About the Project

Funded by grants awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts and DC Commission of the Arts and Humanities, James Zimmerman crafted a three show performance tribute to the life of social activist and musician, Oscar Brown Jr. Through this project he sought to bring greater awareness to OBJ’s cultural contributions in music, theatre, radio, television, and politics- creating art that intimately reflected the lives and culture of Black Americans.

In May 1998, after researching his life at the Howard University Moorland Spingarn Center, Zimmerman conducted a two-day interview with him for the Smithsonian’s Jazz Oral History Program. That interview contributed to a film documentary, Music is My Life, Politics My Mistress.

With an array of the Washington D.C. region’s renowned jazz musicians and a selection of twenty-two of his compositions., Zimmerman paid homage to Brown Jr., who made an indelible impression on him as a young man; an impression which was reinforced when he later met a this unique, under-recognized artist.

A screening of the Donnie Betts’ documentary Music is My Life, Politics My Mistress, to which Zimmerman contributed, accompanied each concert.