University) and afterwards young, aspiring artists in New York City. This period of […]
Billie Holiday was born 100 years ago this month, April 1915 in Baltimore and died in Harlem, New York in July 1959 at age 44. By the time of her death few people outside of older jazz musicians and those who loved the musical genre remembered her. But all that was about to change. Thankfully, […]
I love to swing dance and one of my favorite swing numbers is “Take The A Train.” I always thought that Duke Ellington had composed it since the tune is so much associated with the Ellington band. It was not for some years that I learned it was Ellington’s arranger Billy Strayhorn who had written […]
On January 10, the Philadelphia Museum of Art will open “Represent: 200 Years of African American Art,” an exhibition of about 75 works by more than 50 artists from the museum’s permanent collection. The show will include works made by free and enslaved pre-Civil War artists and artisans; early Modernists like William Henry Johnson and […]
Beth Levine, a craft artist from New York City, creates exquisite leather handbags. She is just one of 195 fine craft artists who will be participating in the 38th annual Philadelphia Art Museum Craft Show, November 6-9 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, Philadelphia. For additional information view pmacraftshow.org. Levine hand cuts, hand shapes and machine […]
David Lynch’s work its not everyone’s cup of tea. But then, you can say that about every artist who takes you outside your comfort zone. Lynch tells a story of an experience as student at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (PAFA) in Philadelphia. Working in his studio with the window open, the wind kept […]
The Museum at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia is currently presenting two exhibits of works by African American artists titled “Spiritual Strivings: A Celebration of African American Works on Paper.” The shows feature “The Harmon and Harriet Kelley Collection of African American Art” and “Eldzier Cortor: Themes and Variations.” The shows include […]
For the past two years construction of the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC, has been below ground. But now its above ground reaching skyward on track for its public opening in 2016. Established by Congress the museum was signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2003. A […]