On ‘Brand New Life,’ Jazz Harpist Brandee Younger Traces the Dorothy Ashby’s Influence and Charts Her Own Path

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Within the jazz idiom, there are only a few harpists that have caught my attention — two of them are incredible Black women. Alice Coltrane, the wife to the iconic John Coltrane, is probably the instrument’s best known acolyte. Detroit born harpist Dorothy Ashby is the another.  Ashby, a playwright and public-school educator, was a pioneering harpist, and wrote many …

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