George Gershwin and Jerome Kern
The children of immigrants born in NYC just before the 20th century, George Gershwin and Jerome Kern ushered in a new American musical landscape. What made Gershwin’s “Porgy & Bess” so essential to jazz? What inspired Kern, the godfather of the American Songbook, to write so very many enduring classics?

Marjorie Eliot: Composer Series
A neighborhood legend and a longtime collaborator with both the Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art and Storytelling and the Jazz Foundation of America, Marjorie Eliot exemplifies “playing from the heart.” A multi-talented artist in the fields of jazz and theatre, she is best known for welcoming listeners into her Edgecombe Avenue parlor every Sunday since 1992, in celebration of life. 

For this series, for children of all ages, Eliot examines the composers and the historical context behind the songs that comprise the story of jazz. “The American Songbook is a gift to the world,” says Eliot, “we all can share it.”