Born: May Primary Instrument: Band/ensemble/orchestra
Jazz Ain't Dead® Production Bio
WHO is Jazz Ain't Dead?
Produced by Candice Michelle Franklin, Jazz Ain't Dead® is a young urban jazz music and dance collective that performs house, acid, funk, and soul songs with an urban jazz sensibility. Featuring live dancers, singers, musicians, and live DJ, Jazz Ain't Dead's signature sound is taking popular classical jazz standards and re-igniting them into house, acid jazz, funk, and soul. Also in repertory are contemporary and Nu Jazz covers, original works, and straight-ahead classics.
Jazz Ain’t Dead’s principle music arrangements are composed by Chris Rob, musical arranger John Legend and Kanye West among others and current musical director of Roberta Flack. Additional music arrangements are by jazz pianist, Lenny Underwood (Whitney Houston, Madonna, Common, Faith Evans), Donald Hayes (Beyonce, Usher, Chaka Kahn, Stevie Wonder), and Marcus Bell/Bellringer Productions (Def Jam, Interscope, Warner Brothers, MCA, Sony, Virgin Records, Arista), with Mansa Gory (Horn Arrangements for JAD). Choreographer for Jazz Ain’t Dead® is Candice Michelle Franklin (SHAKTI, BLACK TAXI, BRASCO, MACY GRAY). Musical Director for Jazz Ain’t Dead® is Lafayette Harris (Broadway -Bring in da Noise, Bring in da Funk, Color Purple).
Jazz Ain’t Dead® has performed at the Apollo, MTV’s Live Listen to the Beat Series, BAM Cafe, Mid-Atlantic Jazz Festival, Jazzmobile, Harlem Shrines Jazz Festival, Joyce SoHo, the Iridium Jazz Club, the Paradise Theater, the Kumble Theater, the Bowery Poetry Club, Southpaw, DNA, Nuyorican Poet's Cafe, Jordan’s Lounge, Sage Theater, The Player’s Club, Rush Arts Gallery, Therapy Bar, and other live music clubs as well as numerous private events and galas. Jazz Ain’t Dead® also partners with Mo Beasley’s UrbanErotika, lending musicians and dancers for their monthly UrbanErotika Juke Joint series, performing choreographed features with poets and live music as well as non-choreographed/unscripted, completely improvised jam sessions for both dancer and musician. During the Summer, Jazz Ain't Dead dancers teach for the Joffrey Ballet Jazz and Contemporary Summer Dance Intensive and, during the year, choreographer, Candice Michelle Franklin, is on faculty teaching advanced jazz to their elite dancers in the pre-professional trainee program. In addition, Jazz Ain’t Dead® has shared its love of dance with the community by teaching the art of Jazz dance to elementary school-aged children, through Ready, Set, Learn, LLC, a summer day camp and after school program providing free to low- cost activities for children living in the Bronx Housing projects of New York City. In the future, Jazz Ain’t Dead® hopes to extend our commitment to community programs like Ready, Set, Learn by providing music lessons as well.
”Jazz Ain't Dead brings DNA alive with its brand new fiery orchestrations of Porgy and Bess songs...” -iDANZ.com
“I must admit, I am a HUGE sucker for live jazz... so when you get a group of very talented musicians, riffing for the rafters (we are talking vocal gymnastics people!!)... and then some D-I-V-A dancers doing their thing in collaboration... and WOW, I was in heaven and had to resist the urge to get out of my seat and start my own groove motif!!” -R. D. Beck, Blogger of SoYouWannaDanceinNewYorkCity.com
”Franklin creates an intricate web of action that leaves you screaming out things like “She better work!!” or “GET ITTTT!!!” Fierce legs, gorgeous turns, hot unison sections, wild hair, and sexy partnering all took their place in the “circus” that Franklin calls it with a laugh.”
-Sheena DiMatteo, iDANZ.com
Testimonial of a Promo Performance Excerpt from JAD's Porgy and Bess at New York City's Bowery Poetry Club/Mo Beasley's UrbanErotika
“Candice, you, Diandra, and your dancers were OUTSTANDING at UrbanErotika Saturday night. You set wonderfully high bar for the show and got the show off to powerful start!! THANK YOU!! It was honor and joy to have you in our house. Please come back in September. I will call/email soon to work out the details. Keep doing what you do and keep me posted on upcoming performances. I'll be there every chance I get. ;-)....” -Mo Beasley, Host of UrbanErotika
Primary Instrument:
Band/ensemble/orchestra
Location:
New York, NY
Willing to teach:
Advanced students only.
