‘Jazz Kitchen,’ a livestream exploration of jazz and food
By Ryan Rosenberger, Staff Reporter
October 9, 2020
The Hyde Park Jazz Festival organization has launched a new virtual livestream series, “Jazz Kitchen,” which explores the intersection of jazz music and food and how that relationship played a role historically and still manifests itself in every day life.
The virtual discussion-based series, hosted by Monica Hairston O’Connell, who holds a doctorate in ethnomusicology from New York University, dives into the aspects of influence that jazz music and food have on each other.
“The idea behind jazz kitchen is quite simple,” said O’Connell, the former executive director of the Center for Black Music Research at Columbia. “It’s really just to bring food and jazz together through intimate conversation with fascinating people in some, hopefully, interesting ways.”
The “Jazz Kitchen” series kicked off on Thursday, Oct. 8, with “A Woman’s Place” discussion, which focused on characteristics of care and hospitality that Black women have and how they put those into practice in the world, as well as in their own spaces.