Ayaba Bey at the Silver Spring Blues Festival at Downtown Silver Spring

We are thrilled to welcome Ayaba Bey to the Market Stage at the 3rd Annual Silver Spring Blues Festival on Saturday, June 18, 20111.

Hampton University is where Ayaba Bey received her Bachelors Degree in Speech and Drama, with a Minor in Art. She was trained by the renowned Professor Edward Boatner in New York City and later embarked on a national tour for the Heritage Foundation with Weldon Irvine, Musical Director for Nina Simone, educating many on the history of Jazz music through song, lecture, prose and poetry.

As Cultural Ambassador for the Uhuru Sasa School of Brooklyn, NY, Dr. Bey traveled to Guyana, Brazil, the Caribbean Islands, and hundreds of colleges and universities across the United States sharing her historically-based educational theater programs with magnificent music mixed with improvisational, and interactive history through lectures, mythology and folktales. She has performed in Philharmonic Hall, Carnegie Hall, and the New York Jazz Festival.

She is a storyteller and member of the National Association of Black Storytellers, Storytelling Arts of Indiana, ASCAP (American Association of Composers and Publishers) and the Moremi Auxiliary Women’s Society. She established the Caravan Jazz, Blues, African Rhythm Band, performed with the Caribbean Association of South Miami Florida, The Yuth Rahkirs Reggae Band, Olu and the Future Reggae Band, the Weldon Irvine Big Band, Trio and Quintet, The New Blues Review, which she founded, and performs solo with guitar, storytelling, and dramatizations.

Ayaba Bey sang with Nina Simone, on the album, “My Sweet Lord.” She has shared the stage with such renowned Jazz artists as James Spaulding, Freddie Hubbard, McCoy Tyner, Tony Williams, Rashan Roland Kirk, Pharaoh Saunders, Lonnie Liston Smith, Betty Carter, Jean Carn, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Hugh Masakela, Sun Rah, Lee Morgan, Stan Getz,Andy Bey, Leon Thomas, Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln, Wayne Shorter, Patty La Belle, and many other greats. She has appeared with The Last Poets, Third World, Weldon Irvine, Lenny White, Randy Weston, Sonny Stitt, James Mtume, Olu Dara and more. Her independently produced CD, For the Love of It, is inspirational and speaks to the love of children and family.

See Ayaba Bey at the Silver Spring Blues Festival at Downtown Silver Spring, Saturday, June 18, 2011.

For more Festival information, visit www.silverspringblues.com