Dorthaan Kirk
Dorthaan Kirk (born July 13, 1938 in Houston ) is an American jazz promoter. For 2020 she received the NEA Jazz Masters Fellowship of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), where she was recognized as Newark's First Lady of Jazz and for various activities to promote jazz.
Dorthaan Kirk grew up in Texas and moved to Los Angeles when she was seventeen. She was in her second marriage (she had three daughters from her first marriage) to the important jazz musician Rahsaan Roland Kirk and moved with him from California to the east coast in 1970. She first lived in Philadelphia but soon moved to East Orange .
After the death of her husband in 1977 she worked for the 1979 newly founded jazz radio station WBGO in Newark, the largest jazz station in the USA. In 2018 she retired there due to age. At the station she was responsible for events such as the annual jazz-a-thon and connections to the population - for example at regular jazz vespers in the Bethany Baptist Church . Her official title was Special Events and Community Relations Coordinator and in that capacity she was ambassador for the jazz broadcaster. She also directed the children's jazz series, which began in 1993. She also managed the musical legacy of Rahsaan Roland Kirk. Since 2012 she has been Master of Ceremonies at a monthly jazz event named in her honor ( Dorthaan's Place ) at Nico Kitchen & Bar in the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark.
Web links
- Appreciation on the part of the NEA
- Dorthaan Kirk: A Life in Jazz , interview with Sylvia Levine Leitch, JazzTimes , June 21, 2012
Individual evidence
- ↑ Tammy La Gorce: Dorthaan Kirk is Newark's First Lady of Jazz , New York Times, January 9, 2016
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Kirk, Dorthaan |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American jazz promoter |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 13, 1938 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Houston |