☞ READ: Fats Waller & Jazz Reinvented

This past week's inaugural Harlem Jazz Shrines Festival has ended and the highlight of the event that brought the musical focus back uptown has been receiving some positive press.  The Times and the Wall Street Journal have both reported on the Fats Waller Dance Party at Harlem Stage and how the capacity crowd came to see a modern reinvention of jazz.  West Harlem's own Jason Moran headed the show (quite literally) with a bobble head papier-mâché mask of Fats Waller designed by Didier Civil whose works usually appear during Carnivale celebrations. Meshell Ndegeocello added vocals to the event which kept true to its jazz origins but added "Afro-beat, techno and house music" to make things more contemporary.  Read and see more in yesterday's Wall Street Journal: LINK.  Photo courtesy Harlem Stage