Music on the Brain: Shades of Time

Music on the Brain

How do we keep time—together and within ourselves?

Join Harlem jazz tour guide Amanda Humes in conversation with jazz pianist and painter Bill Buchman and neuroscientist Rachel Estrella (Zuckerman Institute) for an evening exploring rhythm, color, and the brain’s internal clock. Jazz musicians listen and sync with one another, shifting rhythms and settling into new grooves. Our brains stay in sync with the day itself—using light and color to set circadian cycles that guide sleep, metabolism, and health.

Drawing on research that examines how fruit flies use changes in the color of sunlight across the day to tune their circadian clocks, the conversation will consider what this work reveals about human biology in a world shaped by artificial light—and why staying in rhythm with the day matters.

Music on the Brain is a collaboration between the National Jazz Museum in Harlem and Columbia University’s Zuckerman Institute.

Please note that reserved tickets will be held until 10 minutes before the program begins, after which any unclaimed seats may be released to attendees without tickets, subject to room capacity.

Rachel Estrella is a second-year graduate student in the Neurobiology and Behavior Doctoral Program, working in the Rudy Behnia Lab of Columbia’s Zuckerman Institute. Rachel graduated with a B.S. in Neuroscience from Duke University. She is interested in investigating the role of color in circadian entrainment in Drosophila. Outside of the lab, Rachel likes to thrift shop, try new food, and explore NYC.

Amanda W. Humes is a native of the Commonwealth of Virginia and has lived in NYC for 30 years.  She has her BA in Sociology from Columbia University and worked as a meeting planner for The Conference Board for 10 years.  She then pivoted to a joyful path of a New York City Tour Guide in Harlem and Greenwich Village with Big Apple Jazz Tours, where she has had the pleasure of educating, singing, and sharing Harlem’s history with visitors worldwide for more than 15 years.  She continues to encourage visitors to come and enjoy the culture, food, history, and music as it vibrates through the sidewalks and streets that were traversed by the greats like Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, and Dizzy Gillespie. She is very honored and pleased to serve as the moderator for this session of Music on the Brain.

Bill Buchman is a jazz pianist/bandleader who has performed widely around the US, France, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Norway. His style covers a wide range from bop, soul jazz, Latin, and swing, to down home blues.. Bill has played with jazz greats such as Jo Jones (of Count Basie fame), Bobby Hackett, Red Callender, Alan Dawson, Sammy Rimington, John La Porta, Joe Muranyi, Joe Lee Wilson, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, Per Goldschmidt, Emmanuel Abdul Rahim and Nils “Bert” Dahlander. Bill studied piano at the New England Conservatory of Music and received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees there. Bill did long term studies with Jaki Byard and Ran Blake, two leading exponents of jazz and Third Stream music. Bill also took courses with George Russell, John Lewis, and Joe Maneri, and in more recent times studied and performed Latin music with master drummer/composer Emmanuel Abdul Rahim.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

The National Jazz Museum in Harlem, 58 West 129th Street, New York, United States

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