Voodoo & The Afterlife
Featuring Chad Taylor
Co-starring the collection & expertise of the librarians in the Education, Philosophy & Religion Department

Chad Taylor (b. 1973) is a composer, educator, percussionist and scholar who is a co-founder of the Chicago Underground ensembles. Originally from Tempe, AZ, Chad grew up in Chicago where he started performing professionally at the age of 15. Chad has performed on over 75 albums and with artist as diverse as Pharoah Sanders, Marc Ribot, Eric Revis, Kurt Rosenwinkle, Matana Roberts, Darius Jones, Lou Donaldson and Roscoe Mitchell. Chad leads his own band Circle Down, whose debut album was given a five-star review by the All Music Guide. In the review, critic Michael G. Nastos writes: "What is remarkable is that there is no wasted motion, no histrionics or grandstanding, as pure emotion is translated to superlative music making on this most highly recommended recording, one for the ages."

Over three previous concert seasons at the Parkway Central Library, veteran and up-and-coming Philly musicians have explored some questions. What has the Great Migration meant to music in Philadelphia? What happens if librarians commission composers to write music inspired by resources culled from Parkway Central’s subject departments? Musicians answered with concert suites build around children’s books exploring mass incarceration, seedy crime novelettes from Philbrick Hall, historic letters found in our Newspaper and Microfilm Center urging 19th-century African Americans to move to the northern cities, and much more. 

Now, for its fourth season with the eminent Philadelphia Jazz Project, our Mysterious Travelers series returns with Further Investigations to generate more new music inspired by library collections. We’re expounding on last season’s internal investigations theme to include more library departments and more musicians. And it’s still completely free!  Get ready for concerts touching just about every department in the library and every brick in Philly history. This season musicians will explore voodoo and the afterlife with the Education, Philosophy, and Religion Department; railway maps of Philadelphia with the Maps Collection; Brazilian and Cuban percussion with the Music Department; Oscar Wilde, Clemens, Edgar Allan Poe with the Rare Book Department; and more.  One Monday a month, settle into your seat in the Montgomery Auditorium in the Parkway Central Library—the site where musicians met with librarians to find their musical muses—and let the music find you. 

All events in this series are free. All concerts start at 7:00 p.m. and will be held in the Montgomery Auditorium.

The Philadelphia Jazz Project (PJP) works to inspire a network to support, promote, archive, and celebrate the diverse elements within the Philadelphia jazz community, with the larger goal of connecting to the global community. www.philajazzproject.org

Parkway Central Library | Montgomery Auditorium
1901 Vine Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103

Accessibility: A wheelchair ramp is located at the Library’s Wood Street entrance, and an elevator for the public is located next to the building’s northeast courtyard.

For more information, full biographies, and the most up-to-date details, visit freelibrary.org or call 215-686-5316.