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Two Documentary Films and Lesson Plans: Dr. Eddie Henderson: Uncommon Genius and Awadagin Pratt: Black in America
Access Two Documentary Films and Lesson Plans: Dr. Eddie Henderson: Uncommon Genius and Awadagin Pratt: Black in America
NAfME is very pleased to be able to provide access for music educators nationwide to two moving and impactful documentary films. Dr. Eddie Henderson: Uncommon Genius unpacks the journey of an American hero with wide-ranging talents who became one of jazz’s greatest living artists. Awadagin Pratt: Black in America highlights the career of a renowned concert pianist, conductor, and violinist and provides a candid conversation about what it is like to be a person of color in the United States.
First, learn more about these inspiring films and the director and producer below. Then, to play and download the films and access the lesson plans online, complete the user agreement form.
Dr. Eddie Henderson: Uncommon Genius
Director, Michelle Bauer Carpenter; Producer, Mark Rabideau
With lesson plans for Elementary (grades 4-5), General Music (grades 6-8 and 9-12) and ensembles (grades 9-12) and other resources created by Suzanne Hall; designed by Blake Martinez.
Overview: Eddie Henderson grew-up amidst the Harlem Renaissance. His mother danced for Duke Ellington’s Cotton Club, while his father sang with the Charioteers on the Bing Crosby Show. He took his first trumpet lesson with Louis Armstrong and later studied with Miles Davis. Family friends constituted a Who’s Who of celebrities, including Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Willie Mays, and Jesse Owens. Dr. Eddie Henderson: Uncommon Genius offers a portrait of one of jazz’s greatest living artists, but too, unpacks the journey of an American hero who served our nation in the Air Force, overcame racial barriers to become America’s first professional Black figure skater, and persisted to earn a medical doctorate and practice medicine, all before launching his more than sixty-year storied career as a jazz artists whose resume boasts of stints with Herbie Hancock, Art Blakey, Dexter Gordon, and more.
Dr. Henderson Bio: Eddie Henderson’s wildly diverse and accomplished career began in a most appropriately lofty way: His first trumpet lessons as a young boy were given by Louis Armstrong. It was a connection made through the musical careers of Henderson’s parents; his father a singer with the Charioteers and his mother a dancer with Duke Ellington at the Cotton Club. A native of New York City, Henderson relocated with his family to San Francisco by the age of 14. He studied at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music from 1954 to 1956, and drew the praise of Miles Davis, a friend of the Henderson family who came to know Eddie while visiting his parents during tour stops in town. After serving in the Air Force from 1958 to 1961, Henderson became the first African American to compete for a national figure skating championship, winning the Pacific and Midwestern titles.
Soon after, he began to pursue dual careers in medicine and music, earning a Bachelor of Science in zoology at the University of California at Berkeley, and an MD at Howard University Medical School four years later. As Henderson’s medical career took root in California, he also drew his first worldwide recognition for his jazz trumpet playing from the popular recordings he made with Herbie Hancock’s Mwandishi group during the early ’70s. He has since earned acclaim for decades of performances with such luminaries as Pharoah Sanders, Art Blakey, Elvin Jones, Johnny Griffin, Slide Hampton, McCoy Tyner, Benny Golson, Max Roach, Jackie McClean, Dexter Gordon, Roy Haynes, and Joe Henderson.
Awadagin Pratt: Black in America
Director, Michelle Bauer Carpenter; Producer, Mark Rabideau
With lesson plans for General Music (grades 4-5, 6-8, and 9-12) and ensembles and other resources created by Suzanne Hall; designed by Blake Martinez.
Overview: You are never too famous to escape racism and racial profiling. Awadagin Pratt is a renowned concert pianist, conductor, and violinist. In 1992, Mr. Pratt won the prestigious Naumburg International Piano Competition. Pratt is acclaimed for his musical prowess, skilled recitals, and performances with symphony orchestras. He has graced the stage at numerous prestigious venues, including the Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, and Chicago’s Orchestra Hall. His performance portfolio includes performances for two United States presidents, President Clinton and President Obama.
