Undertaking The Undertaker: Oscar Oswell Holley, My Uncle the Soldier, Postal Worker and Mortician Remembered (1928-2020)

When my dad and his siblings were growing up in Detroit, Michigan the pianist and bandleader Jay (“Hootie”) McShann had a recorded hit titled “Hootie Blues” (or “Hootie, Don’t Ya Drink That Stuff”) that Melvin had taken an enjoyable liking to…so much that older brother Oscar (1928-2020) nicknamed him “Hootie”!! After my dad and mom got married and Mark, Millie and I were toddlers learning to talk, the nickname tables got surprisingly turned…by my mom!! When Uncle Oscar visit he would insist on continuing to call my dad by his childhood nickname, but my mom quickly told all of us: “THAT’S YOUR UNCLE HOOTIE”!! From that moment till now, our Uncle Oscar was “Uncle Hootie”. Since most children DARE NOT arbitrarily give their parents nicknames while being raised by them under their roof (!!)—Melvin (whose more endearing childhood nickname is “Pap” the diminutive of “papoose” as the youngest of four brothers) got no nickname from me!!--just simply, “Dad”!!

While the nickname has endured for generations now, just as many priceless things about Oscar O. Holley have also lasted. As little kids, all of we nephews and nieces were frightened by his boisterous, drill-sergeant manner and potentially intimidating presence. He served in the U. S. Army as a drill sergeant in the late 1940s and early 1950s; several longtime family friends even served under his command including the pianist Sir Roland Hanna (1930-2002) also a member of an amazing community of local Detroit musicians. Some went to New York and become world-renowned. Oscar told me the story of his immediate discovery that Hanna (whose nickname was “Hack” in the Army) had been assigned to his unit. Already aware of his talent at the keyboard, Oscar wasted no time in getting Hanna transferred to a unit that would make much better use of his gifts…far beyond carrying and firing a rifle. Oldest brother, Navy band veteran bassist Major Holley and drummer Alan Dawson would make a trio recording with Roland in 1979 in Nice, France, “Impressions”; it would become one of Oscar’s favorite recordings…and one of mine!!

After his discharge from the Army, Oscar would study mortuary science at Wayne State University. His childhood affinity to funeral services started close to home just off of  Eight Mile Road and Roselawn. The house was a few steps from Cockfield’s Funeral Home; exactly what fascination a youngster would have to a mortician’s regimen escapes most folks, but it caught his attention—to the point that his volunteer help of “Old Man Cockfield” would lead to a lifelong dedication to the art of “honoring the dearly departed”. His mentor in the profession was Annette Fields, one of very few African-American female morticians in Detroit during the postwar years. I still remember the “funeral home” location on West Grand Boulevard, a large imposing “house”—'of course all the houses in that part of Detroit were large (many of which have since been torn down). When my grandfather M. Q. Holley Sr. passed away in 1969, the visitation was held there. While his dad was one of many people and his siblings was “family” that Oscar would serve, it had to have been a profound experience—balancing the emotional strain of personal and family bereavement with professional service. Perhaps those required psychology courses address that matter quite early in the MortSci curriculum. His painstaking fastidiousness and attention to detail marked his work as a mortician throughout his career of over fifty years.

While “Uncle Hootie” was “more bark than bite”—as we nephews and nieces would gradually discover as we grew into adulthood and family life on our own terms, I would discover how proud he was of each of us in his own expressive way[l1] . When Peggy Newkirk came into his life, she brought a surprising balance to his life—which I learned later on was a harrowing balance of work at the funeral home (which Annette Fields left to him after she passed away), and also working fulltime at the U. S. Post Office!! He certainly had a developed philosophy on the meaning and use of time—I presume that drill sergeants learn that skill long before their induction into the military. When she became too ill from her battle with cancer, Uncle Oscar retired from 56 years as a mortician to care for her in her last years. Oscar had traveled as a soldier, but Aunt Peggy was her own “National Geographic magazine” who traveled the world and focused on visiting the countries around the world whose peoples were predominantly brown-skinned. Several members of our family would learn and benefit from her practical skill and expertise as a travel agent and tour guide. I also remember a hilarious story of how Oscar nearly infuriated one of his neighbors by showing up at his doorstep…dressed in full garb that Peggy had brought him while in Egypt!! The neighbor failed to recognize him immediately and nearly cursed him out!! Much laughter erupted once Oscar’s costume ruse was discovered!!

