On Wednesday, July 15, 2015, award winning actress and singer Ebony Jo-Ann will celebrate the release of her blues CD – PLEASE SAVE YOUR LOVE FOR ME, with a concert at Ashford & Simpson’s Sugar Bar, 254 W. 72nd st. in New York at 8:00pm. The cover charge is $20. Call (212) 579-0222 to R.S.V.P.
Ebony Jo-Ann says that she never meant to let over 30 years in theater, film and television interrupt her recording career aspirations. However, the timing of this CD is purposeful and perfect. Over two years in the making, the politically charged album with its social commentary represents a Blues soundtrack to the present day unrest. The underlying themes of love, tenderness and passion are exemplified in the title track – PLEASE SAVE YOUR LOVE FOR ME and GLAD I WAITED FOR LOVE – offset with the political and spiritual impact of IS IT BECAUSE I’M BLACK, NOSYBODY and BURNIN’ WORLD.
With an invitation from Nick Ashford, Ebony became a co-creator of Nuttin’ But the Blues night at Ashford & Simpson’s Sugar Bar in NYC. The weekly performance showcase continues to be a Sugar Bar mainstay and is a tribute to his legacy. Due to their belief in Miss Jo-Ann’s talent coupled with Valerie Simpson’s unwavering support, this blues cd has become a reality……
Ebony Jo-Ann in the recording studio. Photo by Lia Chang
Ms. Jo-Ann has been seen on Broadway in Gem of the Ocean, Drowning Crow, the revival of The Sunshine Boys with Jack Klugman and Tony Randall, Sheila’s Day (co-author), Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (original production and 2003 revival) and Mule Bone; and off-Broadway in Crowns at Second Stage Theatre, Inacent Black at the Mitzi Newhouse/Lincoln Center and Do Lord Remember Me at the American Place Theatre and Hunter College. Her regional credits include the title role of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom at Syracuse Stage and at the Kennedy Center in the August Wilson’s 20th Century; The Sunshine Boys with Jack Klugman at the George Street Playhouse; as Cookie in the Negro Ensemble Company’s production of Samm-Art William’s The Waiting Room; as Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune in the tour of If This Hat Could Talk; in Sanctified at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival and as Essie Belle Johnson in Tambourines To Glory (True Colors Theatre Company, Helen Hayes Award nominee); Waiting To Be Invited at ACT Theatre/Seattle and the Denver Theatre Center; The Trial of One Short-Sighted Black Woman vs Mammy Louise and Safreeta Mae at the New Federal Theatre and the National Black Theatre Festival in North Carolina; Heaven and the Homeboy at Montclair State College; From the Mississippi Delta at Boston University, the Cincinnati Playhouse and the Alliance Theater; Lost in the Stars at the Long Wharf Theatre; Spunk at Center Stage; Bubblin’ Brown Sugar at Walnut Street Theatre; and Fame:The Musical at the Coconut Grove Theatre and the Walnut Street Theatre. She has been in the national and international tours of The Wiz, Satchmo, Apollo: It Was Just Like Magic and Sheila’s Day in Grahamstown, South Africa. Television credits include “The Jury,” “Law & Order SVU,” “100 Centre Street,” “The PBS American Authors Series,” “New York Undercover,” “Law & Order,” “Outreach” (pilot), “New York News” and “One Life to Live”. Film credits include Adam Sandler’s Grownups and Grownups 2 as Mama Ronzoni, Noise with Tim Robbins, Kate & Leopold as Nurse Ester, Pootie Tang as Pootie’s Mother, Eddie, The Day the Ponies Come Back, Tears of a Clown, The Stand-In, Fly By Night, Dark Waters, Chain of Desires, The Orphan King, When in Rome, The Other Brother, Frederick Douglass: An American Life, The Boxer, Driving Fish, The Stand-in and Marci X. Ms. Jo-Ann is the recipient of six Vivian Robinson AUDELCO Awards, a 1993 Jeff Award for supporting actress in the touring production of The Wiz.
Ebony Jo-Ann in the recording studio. Photo by Lia Chang
In 2013, Ms. Jo Ann reprised her role as Ma Rainey for The Greene Space’s AMERICAN CENTURY CYCLE Recording of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. Click here to listen to The recording of 1920: Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, directed by Ruben Santiago-Hudson.
Miss Jo-Ann recently appeared in PROJECT1VOICE’s 50th anniversary staged-reading of the NEC seminal work, Happy Ending by Douglas Turner Ward, directed by Timothy Douglas, with Arthur French, Lizan Mitchell and Leslie Odom, Jr. at the Harlem Hospital Mural Pavilion.
Lia Chang is an actor, a performance and fine art botanical photographer, and an award-winning multi-platform journalist. Lia has appeared in the films Wolf, New Jack City, A Kiss Before Dying, King of New York, Big Trouble in Little China, The Last Dragon and Taxman. She has guest starred on “One Life to Live,” “As the World Turns,” and “New York Undercover.” She is profiled in Jade Magazine.
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