Next at the Kennedy Center

JASON

Georgia Anne Muldrow is a specific kind of genius. Meaning, there is something so brave in her ability to fly in the sound and it's not bound by any gravity, or fences. It just goes and it finds, you know. It seeks, actively. It lives in action, you know, like Mingus.

JAMES

He let you know politically what he felt. He let you know what was in his heart. He let you know joy. He let you know great pain.

ROBERT

When a person writes a song for someone else, whether they're alive or gone, I think it's the highest compliment you can give somebody.

CHARLES

Lester Young used to wear this big pork pie hat. That was his logo, Lester Young's logo.

JASON

So, Goodbye Pork Pie Hat, written for Lester Young as kind of like a... (blows a kiss). Here's a hymn for you.

CHIEF ADJUAH

So my grandfather, you know, his, his favorite song was Goodbye Pork Pie Hat. Even as a kid, I just remember hearing that melody all the time. You know, before I knew what the song was about, before I became interested in music, um. I could tell that something about it was tethered to loss. Something changed and couldn't be fixed or mended. I could hear that as a kid.

JASON

You know, not many artists write songs about other artists who have passed on. It's not the most, kind of, not the fattest folder of songs. But Mingus, right, like our kind of leading edge, taking the moment to acknowledge the hat of the genius of Lester Young. And to send him on his way. It's the most authentic gesture, you know.