James Zimmerman offers a powerful musical performance at The Parks concert series [sponsored]
/James Zimmerman performing on the Great Lawn (photo: The Parks at Walter Reed)
by The Parks at Walter Reed
Sponsored guest contributor
Native Washingtonian and jazz historian James Zimmerman thought for a long time about the music he would select for his “Sunset Sessions at The Parks” performance, a new virtual series from The Parks at Walter Reed.
“I knew I could start with something — for lack of a better term — somber, but when the opportunity came up, I was not feeling very much like an entertainer,” Zimmerman said. The event producers had scheduled the filming for May 30th — but that week, protesters were crowding the streets of Washington, DC, and vigils were held in Petworth, Brightwood, Shepherd Park (and around the world) in honor of the black Americans killed recently by law enforcement. Zimmerman’s full 35-minute set includes several songs from Oscar Brown, Jr., including a powerful rendition of “Brown Baby,” in which Zimmerman whispers “I can’t breathe” throughout the song.
“‘Brown Baby’ is a song that Oscar Brown, Jr. wrote in 1951 in celebration of the birth of his son David,” Zimmerman said. “The song was written before the Civil Rights movement began. This whole idea of more than one black man stating I can’t breathe — and being beaten and abused by police — led me to infuse the lyrics in the story, which is about a hope for tomorrow for his son. I wonder if we can have that hope for tomorrow, because as a country we’ve been dealing with racism for a long time and we have not come to grips with that. I decided to infuse ‘I can’t breathe’ in that particular song, because it was like a whisper by a child to a father, but it was really a shout to the nation, in a sense.”
Zimmerman has spent 24 years in Ward 4, after growing up in Southwest DC. “Jazz has always been a part of my life,” he said, from age four, when he heard his mother singing to herself. He began singing seriously in the 1980s, from b-bop to vocalese and classic jazz. “This is what I want to do. To continue that legacy and promote that legacy by these singers,” Zimmerman said.
The musical historian has received several grants from the DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities, and is currently working on a project called “Storytellers and Crooners,” highlighting African American male jazz singers including Eddie Jefferson, Oscar Brown, Jr., Jon Hendricks, Billy Eckstine, Johnny Hartman and Bill Henderson. He previously performed with a group called Cloudburst for nine years.
Zimmerman has performed twice for the live jazz series “Jazz at The Parks,” making this his third performance on the green grass of the Great Lawn. Zimmerman’s father spent his career in the Army, and he remembers taking the bus up Georgia Avenue to get medical care at Walter Reed as a child.
“To be back there and performing is very interesting,” he said.
You can watch James Zimmerman’s full performance on YouTube.
Other musical performances in the “Sunset Sessions at The Parks” series include Beth Cannon, Imani-Grace, and Luke James Shaffer. Marcelle Pena’s performance will go live on July 5. Visit theparksdc.com to watch a series of yoga classes from Twist & Turns Body Fitness, and ongoing boot camp sessions with fitness guru Gym Jonez. Each event is streamed on Instagram Live and posted to YouTube the following week.
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