Blue Note Narratives
Podcast Story
Blue Note Narratives is a podcast series of inspiring, uplifting, and unfiltered conversations with fabulous educators who have committed their lives to racial equity and activism. The meaning conveyed in the delicious sharing of these stories is in the key of blue, felt in your soul rather than heard, just like that blue note found in all genres of Black music, from Jazz through to AfroBeat.
Each episode is like a dance, swaying back and forth between the story weavers, and just as you are about to sit down and kick off your shoes, that Blue Note gets you, and you continue, barefoot.
Episodes
Introduction with Rosemary Campbell-Stephens MBE
Blue Note Narratives are beautiful conversations that I have had the pleasure of having with some extraordinary people. These stories sit comfortably, often, but sometimes less so, somewhere between your heart and soul. They are rich exchanges about love, light, and life curated in the Caribbean sun.
My name is Rosemary Campbell-Stephens. If wealth were measured in the quality of relationships and conversations that have been gifted to me throughout my life, then I would have to be one of the wealthiest women on earth. There is more than enough here to share, and I hope for the listener plenty to enjoy in time spans longer than the average podcast that allow for reflection.
Why Blue Note? This treasure trove of real conversations covers a range of emotions and experiences, stories woven together in the key of life so that when you hit that discordant for some, blue note, you feel, rather than just hear.
Miles Davis’ ‘So What?’ kind of sums it up.
Blue Note Narratives with Dr. April Warren-Grice
Remembering How to Remember
Welcome to a special moment in the Blue Note Narratives journey. In our first episode, Remembering How to Remember, I have the privilege of conversing with the remarkable Dr. April Warren-Grise, a bundle of intellectual and spiritual energy wrapped in Black joy.
Let's dive right into her work: creating communities of practice for and with educators. That creative process unleashes culturally nourishing spaces for students and teachers to remember, restore, and reimagine. I have to thank Dr. Phillip Smith for the quote ‘the blackness that whiteness created,’ which April loved and to which I added.
This Episode One of Blue Note Narratives: Remembering How to Remember was recorded in February 2023. The online Book Launch of my book Educational Leadership and the Global Majority: Decolonising Narratives, which is referred to in this podcast and on which April was a panellist, took place the previous year, April 2022.
Blue Note Narratives with John Gilmore
Unlearning and Reawakening
Hi, you are listening to Blue Note Narratives, conversations on love, light, life, and all in the key of blue. I’m your host, Rosemary Campbell-Stephens, and today, in episode two Unlearning and Reawakening, I am in conversation with a deeply reflective John Gilmore, founder of The Leap Schools in South Africa. Let's deep dive into what John as a White South African man, has to say about whiteness, blackness, and how we/us, me being a Black African Caribbean woman, got here. We explore how together we can reimagine an Ubuntu future for we/us, provided we are both open to love and being loved.
This episode, a timely conversation recorded in February 2023, offers a fresh perspective on the ongoing discourse of the Global Majority.
The online launch of the book, Educational Leadership and the Global Majority: Decolonising Narratives was the previous year April 2022. John Gilmour was one of the panellists at the book launch.
Blue Note Narratives with Elaine Foster-Allen
Education and Troubled Hearts
This episode of Blue Note Narratives, is a conversations on love, light, life, and all in the key of blue. I’m your host, Rosemary Campbell-Stephens, and today, in episode three, Education and Troubled Hearts, I am in conversation with the deeply wise Elaine Foster-Allen, my mentor before mentoring was a thing, and former Permanent Secretary to three different administrations in Jamaica. Join us as we journey through her life stories about political activism and advocacy in the UK and Jamaica.
Blue Note Narratives with Gus John Part 1
Spiritually Well Heart
In part one of episode four, Spiritually Well Heart, I am in rich and deep conversation with one of our icons, the one and only walking historical encyclopedia that is Professor Gus John.
Bring your notepads for this unfettered, unfiltered walk through the very full and colourful life of this scholar/activist. In this part one of a three-part episode, his eloquent reflections on his early life as a child in Grenada, and how this grounding led him, via the circuitous route of a graveyard, towards the priesthood and activism in the UK are in equal measure instructive and delicious.
Blue Note Narratives with Gus John Part 2
Global Majority
In part two of the podcast with Professor Gus John, entitled ‘Global Majority,’ we continue to explore the concept of the people of the Global Majority. Starting with his move to Manchester, Gus continues to share real examples in which he was deeply involved of friendship and collaboration between people, often from different cultures, who had more that connected them as human beings through their colonial past than divided them.
Professor Gus shares his experiences of striving for racial and class equity in England, including eight years as the first Black Director of Education in the UK. His dry sense of humour will have you cracking up!