Frederick Douglass NOW

Two sets from GRAMMY Award-winning saxophonist Branford Marsalis will bookend Roger Guenveur Smith's one man show, Frederick Douglass Now

Frederick Douglass Now was inspired by the bicentennial of the dynamic abolitionist and pioneering feminist Frederick Douglass (1818-1895). The multidisciplinary performance incorporates elements of slam poetry, rap, and revival minister to recast the words of the runaway slave-turned-abolitionist into a 21st century context and "makes a striking statement about where America has come and still has to go in terms of race." (LA Times).

The GRAMMY Award-winning New Orleans-based saxophonist and bandleader Bradford Marsalis is "a jazz chameleon…with a swooping tone, supple phrasing, and witty licks." (AllMusic) He cut his teeth with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers and his brother Wynton's quintet, not to mention guest appearances with Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie, before forming his own influential Branford Marsalis Quartet in 1986.