World Unity Jazz Ensemble--carrying the legacy of Dizzy Gillespie to China!!

Ha ha! Look at the lovely discovery I made on Baha'i Views today--the World Unity Jazz Ensemble.

Two musicians who played with Dizzy Gillespie (perhaps THE most famous Baha'i musician ever) have been traveling for years around Asia and incorporating Asian sounds into their jazz music.

Picture from Gene Martin photographics.

Looks like I have a new discovery to purchase for my next meal of music. You MUST go and listen on their My Space page.

Please especially listen to the track Philanthropy ...listen to it in honor of African American history month because it is a wonderful tribute to all the astonishing African American jazz musicians who have contributed so richly to American culture. I can just imagine the World Unity Jazz Ensemble taking this little musical history lesson around Asia with them to educate their audiences.

Speaking of celebrating African American history month, reading Baha'i Thought and Black America I found so inspiring the vision of the future of "Black America"...Phillipe includes a quote on the important role that African Americans have to play in the regeneration of human civilization:

"There can be no doubt that Americans of African descent can find in themselves the capacity, so well developed as a result of their long encounter with injustice, to recognize and respond to the vision of love and justice brought by the Promised One of all ages. Imbued with that vision, past and present sufferings are transformed into measures of patience, wisdom and compassion-qualities so essential to the effort to moderate the discordant ways of a confused world and aid the healing of its spiritual ills. What better than the transformed character of a bruised people to smooth the course, to offer perspectives for new beginnings toward world order!" Universal House of Justice

I am engaging in a practice of lectio divina inspired by the reading of the book Tools Matter for the Spiritual Life by Mary Margaret Funk. In lectio divina you invest in the practice of daily reading of sacred texts. This month my reading for lectio divina is focused on this compilation from the Baha'i Writings:

Toward Oneness: A compilation on racial and cultural issues.

From todays reading

"Complete freedom from prejudice should be the immediate, the universal, the chief concern of all and sundry members of the Baha'i community, of whatever age, rank, experience, class, or color, as all, with no exception, must face its challenging implications, and none can claim, however much he may have progressed along this line, to have completely discharged the stern responsibilities which it inculcates." Shoghi Effendi, The Advent of Divine Justice.

"It is difficult for the friends to always remember that in matters where race enters, a hundred times more consideration and wisdom in handling situations is necessary than when an issue is not complicated by this factor." On behalf of Shoghi Effendi.