A Glimpse into the Life of Dennis Llewellyn Day

Take a glimpse into the life of Dennis Llewellyn Day. His lifelong passion has been to bring stories and audiences together through his work as a singer, educator, executive human services leader, writer, and videographer. These broad experiences led him to incorporate D Day Media Group Inc. in 2003. 

The musical career of Dennis Day is rooted in his experiences as a youth in America’s industrial Midwest heartland. Growing up in East Chicago, Indiana, early musical influences included his family, especially his mother Irene Day-Comer, who was a highly esteemed gospel singer; music education programs throughout his schooling, from elementary to high school choral groups to the Fisk University Choir to the Manhattan School of Music Conservatory.  
 
As a teenager, Dennis organized an acapella and Doo-Wop groups, singing wherever he could find an audience – under neighborhood streetlights, at festivals, dance halls, sock hops, and talent shows. His groups performed regularly on WWCA Radio and at Gary Roosevelt High School’s storied annual talent show, which also featured the likes of Avery Brooks, Deniece Williams, Pookie Hudson, and the Spaniels, William Marshall, and, most notably, the Jackson Five.  
 
In New York, Dennis spent a year as a member of the Lance Haywood Singers. He studied at the Manhattan School of Music and in private lessons with Dr. Michael Warren, Melba Joyce, Andrew Frierson, Jackie Paris, Dr. Richard Harper, Bob Stoloff, Anne Marie Ross, Nancy Mareno, and Miles Griffith.  
 
In the 1990s, Dennis released his first album on D Day Records, Dennis Day For Only You, produced by Terry Morrissett and featuring some of Chicago’s finest musicians, including award-winning saxophonist Art Porter, Jr., guitarist Nick Colionne, and keyboardist Lawrence Hanks. The album includes four of Dennis’s original songs: “Sunday Morning Sunshine,” “Away with Me,” “No One-Night Stand,” and “I’ll Go It Alone.”  
 
In the ensuing decades, Dennis transitioned to Jazz performance and has sung with some of the finest talents in the Jazz world, including the Blackbyrds, Oscar Brown Jr., Clark Terry, Frank Foster, Dorothy Donegan, Lionel Hampton, Mercer Ellington, Herman Foster, Dr. Lonnie Smith, Art Porter Jr., Harold Maybern, Richard Wyands, Eddie Chamblee, Dennis Irwin, Valery Ponomerov, Melvin Sparks, Walter Perkins Jr., Harold Ousley, Billy Kaye, Bross Townsend, Scott Hamilton, Ernie Hayes, Camille Thurman, and Patience Higgins.  
 
Dennis re-recorded his original song “Sunday Morning Sunshine,” featuring Art Porter, Jr. and TK Blue, in both instrumental and vocal versions. In 2007, Dennis was one of 12 finalists in New York’s annual Jazz Mobile Anheuser-Busch Best of the Best Jazz Vocal Competition.  
 
His second album, All Things in Time, peaked at #39 nationwide in College Music Journal’s annual Jazz charts. The album features his original song “African Musing.” It includes songs from the Great American Songbook, performed by Wycliff Gordon, Stephon Harris, Danny Mixon, John Di Martino, John Miller, Earl Grice, and Willie Martinez. The album was presented with the Grindie Award for Best in Jazz genre 2009 by RadioIndy, the Internet Radio music aggregator.  
 
Dennis’s third album, Bossa, Blues, & Ballads, was released in 2018 and features jazz legends Harold Mabern, Billy Kaye, and Marvin Horne, along with vibrant young stalwarts Anthony Wonsey and Nanny Assis. The Jobim single from the album Waters of March showcases renowned vocalist/instrumentalist Camille Thurman.  
 
In addition, recordings of Dennis’s live performances in venues including Visiones, the Metropolitan Room, West End Café, and the Presbyterian Jazz Society are available on TuneCore. 

After earning his Bachelor’s degree in sociology from Fisk University, Dennis was awarded a Ford Foundation Fellowship at the University of Chicago, where he earned a Master of Arts degree in Adult and Continuing Education. He worked as a Community Organizer for the Illinois Police Community Relations with the Illinois Human Relations Department. He was appointed the state’s youngest certified Assistant Superintendent of Schools for the Illinois Department of Corrections.  

Dennis later served for one legislative session as Staff Analyst for the Illinois General Assembly Speaker of the House in Springfield, Illinois, where he was assigned to the Committee on Cities and Villages and also worked for members, including Senator Harold Washington of Chicago, who later became Mayor.  
 
Later, in Philadelphia, Dennis served as Supervisor of School Extension Programs, where he worked in adult literacy, GED administration, a resettlement education project for Vietnamese refugees, and vocational and educational services for inmates in several Pennsylvania correctional facilities. He was also selected to serve on the regional Eastern Fulbright Fellowship Selection Committee and taught courses at Delaware Community and Technical College.  

