{"id":63988,"date":"2022-09-04T02:48:00","date_gmt":"2022-09-04T02:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=63988"},"modified":"2022-09-04T02:48:00","modified_gmt":"2022-09-04T02:48:00","slug":"growing-up-with-a-jewish-mom-and-a-famous-dad-he-never-knew-the-jazz-musician-roy-ayers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=63988","title":{"rendered":"Growing up with a Jewish mom and a famous dad he never knew \u2014 the jazz musician Roy Ayers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Growing up with a Jewish mom and a famous dad he never knew \u2014 the jazz musician Roy Ayers<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Forward<\/a>
\n2022-08-15<\/p>\n

TaRessa Stovall<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a>
Author Nabil Ayers<\/a>, left; his father, jazz musician Roy Ayers<\/a>, right. Courtesy of Nabil Ayers (author photo and book cover); and Scott Dudelson\/Getty Images (Roy Ayers photo)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Nabil Ayers’ memoir<\/a> reflects on family, identity and his journey to connect with a Black father who was ‘really just DNA’<\/em><\/p>\n

Nabil Ayers<\/a> carries the surname of a famous father he barely knows, except in the ubiquitous music of Roy Ayers<\/a> \u2013 most famously in the 1976 jazz-soul-funk album<\/a> by that name featuring the hit \u201cEverybody Loves the Sunshine<\/a>.\u201d For the younger Ayers, it pops up to surprise him when he least expects it.<\/p>\n

Flashback to 1970, when Louise Braufman, a white Jewish former ballerina working as a waitress in New York<\/a> took one look at the rising African American jazz composer and vibraphonist<\/a> and thought she\u2019d have a baby with him.<\/p>\n

After a few casual dates, she asked Roy Ayers and he agreed, cautioning her that his career was his priority, and he wasn\u2019t available for a serious relationship or any form of parenting.<\/p>\n

Nabil Ayers was born of that union and grew up with a strong sense of self, despite his father\u2019s absence. His new memoir, \u201cMy Life in the Sunshine: Searching for My Father and Discovering My Family<\/a>,\u201d explores his unconventional but richly diverse childhood, his own rise in the music industry and the search to connect with his father, which led to discovering paternal Black half-siblings and an enslaved ancestor…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nabil Ayers’ memoir reflects on family, identity and his journey to connect with a Black father who was ‘really just DNA’<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,395,1245,3601,8,820,20],"tags":[20566,33628,27592,32863,23102],"class_list":["post-63988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-autobiography","category-biography","category-judaism","category-media-archive","category-religion","category-usa","tag-forward","tag-louise-braufman","tag-nabil-ayers","tag-roy-ayers","tag-taressa-stovall"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63988"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63988\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63989,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63988\/revisions\/63989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}