Visits with “Uncle Oscar” were never dull…nor were they very brief, at least for me. We shared a fascination with history and usually hit it off with our balanced temperaments at family gatherings in recent years. Uncle Oscar certainly had his own unique “time warp” that housed his resolute (most folks would say plain stubborn!!) “old school” ways and means of doing things. Such qualities served him well in over five decades of “undertaking folks”!! When Major would come to Detroit for performances, Oscar usually picked him up at Metro Airport—driving the hearse to transport the bass!! He often made runs to the airport to pick up bodies of soldiers, so much that the baggage handlers got to know him rather well. I’m sure they got more than a few chuckles from both Major and Oscar over the bass in the hearse!!

The most profound angle of my memory is always that of recognizing the passage of time as we measure it in the events and occasions that bind us together throughout our lives--the birthday parties, graduations, weddings, anniversaries, retirement celebrations…and funerals and memorial services. In my estimation, the Biblical wisdom of the 90^th Psalm speaks to at least four things: the swift passage of time, man’s puny endurance in the face of eternity, our need for the Almighty and our need to be validated as human beings through the people we serve…in the work that we do. “May the favor of the Lord be upon us, and bless the work of our hands—yes, the work of our hands” (Ps.90:16-17). Peace…TWH

---

 [l1] not

Another 'Rona Quarantine Draft: Mendelssohn and the Gateways Music Festival...

Amid the pandemic and current unrest over the shootings of unarmed African American citizens in Louisville, Brunswick GA and Minneapolis, the need to cry, protest, march and PERHAPS throw a few objects has been uppermost in the minds of so many. However, one thing that has been recently a precious thought is the harkening for halcyon days--not necessarily for having won the rat race, but the exhilaration and satisfaction of having a goal to reach for and succeeding for having done so. Certainly there is always a need to tell more than a few hilarious reminiscences, and the following is most fitting "as such a time as this"...

In August of 2013, I had the joyous opportunity of performing at the Gateways Music Festival at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. A wonderful assembly of some of the finest African American classically trained professional musicians, the Festival has gathered biennially since 1993, and has been in residence in Rochester since 1997. A Sunday afternoon full orchestra concert culminates the Festival, but during the week the orchestra personnel also rehearses and performs in a variety of chamber music ensembles. That year I was placed with a string quartet to play informal concerts in the Rochester community and in area churches. One evening after a full day of orchestra rehearsals this quartet gathered for a late evening reading rehearsal. In this type of rehearsal, the specific program has yet to be determined, so my colleagues and I got unpacked, seated, parts distributed amid chatter about what music to read through first, and off we went!!

After having played for about 90 minutes, our quartet had grown into a quintet--two violins (Jeffrey Boga and David Burnett), two violas (Christopher McClain and Adrian Davis), and myself on cello. We began reading through the String Quintet No. 2 in B flat Major, Opus 87 (1845) of Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847). We were reading through the third movement, a sad yet beautiful Adagio movement of passionate expression in 2/4 meter. Amid all five of us reading like gangbusters, Jeffrey Boga miscounted and found himself off from the ensemble by an 8th note. In an effort to lovingly assist and "restore ensemble synchrony", David Burnett began singing Jeffrey's part!! This made Jeffrey laugh while he was still playing and trying to find the right spot to read in order to get back "in sync" with the rest of us!! The laughter spread like a virus, and we all fell apart, laughing uncontrollably!! We laughed for fifteen minutes straight!! We eventually got ourselves back together enough to read through to final movement, and adjourned for the evening due to extreme fatigue and obvious giddiness!! 

That moment of laughter was so memorable that when I see David Burnett, I give him a big hug--and say just one word: "Mendelssohn"!!

Almost Missing Papa Bear: My First Lynn Harrell Concert...and Voyage...

My first "Lynn Harrell Experience" (among a few!!) was almost a no-show...not on his part but mine!!

As a music major at Baldwin-Wallace College in 1980, I had somehow procured a ticket to his artist recital in Cleveland at Severance Hall. Like lots of college music students, one of the first things I didn't have (or trouble myself over not having) was my own transportation. So in my best of intentions but not best geographical navigation, I took the "Rapid"--RTA, Cleveland's rapid transit train/bus system (I can still remember their advertising jingle: “RTA, The Energy Saver!!”) to the University Circle station. 

