The Blues Jam is beginning in the Atrium of the MOHAI. Annette Taborn, blues singer and archivist, and Reese Tamimura, blues guitarist, are leading the discussion of blues and their performance. Annette loves to teach about the history of music and explains how you can trace history of the United States through music.

They started their performance with a traditional blues in C major with Annette playing harmonica and singing. The next song they picked up the tempo by performing “Johnny B. Goode”. A song originally written and recorded by Chuck Berry back in 1955. For this song, they got the crowd involved! They brought a student up to play tambourine, which made it a more fun and interactive experience for the audience. Following Johnny B. Goode, our professor Michelle Habell-Pallán got on stage to play some tambourine and the drummer started singing while playing drums!

Through their performance we went on a trip through history of blues. Especially when Black Mama came up stage for a song to freestyle because it showed the essence of blues that still can be heard within hip hop today.