NPR Music Tiny Desk Concerts

Melanie Charles (2021x20)

: 04, 2021

Within the warm walls of Williamsburg Music Center, one of Brooklyn's last surviving black-owned jazz venues, Melanie Charles takes us on a journey that embodies the soul of jazz: exploration. A Brooklynite proud of her rich Haitian heritage, Charles is conscious of the giant shoulders upon which she stands and takes steps to both honor and advance this music. Behind her, smiling pictures of her guardian angels, Mary Lou Williams and Billie Holiday, encourage Charles while she and her musicians blend the mystique of Haitian folk music with the sorrowful optimism of negro spirituals and the free space for elevation that jazz improvisation allows.