The Pace Report: "Black Jazz With Consciousness" The Doug Carn Interview.
Welcome to another edition of ‪@ThePaceReport‬ featuring organist, pianist, and composer Doug Carn.
In a career spanning 60 years, Doug Carn is considered one of the "Fathers of Afrocentric Jazz." During the early 1960's he recorded music that incorporated Afrocentric ideas in music influenced by Black men at the time that resonated change and moving forward. His four albums "Infant Eyes", "Revelation", "Spirit Of The New Land", and "Adam's Apple" have become iconic in that his Soul Jazz was incorporating lyrics to jazz classics and compositions while reintroducing the music to a new generation of music fans. Black Jazz Records was a new independent label that not only released Doug's records but other new progressive artists like Henry Franklin, Walter Bishop Jr., and Cleveland Eaton.
Doug was influenced by Muhammad Ali and Dr. Martin Luther King and musicians Jimmy Smith and John Coltrane.
When he left Atlanta and moved to Los Angeles with his wife Jean in the late 1960s they interacted with a generation of musicians that were changing the direction of music. The Carns lived in the same apartment complex with Earth, Wind and Fire founder Maurice White, Janis Joplin, members of Mandrill, and The Chamber Brothers. Both Jean and Doug were members of the first incarnation of EWF and worked on the soundtrack for director Melvin Van Peebles iconic independent film "Sweet Sweetback's Badddasss Song."
Recently Doug played the famed Dizzy's in New York City with featured vocalist Kathryn Farmer. I had the chance to sit down with Doug and talk about the Black Jazz Records legacy, reflect on the late Maurice White and Melvin Van Peebles, and how his music is still relevant in 2023.
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