arts&life/ music

Deaf Jams

Jake Bass and Sean
Forbes in the studio

Musical legends join
forces for the Deaf and
Loud Experience.

JULIE EDGAR CONTRIBUTING WRITER

R

apper Sean Forbes and two
other deaf performers will
share the stage with the DSO at
Orchestra Hall Dec. 16 for a perfor-
mance of Motown and other Detroit-
centric music that is bound to be as
profound as it will be unusual.
Forbes, Grammy-winning percus-
sionist Dame Evelyn Glennie and
Mandy Harvey, a finalist on America’s
Got Talent in 2017, will perform in
the “Deaf and Loud Experience,”
which might be the first-ever to fea-
ture deaf musicians. Oscar-winner
Marlee Matlin (Children of a Lesser
God), who is deaf (and Jewish), will
be on hand, along with an array of
local musicians, including Jake Bass
of Berkley, Forbes’ songwriting part-
ner and son of Oak Park-native Jeff
Bass of the famed Bass Brothers, also
known as the Funky Bass Team (FBT,
the producers who groomed and

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December 6 • 2018

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details

The Deaf and Loud Experience will be performed, followed by a Silent Disco,
at 7 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 16, at Detroit’s Orchestra Hall. DSO.org.
The concert will benefit D-PAN.

signed Eminem). Simon Cowell, cre-
ator of America’s Got Talent, is a main
sponsor of the show, along with the
Motown Museum, which is bringing
in Detroit music legend Paul Riser to
arrange a set of Motown classics.
How do deaf musicians “hear” what
they play? And how do deaf and hard
of hearing people receive music? The
answer, as delivered by the Deaf and
Loud Experience, includes sign lan-

guage, captioning, vibrations, pitch,
rhythm and a lot of heart.
“You’ll see beautiful music in a way
the artist expressed it,” says Forbes,
36, of Royal Oak. Forbes is a hip-
hop artist who has made pop music
accessible to the deaf community
through his music videos, recordings
and the recently launched web-based
American Sign Language channel he
runs, DPAN.TV.

The genesis of the DSO show began
with a 2015 Washington Post story on
Forbes, who had recorded an album,
Perfect Imperfection, and worked him-
self into a career as head of D-PAN
(Deaf Professional Arts Network), a
Detroit-based nonprofit founded in
2006 by Joel Bacow — manager of
FBT — of Huntington Woods. The
concert will benefit the organization,
created to make music and culture
accessible to the deaf and hard-of-
hearing community.
Glennie, a Scotland native who
lost her hearing at age 12, saw the
article and contacted Forbes, inviting
him and Jake Bass to London, where
the three jammed together. She was
intrigued by Detroit and its rich
musical legacy and suggested they
make it official and perform live with
the DSO, an orchestra she has worked
with. Bacow, a longtime music
producer in Detroit who launched
Eminem’s career, helped make it hap-
pen.
After watching Harvey perform —
and come in fourth place on America’s
Got Talent — the three reached out
and invited her to perform with them
on Dec. 16. Harvey was hard of hear-
ing until she lost her hearing at age