Featured image: Adam Amram
Where to begin?
GonzoFest New Orleans closes Sunday night at 9:00 p.m. with a Jazz Bang.
David Amram started his professional life in music as a French Hornist in the National Symphony Orchestra (Washington, DC) in 1951. After serving in the US Army 1952–’54, he moved to New York City in 1955 and played French horn in the legendary jazz bands of Charles Mingus, Dizzy Gillespie, Lionel Hampton, and Oscar Pettiford. Besides traveling the world as a musician, he is a composer.
He composed the scores for films, including Pull My Daisy and Splendor in the Grass. He premiered his comic opera 12th Night with Joseph Papp’s libretto in 1968. He also wrote a second opera, The Final Ingredient: An Opera of the Holocaust, for ABC Television in 1965.
From 1964 to ’66, Amram was the Composer and Music Director for the Lincoln Center Theatre and wrote the score for Arthur Miller’s plays After The Fall(1964) and Incident at Vichy (1966).
Appointed by Leonard Bernstein as the first Composer in Residence for the New York Philharmonic in 1966, he is now one of the most performed and influential composers of our time. And this is only the start of his accolades.
Adam Amram is a staple in the Brooklyn music scene. As a gifted multi-instrumentalist, he has collaborated with numerous bands and toured globally with Cactus Lee, Tall Juan, Psychic Ills, and his father, world renowned composer and jazz pioneer, David Amram. He recently released his critically acclaimed debut solo album, Lights on Broadway, and is currently recording his subsequent album, to be released on his label, After the Fall Records, that he founded with his sister, musician Alana Amram.
On stage with them will be Herman LeBeaux, a percussionist, composer, arranger and educator. The New Orleans native emerged on the music scene in the early ’80s. LeBeaux holds degrees from Xavier University and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Herman LeBeaux has performed and/or shared the stage with legendary performers: Allen Toussaint, Fats Domino, Max Roach, Lenny Kravitz, Elvis Costello, Bonnie Raitt, The Platters, The Drifters, the, The Doobie Brothers, The Time, Cameo, Marilyn McCoo, Lloyd Price, Mose Alison, Irma Thomas, Charles Neville, Kermit Ruffins and the list continues. He has made appearances on Live with Regis and Kathie Lee and Late Nite with Conan Obrien.
Joining them with poetry for a portion of the program, to add extra dazzle, will be two of their stellar friends, Ron Whitehead and Messina.
Ron Whitehead, founder of the GonzoFest, organizer of it in Louisville, KY, for ten years, presents the Keynote State of Gonzo Address at GonzoFest New Orleans, where he will also perform with legendary composer and multi-instrumentalist David Amram and Friends, along with the band ZU ZU YA YA. Ron is a fabled performer of his poetry, often accompanied by a band.
Of all America’s living poets – and I mean all of them, even the academic lauded boring ones – Ron Whitehead has the STRONGEST most PERSISTENT most POWERFUL VOICE of them all. You can hear his voice in every line, every word. It is the voice of Blake and the voice of Yeats; it is the voice of Kerouac and the voice of Ginsberg. It is the rolling thunder of Bob Dylan. It is the voice of THE POET.
—Dr. John Rocco
Frank Messina, poet of the New York Mets, another headliner, is performing at many of the after-hours spots. He has been a VIP regular and favorite at the GonzoFest for years. Luckily, he agreed to take a break from his packed schedule.
