Season 4 Episode 16 Cheryl Fabio

All That's Jazz

In September, as part of their 75th anniversary celebration, Smithsonian Folkways Records re-released two albums by the poet and activist Sarah Webster Fabio, often referred to as “the mother of Black studies.”

The albums, “Jujus: Alchemy of the Blues,” and “Together: To the Tune of Coltrane’s ‘Equinox’” contain poems authored and read by Sarah Webster Fabio, who, in her just 51 years, wrote more than 500 poems and recorded four albums for Folkways, in a style that reflects “a funky blend of Black poetry, spoken word, and jazz/blues” that were not only forward thinking, but in many ways a precursor to Hip-Hop’s distinctively African-American form of poetic expression.

We talk with her daughter, Cheryl Fabio, a documentary filmmaker, educator, and former Program Director at Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame in Oakland, California, about her mother and her impact, the albums, and the far-reaching importance of these works.