“The Armstrong legacy has the opportunity at this moment, with the new center, to be brought into the 21st century,” Mr. Adams said. “And I don’t think anyone is aware of just how grand and rigorous and expansive the legacy will show itself to be.”
Mr. Adams comes to the museum from Grace Farms, an arts and cultural center in Connecticut, where he led its Arts Initiative. He previously studied religion and literature at Yale Divinity School, and theology of contemporary performance at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music. His artistic work includes “Prayers of the People,” an interdisciplinary work based on the writings of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and directed by Bill T. Jones.
At the Armstrong house, Mr. Adams fills a role that has been vacant since the museum’s founding director, Michael Cogswell, retired last year. Mr. Adams’s goal will be to bring the house and its rich collection — which offers a deep look into Armstrong’s life through letters, reel-to-reel tapes, visual art and much more — into conversation with the neighborhood around it, as well as with a broader community of archival institutions devoted to black history.
“We are in the midst of a sort of renaissance of African-American arts and letters, and diasporic arts and culture,” Mr. Adams said. “Jazz history is black history, so this is a fantastic time to take up again and repurpose — from a 21st-century perspective — this particular legacy of artistry and innovation.”
Mr. Adams added: “We will now be able to pick up on the thinking of this great artist and innovator, who’s really contributed so much to American life and American identity — to what Martin Luther King would call the ‘human personality.’”
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/05/arts/music/louis-armstrong-house-museum-new-director.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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