On May 25, 2020, Minneapolis police officers arrested George Floyd. His arrest and murder were recorded on camera by a witness and documents Mr. Floyd begging for his life and unconscious under the knee of three police officers. George Floyd’s televised murder triggers a response in Awadagin Pratt, and Pratt begins to relive countless police stops, racial profiling, and harassment. The film Awadagin Pratt: Black in America reveals his climb to fame and is a candid conversation about what it is like to be a person of color in the United States. Awadagin Pratt: Black in America confronts issues of privilege and racism in America and tells a personal account of an all-too-common experience for many people of color in America and worldwide.
Awadagin Pratt Bio: Awadagin Pratt is a pianist, pedagogue, conductor, and curator of artistic moments. He is actively inventing the musical world he hopes to live in as: and you’re invited. Launched onto the international stage after winning the prestigious Naumburg International Piano Competition (1992) and conferred as an artist-to-be-reckoned-with when awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant (1994), early reviews rightfully hinted that “surprise seems to be the one constant in recitals by the extravagantly gifted, young American pianist, Awadagin Pratt.” (Daniel Cariaga, Los Angeles Times) Hailed by the Washington Post for his “forceful, imaginative and precisely tinted performance,” Awadagin’s resumé includes appearances at addresses as familiar as 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (at the invitation of the Clinton and Obama administrations) and Sesame Street (at the invitation of Big Bird). His breakneck schedule includes engagements with the Boston, Chicago, and St. Louis Symphony Orchestras, solo recitals at the Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, and Lincoln Center, and chamber music collaborations with Zuill Bailey, Simone Dinnerstein, and the Harlem Quartet. Between performances at the piano, Awadagin maintains a bustling conducting career, including recent appearances with the Vancouver (WA), Winston-Salem, and Santa Fe symphonies, Porgy and Bess with the Greensboro (NC) Opera, and a concert featuring the music of jazz great Ornette Coleman with Bang on a Can at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
Michelle Bauer Carpenter is the Executive Director of the School of Communication at Northern Arizona University, a professor, an award-winning filmmaker, and a Creative Media and Film educator. She is passionate about people, creative and scholarly practice, research, and education. Carpenter’s leadership, film, design, and higher education experience is extensive, spanning 29 years as a director, producer, editor, cinematographer, designer, and educator. As a filmmaker, Carpenter has produced, directed, and edited national and international award-winning documentary pieces. Her films have screened globally on television and in numerous film festivals and art galleries. Carpenter’s professional achievements are underscored by the fact that she has won four National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Heartland Chapter Emmys throughout her career.
ABOUT THE PRODUCER
Mark Rabideau is a frequent speaker on how the creative energies of artists and the arts help address the world’s most pressing problems. He has delivered recent talks at Juilliard, Curtis, and the American University in Cairo – where he was named Distinguished Visiting Researcher.
The breadth of Mark’s creative spirit is evidenced by the work he has produced, including Live from Smoke, a radio show from NYC’s upper-westside; the GRAMMY-Award winning album STILLPOINT (New Amsterdam Records, 2023); Worlds End, an original work with the American Repertory Ballet; and the made-for-PBS documentaries Awadagin Pratt: Black in America and Dr. Eddie Henderson: Uncommon Genius.
Mark’s current record project, Portrait of an Unquiet Mind is an exploration of the interior mind of those struggling with bipolar disorder and features a concert-length work for jazz quartet and string orchestra composed by Shelbie Rassler.
Mark was named to The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (Class of 2024), The Recording Arts Academy (Class of 2023), Past-President of the College Music Society, Founding Editor of Emerging Fields in Music (Routledge Publishing), and Associate Dean for Faculty and Student Affairs within the College of Arts & Media at the University of Colorado Denver.
To access both films and the lesson plans, please complete a user agreement form.
