{"id":51911,"date":"2025-12-30T18:46:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-31T00:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=51911"},"modified":"2025-12-31T01:49:19","modified_gmt":"2025-12-31T07:49:19","slug":"presidents-kennedy-center-name-change-is-a-sour-note-for-these-artists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=51911","title":{"rendered":"president\u2019s Kennedy Center name change is a sour note for these artists"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">More musical acts pull out of performances after Trump slaps his name on the building \u2013 key US politics stories from 30 December at a glance<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">The list of musical artists canceling gigs at the Kennedy Center, which Donald Trump has attempted to rename the \u201cTrump-Kennedy Center\u201d, in&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/washington-dc\">Washington DC<\/a>&nbsp;continues to grow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">A second jazz band has pulled out of a New Year\u2019s Eve gig, giving just two days\u2019 notice before the event was set to take place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">This week it was the Cookers, described as a Grammy-nominated, all-star septet of legendary post-bop jazz musicians. The group did not give an explicit reason for their decision but in a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thecookersmusic.com\/\">statement posted on their website<\/a>&nbsp;said: \u201cJazz was born from struggle and from a relentless insistence on freedom: freedom of thought, of expression, and of the full human voice.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">The band\u2019s decision to pull out of A&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/music\/jazz\">Jazz<\/a>&nbsp;New Year\u2019s Eve booking comes after the board of the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts voted earlier this month to rename the institution the Trump-Kennedy Center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">The decision provoked outcry \u2013 and legal challenges \u2013 and the signage outside the Washington DC arts center was quickly amended with Trump\u2019s name. Soon after, drummer and vibraphonist Chuck Redd cancelled a Christmas Eve gig.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Richard Grenell, the Kennedy Center president and a Trump appointee, threatened to sue Redd for $1m in damages for what he called a \u201cpolitical stunt\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2025\/dec\/31\/trump-administration-news-updates-today\">theguardian<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>More musical acts pull out of performances after Trump slaps his name on the building \u2013 key US politics stories from 30 December at a glance The list of musical artists canceling gigs at the Kennedy Center, which Donald Trump has attempted to rename the \u201cTrump-Kennedy Center\u201d, in&nbsp;Washington DC&nbsp;continues to grow. A second jazz band [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":51912,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5782],"tags":[5958,5286,32300,1205],"class_list":["post-51911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ep","tag-artist","tag-change","tag-kennedy-center","tag-president"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51911"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51911\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51913,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51911\/revisions\/51913"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/51912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}