Then, in Washington, D.C., he served as a consultant for Positive Futures, a grant-funded think tank for criminal justice issues, and supervised intake and training for juvenile wards of the state through Northern Virginia Community Services.  
 
When he moved to New York City in the 1980s, Dennis taught Special Education students in elementary and middle schools, served for a year as Interim Director of the Boys Club of Harlem, and taught courses at the College of New Rochelle. He later served as Director of New York City’s Job TAP Center #1, an employment and training program in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant area, and is credited with helping lead the implementation of New York City’s first successful Welfare-to-Work Program. During that period, he also served on the Board of Directors of the Brooklyn Plaza Medical Center.  
 
In 1995, Dennis was appointed by New York Governor George E. Pataki as Director of Affirmative Action Programs for the state’s Department of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR), with oversight of Fair Housing, equal employment opportunity, and Minority/Women’s Business Contracts for all of New York’s 62 counties. There, he aptly changed the program’s name to Diversity Management and Development, foreseeing the changing political landscape for Affirmative Action Programs.  

He was the first to do so, and all New York State offices were eventually designated Diversity Management rather than Affirmative Action. Later, he served as New York State Director of Rent Administration for Upper Manhattan. Dennis was acknowledged with a certificate of appreciation from Governor Pataki on behalf of the people of the state for his role in helping to create New York State’s Dr. Martin Luther King Day, which included the Community Service Initiative. He also received a certificate of merit from then-Senator David Patterson.  
 
In 2005, as President of the Fisk New York/New Jersey Alumni Club, Dennis partnered with Pfizer Corporation to host the Fisk Jubilee Singers in concert at numerous venues. These included the Apollo Theater in Harlem, in a concert for New York City public school students emceed by Ossie Davis; the Mark Twain House in Connecticut; the Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture; and the Riverside Church in New York City, with special guest award-winning singer/actress Leslie Uggams.  

Dennis’s own trio appeared with the Jubilee Singers at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem. The Jubilee Singers also performed at the Adam Clayton Powell Jr. State Office Building, where they received a Proclamation from New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the City Council, proclaiming Fisk Jubilee Singers Day in New York City. 

At Fisk University, Dennis was a member of Writer-in-Residence John Oliver Killen’s Creative Writers Workshop (modeled after Killen’s Harlem Writers Guild), where mentors included Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee. Dennis’s articles have appeared in the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, Washington’s Capitol City Spotlight, the Staten Island Advance, the Gannett-Westchester News, the Times of Northwest Indiana, the New York Daily Challenge, and the New York Amsterdam News, where he interned as a reporter.  
 
Dennis traveled to Russia in 1996 with a cadre of journalists under the auspices of Redeemer Presbyterian Church and the Russian Center for Church Multiplication. He reported on the underground church during Perestroika, after the breakup of the USSR. As an assistant researcher for Tony Carnes’ book, New York Glory: Religions in the City, Dennis conducted interviews about the diversity of religious life in New York.  
 
Currently, Dennis blogs at ddaymediablog.wordpress.com

Dennis experienced the events of September 11, 2001, as a first-hand witness. On his commute to his New York State office, which was three blocks from the World Trade Center, Dennis saw the second plane hit the building and found himself in the midst of the tumult. That tragedy precipitated a life-changing epiphany.  

As he watched the buildings implode, his life flashed before him, and he realized he had unfulfilled dreams and unfinished business tied to his creative passions. Thus, D Day Media Group Inc. was conceived.  

Dennis ended his executive career as New York State Director of Rent Administration for Upper Manhattan. He earned a Master’s degree in Media Arts from Long Island University with a focus on documentary filmmaking and production. His written thesis, American Television Reporting on 9/11: Framing a War Narrative, examined the media’s role in shaping the narrative that led the nation into the Iraq War. His film thesis, 9/11: Unfinished Business, parallels 9/11’s role in awakening Dennis’s vision to pursue his storytelling through music, writing, and film.  

He worked as a reporter, producer, and video editor for DRUM Television in Harlem. He created and hosted a public-access television series, Global Village Talk, on Time Warner’s Manhattan Neighborhood Network, where he developed documentary segments on cultural, political, and public affairs issues and events. He interviewed notable public figures, including Dr. bell hooks, Juan Williams, Malikah Shabazz, Attallah Shabazz, Congressman John Lewis, civil rights leader Benjamin Hooks, Rev. Dr. Calvin Otis Butts III, Congressman Charles B. Rangel, Dr. Cornell West, New York State Senator Bill Perkins, former Manhattan Borough President  Percy Sutton, Rev. Dr. Vincent McCutcheon, Congresswoman Maxine Waters, Dr. Norman Comer, Nancy Wilson, Dr. Paul Kwami, Ray Crew, Dr Billy Taylor, Gene Chandler, Chris Tucker, Professor Manning Marbel, Rev. Wyatt T. Walker, Rev. Jesse Jackson, and Rev. Al Sharpton. He writes, produces, and hosts regular arts and social media commentary on a variety of online platforms.