While I have countless childhood memories of visits to my aunt, uncle and cousins in Oberlin, Ohio, which has ALWAYS been “home away from home”—I was and still am FAR LESS familiar with the geography of Cleveland. Instead of walking/wandering my way toward Euclid Avenue, hoping to see a vaguely familiar sign directing me toward Severance Hall. Instead, I made the presumptuous error of boarding a bus that had a destination sign reading “Severance Mall” (now Severance Town Center). Yep…a costly ride it was, not for money but for timing as Mr. Harrell’s recital had a 3pm start time, and by 345 I was looking at the surface streets of Cleveland Heights instead!!

Once I finally mustered the guts to ask the driver where Severance Hall was in relation to Severance Mall (!!) and got the necessary bus transit directives back to University Circle, Part One of my adventure concluded, and the walking tour eventually toward Euclid Avenue began!! While the Sunday afternoon weather wasn’t unusually warm, I sure was in my power walk hoping that Mr. Harrell’s recital was too short or already finished. As I continued walking, I managed to noticed what turned out to be the lagoon and still unblossomed gardens (below street and sidewalk level) of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Drawn to the walkways out of curiosity, while making my way toward them I happened to look up and to my right…and noticed the chiseled name of Severance Hall adjacent to the gardens!! Hallelujah!! I had accidentally and most ineptly ARRIVED!!

Well, by the time I walked inside through the main lobby, the ushers had done their jobs and gone home for the afternoon. But praise be to God, the recital program was still going on!! I’ll list my recollection of the program later, but Lynn Harrell was playing one of his first “homecoming” recitals since departing the Cleveland Orchestra as one of the youngest principal cellists to do what he’d been doing clear until April 2020. Rudolf Firkusny was his collaborative pianist, and I got to hear him play MOST of the Chopin Sonata and one brief “corny” encore: “The Pink Panther” of Henry Mancini!! Needless to say my lesson for the day was not about the cello or performing, but finding who to ask, how to ask and what direction to wander in…when I don’t know where the hell I am!!

Several years and a wealth of musical experience later, Lynn came to Toledo and Detroit to perform as a soloist. He came to Toledo during my section tenure with the TSO; he played the Dvorak Concerto, and upon meeting him I told him my story!! He laughed with me (politely!!) and quipped to me that “Firkusny hated playing encores”!! He came to Detroit a few years later to play the Prokofiev Symphonie Concertante with the DSO, and I was fortunate enough to be in town and free to pop in for the rehearsal and a performance. At the rehearsal break, I greeted him backstage and mirthfully called him “Papa Bear”, on account of his tall and imposing stature!!

The last time I saw him in recital was here in the Triangle Area. Thankfully I had no trouble getting to Page Auditorium at Duke Auditorium for the program; I don’t recall the complete program but remember that a few Schubert lieder were included. I regret that our paths did not meet for master classes, where the best lesson experiences get gleaned through the fellow cellists who get the distinct (and temporarily terrifying!!) opportunity to play for him. His passing comes as both a shock and surprise: seventy-six is not old when you’re approaching 60, as I am. The pandemic has claimed so many loved ones, family and friends renowned and unknown…but like most events in life, we didn’t see this “Lynn Harrell slow movement” ending so soon. I know that all cellists, string and orchestral musicians and lovers of concert music will miss the beauty Lynn strove for in every fingering and bowstroke, melody and phrase, movement and entire work. We must and will carry on, bearing his profound influence as legacy bequeathed to us…”another charge to keep on keeping on WE HAVE”… Peace.       TWH, Durham, NC

PS: The program for that Cleveland recital is the following, as best I can recall:

Luigi Boccherini, Sonata in A Major

Ludwig van Beethoven, Sonata in C Major, Op.102/1

J. S. Bach, Suite No.3 in C Major, BWV 1009

Intermission

Frideric Chopin, Sonata in g minor, Op.65

Henry Mancini, Pink Panther Theme Song (encore) 

"Time And Arenas Reclaimed"...The Chamber Music of Black Composers on MLK Day

North Carolina Chamber Music Institute

Faculty Chamber Music Recital In Celebration of The Birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

As A National Holiday

Monday, January 20, 2020, 7:00 pm

The Church Of The Nativity, 8849 Ray Road, Raleigh, NC

String Quartet in C Major, Opus 1, No.1 (1773)     Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1739-1799)

Allegro; Rondeau: Tempo di minuetto, grazioso

Alice Ju, Greg Logan, violins; Jacobus Hermsen, viola; Timothy Holley, violoncello

