Thundersoul Opens!
September 23rd 2011
by JazzHouston Administrator
There's a front page story about Thundersoul, the new documentary on Houston's famed Kashmere High School big band, running on the NPR website today. A quote:
"For a decade starting in the late '60s, the Kashmere Stage Band — a funk-infused outfit rooted in a poor, predominantly black neighborhood in northeast Houston — built a reputation as the most formidable high school band in the country. Under the leadership of Conrad O. Johnson Sr., a prodigious musician in his own right (he once played with Count Basie), the band zigged where others zagged, embracing the sounds (and moves) of James Brown and Otis Redding while its peers were mimicking the ossified standards of '40s big bands. In competition — and on recordings — the contrast was clear: The Kashmere Stage Band was lively, exuberant, spontaneous and contemporary, and the also-rans were square nostalgists."
Continue reading: http://www.npr.org/2011/09/23/140539483/thunder-soul-70s-sensation-dusts-off-its-groove
Thundersoul opens today in theaters everywhere.
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