CYNTHIA ADINA KIRKWOOD

Legendary singer-songwriter Billie Holiday and other jazz greats jammed at the Plaza Hotel in Norfolk, Virginia when it was the place for black folks to go. This article was first published on December 8, 1980 in The Virginian Pilot: The Plaza Hotel cooked on Monday nights when jazz musicians tried to best each other in the weekly jam sessions. Spurred on by shouts from their audience in the downstairs dining room, they brought up Tuesday’s sun. Ladies in frothy chiffon cockt

Read an exclusive excerpt about an avant-garde composer, Angelica, from the novel, TURN ON; TUNE OUT: "Angelica lived with a cousin in Brooklyn for her four years there. Music was everywhere. She took in classical, contemporary and world music at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan. She heard jazz concerts in fabled Greenwich Village clubs. Street performers on subway platforms and outside the doors of the Museum of Modern Art astounded her with their virtuosity. She could not tak