The Cookers on Monday pulled out of a New Year’s Eve jazz gig at the controversially renamed ‘Trump-Kennedy’ center
A second jazz band has pulled out of performing at the controversially renamed “Trump-Kennedy” center in Washington DC, giving just two days notice before their New Year’s Eve gig was set to take place.
The Cookers, described as a Grammy-nominated, all-star septet of legendary post-bop jazz musicians, have not given an explicit reason for their decision but in a statement posted on their website said: “Jazz was born from struggle and from a relentless insistence on freedom: freedom of thought, of expression, and of the full human voice.”
The band’s decision to pull out of “A Jazz New Year’s Eve” booking comes after the board of the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts voted earlier this month to rename the institution the Trump-Kennedy Center.
The decision provoked outcry – and legal challenges – and the signage outside the Washington DC arts center was quickly amended with Trump’s name. Soon after, drummer and vibraphonist Chuck Redd cancelled a Christmas Eve gig.