Three Spirituals for String Trio (2005)                           arr. Adolphus Hailstork, b.1941

We Shall Overcome; Kum Ba Yah; Great Day

Alice Ju, violin; Jacobus Hermsen, viola; Timothy Holley, violoncello

"Daybreak In Alabama"                                                   Ricky Ian Gordon, b.1956

"Night"                                                                              Florence Price (1887-1953)

"Feet o’Jesus"                                                                   Florence Price

"Dream Variations"                                                          Margaret Bonds (1913-1972)

Waltye Rasulala, soprano; Olga Kleiankina, piano

Five Negro Melodies, Opus 59 (1904)                            Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912)

My Lord Delivered Daniel; Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child; Didn’t My Lord Deliver Daniel

Olga Kleiankina, piano; Greg Logan, violin; Timothy Holley, violoncello

"Lift Ev’ry Voice And Sing" (1900)*                    James Weldon Johnson & John Rosamond Johnson

                                                (1871-1938)                  (1873-1954)

Waltye Rasulala, soprano; Olga Kleiankina, piano

Alice Ju, Greg Logan, violins; Jacobus Hermsen, viola; Timothy Holley, violoncello

Program Notes, “Time and Arenas Reclaimed”…

This evening’s program is the result of several “fortunate coincidences including both patience and good timing”. Our national celebration of the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is the “timely reason” for this concert. Dr. King lived and died in the pursuit of freedom from racial and economic inequality. Our celebration is both an anthem and a prayer for perseverance in the face of our own history and habits of everyday living, borne out of struggles involving skin color, class and even religion. “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing” will close the program as a clear and direct exemplar of this desired ideal.

The hashtag #ReclaimingMyTime attributed to U. S. Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-California) might fit best here as both a borrowed program title and description of the current resurgence of the music of Florence Price (1887-1953): the discovery of unpublished manuscript orchestral scores and parts in an abandoned house near Kankakee, Illinois created a storm of resurgent interest, curiosity and notoriety around this African American female composer, who in 1943 sent a letter to conductor and music director Serge Koussevitzky of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, introducing herself with the oddest mannerism of near desperation: “My Dear Dr. Koussevitzky, to begin with I have two handicaps— those of sex and race. I am a woman; and I have some Negro blood in my veins. Knowing the worst, then, would you be good enough to hold in check the possible inclination to regard a woman’s composition as long on emotionalism but short on virility and thought content—until you shall have examined some of my work? As to the handicap of race, may I relieve you by saying that I neither expect nor ask any concession on that score. I should like to be judged on merit alone”. 

In the United States we tell ourselves meritoriously that “our gifts will make room for us”. Despite her conservatory education and training and nominal notoriety, Florence Price struggled to penetrate that “glass-plated cement ceiling” of both race and gender biases in 19^th and 20^th century America. All the composers featured on this program have their unique stories to tell--of personal struggle, dogged perseverance and “legacies left, marked in gradual, hopeful forward progress”.

Joseph Boulogne, le Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1739-1799) was the son of a French nobleman Guillaume-Pierre Boulogne and a Senegalese slave Nanon on the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe. He was taken to France and received a classical education in Paris. He excelled on three sociopolitical and artistic “fronts”: he became the finest swordsman in France, an accomplished violinist, composer and conductor who was offered the directorate of the Paris Opera in 1776 (a royal appointment), but was cheated out of it by socially influential women at court who refused to “take orders from a mulatto”. Nevertheless, Saint-Georges led an orchestra known as the Concert des Amateurs (one of the best in Europe) and later “Le Concert de la Loge Olympique”, which commissioned a set of six symphonies for orchestra by Franz Joseph Haydn. Saint-Georges served as intermediary and conducted the first performances of the commissioned works (now known as the “Paris” symphonies, Nos. 82-87, composed in 1786). Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart also spent two years of “touring residency” in Paris (1777-79), during which he composed his “Paris” Symphony (No.31 in D Major, K.297, 1779) for the Concerts des amateurs, an ensemble of which Saint-Georges was a well-known member. (In fact, the origin of the sobriquet “Le Mozart noir” for Saint-Georges can be traced back to this residency.) The String Quartet in C Major which opens the concert dates from 1773, nestled among a wealth of creativity between all three men: the six highly original and influential “Sunrise” quartets of Haydn (op.20, 1771), and the two sets of early quartets of Mozart, the “Milanese” (K.155-160, late 1772-early 1773) and the “Viennese” (K.168-173, 1773). The opening movement unfolds in the manner influenced by the Mannheim orchestral style, while the second movement functions as a minuet moving in the form of a rondeau.

