Date: April 22, 2015
Venue: Joe’s Pub (NY)
Review by Dawoud Kringle/Photos by Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi
Videos approved by Marie Incontrera (Eco-Music Big Band)
Photo by Don Chow
Composer and avante garde jazz musician Fred Ho fought for his art, fought for justice, and fought cancer, all at the same time. Connect with his life and vision!
The documentary film Fred Ho’s Last Year has just completed a successful festival run, and now you can help us print the academic release DVD’s, view the film, and take home some groundbreaking Fred Ho music in gorgeous CD’s. Your contribution helps the film to introduce Fred Ho to new audiences for decades to come!
And there’s more! A big chunk of this fundraiser will go to bringing Fred Ho’s musicians and collaborators to the Asian American Studies Conference in Chicago, which will allow universities the opportunity to invite the band to their campuses. Fred’s Afro Asian Music Ensemble has been going strong for 35 years, and we need your help to let it grow for another 35 years!
Photo courtesy of John Pietaro
Text by John Pietaro
I was so very sorry to hear of Fred Ho’s passing. We had many contacts over the last couple of decades and shared performance and/or speaking engagements a few times. He was irascible and loved debates of any and every kind; he left NO prisoners! That energy allowed him to fight off this illness for so long. We last saw each other at the first Russell Maroon Shoats fundraiser at St Mary’s Church a couple of years ago where he played a powerhouse solo bari piece that illustrated none of the physical strain he was going through. I was a part of the ensemble led by Salim Washington and we performed a piece of Fred’s but he sat out that section of the gig as he was too exhausted after his solo piece. He rocked the rafters. Still, he had the passion and drive to smile so hard when he saw the musicians that he filled the hall with a warmth that made us feel a very deep love. Fred’s heart was as big as his tenacity.
Date: June 3, 2013
Venue: the National Black Theater (Harlem)
Event review by Quincy Saul (Ecosocialist Horizons)
The event on June 3rd at the National Black Theater in Harlem, hosted by Scientific Soul Sessions, contained more than met the ear or eye. It was buttressed with next-level music; a soulful solo performance by the Iranian music activist Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi in the lobby prepared us for holding nothing back. We then flowed into the otherworldly wonder of the Scientific Soul Band, led by Ben Barson, premiering an original composition titled “Insurrealista.” The ensuing debate between veteran revolutionaries Fred Ho and Eric Mann (the Strategy Center) could only have been a beginning. But for those of us reading between the lines (and quite a few of the people in the audience certainly were) we can detect in this beginning what is and will be the debate of the century. It is not a debate about the problems but about the solutions.
Date: May 16 through June 2, 2013
Venue: La Mama (NY)
Review by Dawoud Kringle
Produced by Crossing Jamaica Avenue and Big Red Media, Inc. /Commissioned by The Japan Society and Peregrine Arts
