Feb 28th – Jay Beck and the Power to the People Band
Jess Campbell
The Power to the People Band is a 7-piece band, configured for this special evening, to honor the age-old and enduring songs of defiance and hope found in the lineages of African Spirituals and movement songs from labor rights and civil rights to the peace movement.
Spirituals and movement songs are essential as they have long served as tools for survival, community building, and cultural preservation for oppressed people groups, and they continue to provide a basis for protest and social commentary today. They offered hope, a means of communication (sometimes with coded messages for escape), emotional release, and a way to maintain identity through a combination of African and European musical traditions.
“Power to the people” is a political slogan that means that ultimate authority should rest with the citizens, not a ruling elite. It is a call for self-determination and a rejection of oppressive systems. The phrase emphasizes collective decision-making and the belief that ordinary people can, and should, drive social and political change.
This concert hopes to wade into the waters of these traditions, call all into common cause, honor our ancestors’ struggles, and build up each other’s hope and courage for the struggles we face today. All power to the people!
Date
- Feb 28 2026
Time
- 7:00 pm - 9:30 pm
Instructor
-
Jay Beck
-
Email
bookpsalters@gmail.com -
Jay Beck is a percussionist, vocalist, drum-maker, storyteller, actor and educator who has been performing, teaching, touring and recording professionally for many years. He has performed with numerous groups including Madison Greene, Woodspeak, Unidos da Filadelfia, Phillybloco, Netos de Kansala West African Drum and Dance ensemble, Psalters and BEAST. He is a founder of Holy Fool Arts, a core organizer for the Carnival de Resistance and collaborates with his partner Tevyn East. He has studied West African traditional drumming under Mamady Keita, Babatunde Olatunji and Anssumane Silla. He has studied Afro-Cuban drumming under Baba Clemente (Chuckie) Joseph and Brazilian samba drumming under Michael Stevens and Junior Teixeira and traditional Sicilian frame drumming with Alessandra Belloni. He has taught cross cultural percussion workshops from age levels of elementary school students to university students as well as at music festivals and after school programs for youth through Artwell in Philadelphia. He currently resides and works at the Dreaming Stone Arts and Ecology Center in traditional Cherokee land now called Rutherfordton, NC, in the Broad river watershed in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains
