The KU Interdisciplinary
Jazz Studies Group Presents:
An evening of
jazz studies: Alderson Auditorium, September 25, 2003
6:30 PM Pre-Lecture
Concert by KU Jazz Combo
7:30: Robert
G. O'Meally, Zora Neale Hurston Professor of Literature, and Director
of the Center for Jazz Studies, Columbia University.
"Louis
Armstrong's Comic Masks"
Sponsored by
the KU Center for Research and KU College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Robert G. O'Meally
is Zora Neale Hurston Professor of Literature at Columbia University,
where he has served on the faculty for fourteen years. Beginning
in 1999, he has been the Director of Columbia's Center for Jazz
Studies. He is the author of THE CRAFT OF RALPH ELLISON (1980) and
LADY DAY: THE MANY FACES OF BILLIE HOLIDAY (1991), and editor of
THE JAZZ CADENCE OF AMERICAN CULTURE (1998), which was awarded the
ASCAP--Deems Taylor prize in December 1999. He also edited LIVING
WITH MUSIC: RALPH ELLISON'S ESSAYS ON JAZZ (2001). He is the principle
writer of SEEING JAZZ (1997), the catalogue for the Smithsonian's
exhibit on jazz painting and literature. He co-edited two volumes,
HISTORY AND MEMORY IN AFRICAN AMERICAN CULTURE (1994) and THE NORTON
ANTHOLOGY OF AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERATURE (1996). He wrote the script
for the documentary film called LADY DAY and for the documentary
accompanying the Smithsonian exhibit, DUKE ELLINGTON: BEYOND CATEGORY
(1995). O'Meally was also nominated for a Grammy, for his work as
co-producer of the five CD box-set called THE JAZZ SINGERS (1998).
Other music projects include writing the liner notes for a Sony/Columbia
recent re-release of Louis Armstrong's HOT FIVES AND SEVENS (2000),
for a Duke Ellington box-set called THE DUKE (Sony/Columbia, 2000),
which received five stars from DOWNBEAT MAGAZINE, naming it as "one
of the best recordings of the century," and for a Branford
Marsalis recording, ROMARE BEARDEN REVEALED (Marsalis Music, 2003).
He lives in New York with his wife Jacqui Malone and their sons
Douglass and Gabriel.
Louis Armstrong's Comic Masks