Destiny Muhammad: Jazz Harpist and Composer and her inspiring personal story

I was so honoured to have this opportunity to talk with the inspiring Destiny Muhammad, who is a California-based jazz harpist and composer. You’ll get to hear inspiring stories from her life as well as her music. She had a dream to play the harp but didn’t have the opportunity until she was 30 years old. She speaks openly about the challenges in the 1980s due to the crack cocaine trade, her success as a barber, her determination and mentors including John Handy, and her unique perspectives in celebrating the legacies of Dorothy Ashby and Alice Coltrane. When we recorded the episode, I experienced an incredible private concert including several of her original tunes. However, after we listened to the tracks, we agreed it would be even better if she were to record the music separately to have the best possible harp sound, which she generously agreed to do.

Like all my episodes this is available as both as a video and a podcast, with transcript: https://www.leahroseman.com/episodes/destiny-muhammad-jazz-harpist

Destiny Muhammad website: https://destinymuhammad.net/

Buy me a coffee? https://ko-fi.com/leahroseman

Timestamps:

(00:00) Intro

(03:29) Algorithms (harp)

(05:18) Destiny’s start on the harp, Stephanie Kaufman Osborne

(09:55) learning jazz, Dorothy Ashby, Alice Coltrane, Khalil Shaheed

(15:22) John Handy

(20:16) Alice Coltrane tribute concerts SF Jazz

(26:45) Dorothy Ashby

(31:37) If it’s magic (harp)

(36:06) Shirley Muramoto, San Francisco Symphony

(37:00) Amateur Music Network, SF Jazz community jam sessions, 

(40:37) Teaching jazz, teaching music

(53:14) creative process

(59:15) tribute to Rosie Lee Tompkins

(01:08:40) lessons learned from running a barbershop

(01:21:20) growing up in the projects, dealing with bigotry

(01:25:51) compositions for orchestra, Matt Wong arranger

(01:29:06) Coltrane (harp)