Kennedy Center Hosts American Playlist of Jazz, Spoken Word and More

“American Playlist” events culminate 18-month Arts in Crisis tour

By Elena Gooray
Eighteen months, 50 states and 69 cities after launching its Arts in Crisis tour, the Kennedy Center is finally bringing it all home.

From July 18-20, the Kennedy Center’s own Millennium Stage will be hosting a sequence of free performances entitled “An American Playlist: Three Evenings Celebrating the Performing Arts.” The series will be the culminating event for the national tour launched by the Center’s president, Michael Kaiser, in March of 2009 in an effort to address problems facing arts organizations amidst ongoing economic troubles.

Each performance will begin at 6 p.m. and revolve around a different theme, with the first and third being held in the Concert Hall and the second night in Eisenhower Theater.

The first event is “An Evening of Music and Verse,” during which MC Black Thought and drummer ?uestlove of The Roots will join forces with D.C. go-go band Mambo Sauce to host some of the nation’s top young spoken word artists in performances of their original work. These high school and college students hail from across the country, everywhere from Hawaii to New Orleans to New York, and also include two young artists from India.
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