Projects
The Baby Laurence Legacy Project is an archival/performative process to create an integrated work of jazz tap dance and jazz music that investigates and celebrates the artistic and social influences that “Baby Laurence” Donald Jackson had on the culture of Tap Dance and Jazz Music. This project aims to capture and demystify lost information about this iconic tap dancer from Baltimore, MD. It will include new research from interviews, archival film, documentation tracing the footsteps of Baby Laurence in Baltimore, Harlem, and Washington D.C., and curricula for students and educators. Brinae Ali will present choreography, compositions, and multi-media in collaboration with fellow band members of the Baltimore Jazz Collective. This new work will culminate in an evening length performance, offer workshops and discussions to engage, educate, and uplift audiences, especially the African American community in Baltimore and beyond.
This project is supported by a grant from the New England Foundation for the Arts and Johns Hopkins University’s Billie Holiday Center for Liberation Arts.
Press release from the New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA) - Click Here
Baltimore Times Article - Click Here
Dizzy Spellz
Dizzy Spellz offers an Afro-futuristic lens exploring the intersection of cultural and spiritual dilemmas within the African Diaspora through the music of Dizzy Gillespie. From his coming of age through racial and social dynamics in the Deep South, creating and curating the bebop movement in New York, to his spiritual journey to Africa and his delve into Afro Cuban music and the Baha’i Faith, Dizzy was very much ahead of his time. Sean Jones (trumpeter/musical director) and Brinae Ali (choreographer/tap dancer/vocalist) have teamed up to create a piece that fuses elements of jazz, tap, Hip Hop, and BeBop to articulate the social vernacular of the African-American experience.
Baltimore Jazz Collective
Many of the Baltimore Jazz Collective’s performances have been hosted at Baltimore’s newest jazz club, Keystone Korner, operated by National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master Todd Barkan. Although public performances were put on pause during the pandemic, the ensemble has stayed busy and used generous support from Johns Hopkins University to write new music and arrangements, recorded in early 2021 for upcoming release.