CC + The Adelitas

“CC and the Adelitas” represents the intersectionality between identity, race, gender and culture. The Adelitas were the women solderaderas of the Mexican Revolution, which helped forge “Adelita” into an icon in Mexican culture, representing the strength and fortitude of women into the modern day. This project and the experience that it creates incorporates the history of the Adelitas and Mexican song writers and/or singers and sets the music in the jazz idiom. 

The combination of history, language, culture and music highlights the importance of our acknowledgement and welcoming of diversity and inclusion. By presenting the songs in Spanish, “CC and The Adelitas” also welcome a broader audience to the music, reinsuring our music community that jazz can be a conduit of not only expression but expression of identity.

Drummer, composer and educator Colleen Clark is vibrant on the scenes in NYC and the southeastern United States. Clark has guest performed with the 8G Band on NBC’s Late Night with Seth Meyers and can most recently be heard playing on Michael Dease’s “The Other Shoe” (Origin) and “Found in Space” (Origin – releasing September 2024), and upcoming releases by CC + The Adelitas, The Southern Pines, and Matt White. She has shared the stage with jazz luminaries including: Branford Marsalis, Rodney Whitaker, Catherine Russell, Camille Thurman, Rudresh Mahanthappa, and Mimi Jones. Clark has been featured in DOWNBEAT magazine and is also an ASCAP winning composer. Clark was invited by the ASCAP Foundation to lead her band at the Kennedy Center. She is also the Founder and Artistic Director of the University of South Carolina’s Jazz Girls Day®. Dr. Clark is the only woman and drummer to earn a doctoral degree in jazz from the University of North Texas. Her latest project is CC & the Adelitas, which features the merging of the golden era of Mexican music and jazz.