"A Great Day in Harlem" Screening

The Sonoma Valley Jazz Society presents the classic jazz movie A Great Day in Harlem, followed by The Roger Glenn Quartet at the .

The film, a 1995 Academy Award Nominee for Best Documentary, concerns the 57 jazz musicians who converged on a Harlem brownstone staircase for Art Kane's August 1958 photograph.

Coincidentally, the recent film The Girls in the Band was screened at the last week, on April 13. That film uses the Art Kane photograph to bookend its research into women jazz musicians of the era. In Kane's photograph, there are 55 men and only 2 women.

The film A Great Day in Harlem will be presented at 7 p.m., followed by the jazz quartet in performance.

Saxophonist Roger Glenn is the son of the late Tyree Glenn, who was one of the jazz musicians photographed in the "A Great Day in Harlem" portrait. The elder Glenn played trombone and vibraphone with Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, and Louis Armstrong.

Roger grew up in a jazz family around New York City with his parents Tyree and Gloria Glenn, and his brother Tyree Glenn Jr., who plays tenor sax with his own rhythm and blues band.

Roger had an early hands-on education in jazz by working with his father in a band that also featured jazz greats such as Wynton Kelly on piano, Joe Jones on drums, and Slam Stewart on bass. Some of Roger’s earliest teachers were Julius Baker (flute), Alberto Socarras (flute), Garvin Bushell (clarinet, sax, flute), and his father Tyree on vibes.

Tickets are $20 for Sonoma Valley Jazz Society members, $25 for non-members. They are available at and on the SVJZ website.