2/4/THREE with Newman Taylor Baker and Vincent Chancey at Roulette

“2/4/THREE” is a story about two musicians, but at the start there were three all born on February 4th—Vincent, Newman and saxophonist John Stubblefield. John passed in 2005 of prostate cancer. Newman credits Stubbs for alerting the jazz community to prostate cancer of which Newman is a survivor. Vincent and Newman dedicate this evening to Stubbs and that joint birthday concert they had planned to do.

“2/4/THREE” tells family stories too—ones rooted in genealogical research and DNA testing that Vincent and Newman have undertaken with the help of family and friends.
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“2/4/THREE” is a story about two musicians, but at the start there were three all born on February 4th—Vincent, Newman and saxophonist John Stubblefield. John passed in 2005 of prostate cancer. Newman credits Stubbs for alerting the jazz community to prostate cancer of which Newman is a survivor. Vincent and Newman dedicate this evening to Stubbs and that joint birthday concert they had planned to do.

“2/4/THREE” tells family stories too—ones rooted in genealogical research and DNA testing that Vincent and Newman have undertaken with the help of family and friends.

Their creative team includes Tomeka Reid, cello; Keith Johnston, guitar, spoken word; Cleo Francine Wilson, narration; and Bill Toles, audio visuals. The project is organized by Jeanette Vuocolo.

From Madagascar to Nicodemus, Kansas, the first all-black settlement in the Great Plains, Vincent journeys with his sister and family genealogist Cleo F. Wilson through a family largely unknown having been raised in foster care. We will meet Maggie and George DePrad, a seamstress and barber who raised themselves up from slavery. And through one of Uncle James’ letters we join an annual homecoming of the Giles Bluford Page clan who descended from the first African American guides of the Mammoth Cave.

It is the washboard that draws Newman to the published writings of his grandfather, the Reverend Dr. T. Nelson Baker, who went from the plantation on Assateague Island, VA, to becoming the only former slave to receive a PhD from Yale University in 1903. Newman will excerpt from such essays of the Reverend’s as “The Negro Woman” (1908) and “A Negros View of the Race Problem” (1908). “He is talking about the way I feel today,” explains Newman.

For more about our project, visit our Facebook Page @2.4.THREE

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