Adolphus Hailstork is one of the “elders” of the present generation of composers of African American concert music. A native of Rochester, New York, he studied at Howard University with Mark Fax (who was a friend of Jessye Norman and her family in Augusta, Georgia while teaching at Paine College), the Manhattan School of Music with Vittorio Giannini, and H. Owen Reed at Michigan State University. A cultural laureate of the Commonwealth of Virginia, he taught at Norfolk State University and Old Dominion University. One of his best-known and most riveting works, the cantata Done Made My Vow (1985) was composed for the 50^th anniversary of the founding of Norfolk State University. He arranged the Three Spirituals for string trio in 2005; they are described as “the perfect storm”—a cross-pollination of African American and European traditions. “We Shall Overcome” is given the contrapuntal treatment of a Bach chorale prelude (with the viola occupying the cantus firmus!!); “Kum Ba Yah” is a souful meditation with blues and gospel-style nuances, and the anthem “Great Day” is a no-holds barred exuberant finale!!

Ricky Ian Gordon has been a well-known composer of songs to texts of American poets, most notably (but not exclusively) Langston Hughes (1902-1967). His biography is best discussed—and viewed online!! (www.rickyiangordon.com). The opening song, “Daybreak In Alabama” should be the global anthem of all creative persons: the beauty and grandeur of “composing”—at daybreak, amid the wonder of daybreak, and all that a day comprises--its original innocence and imaginative potential. Florence Price composed “Night” in 1946 to the poetry of Louise C. Wallace (1876-1928), a poet and colleague from Springfield, Illinois she had met prior to her family’s migration from Little Rock, Arkansas to Chicago. The poem is a surreal collage of word-pictures proceeding in muted ecstasy. The brief musical setting enshrouds the poem with lovely quiet grandeur. In addition to volumes of written poetry, short stories, plays and a chronicle of the Harlem Renaissance, Langston Hughes also composed blues lyrics. “Feet o’ Jesus” is a text dressed in the supplicative garb of the Negro spiritual, perhaps most reflective of the memories of Langston’s early years spent in Lawrence, Kansas with his maternal grandmother, Mary Patterson Leary Langston (whose second husband, Lewis Sheridan Leary died with John Brown at Harpers Ferry, Virginia in 1859). Margaret Bonds was a good friend of both Florence Price and Langston Hughes; in fact both Price and Bonds made art song settings of the poem Dream Variations!! A literal anthem of the Harlem Renaissance (1924), the poem’s imagery is a COMPLETE celebration of the dark-skinned body—mind and soul!!

Following the sweep of her distinguished educational background and training in piano, organ and composition, our #TimeAndArenasReclaimed composer of the program Florence Price wrote a contrastively limited amount of chamber music…that is, what has been discovered THUS FAR!!: two string quartets (and a third possibly extant), a quintet for piano and strings, at least one character piece (“Adoration”), and a set of spiritual arrangements for violin and piano. While her vocal, piano and symphonic music remains the backbone of her compositional output, the chamber music expresses a contrastively intimate and equally profound artistic “gesture”. The Five Folksongs In Counterpoint were composed gradually, appearing in varied settings and differing song order between 1927--the year of her migration from Little Rock, Arkansas to Chicago—and 1951, the same autumnal year in she received a commission from the British conductor Sir John Barbirolli to compose an orchestral suite. (Her String Quartet in G Major of 1929 stands apart from this set of folksongs. It is available commercially and was performed at the 2017 Gateways Music Festival at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York.) The two movements included on this evening’s program, “Drink To Me Only With Thine Eyes” and “Clementine” reflect the poetic ballad and popular folksong tradition, chronicling moments of emotional “extremity”—romantic love and tragic loss. The National Baptist Hymnal, however, does contain an adopted and lengthened text-variant of “Clementine”--the invitational hymn “Come To Jesus”!!

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912) was one of the best-known members of “the race” in his time. As an “Afro-British” musician and composer, the weight of his notoriety rests on several artistic triumphs, three of which are mentioned here: his visit to the United States in 1899 to conduct a performance of his cantata Hiawatha in Washington D.C., with a chorale named in his honor; three concert tours of the United States in 1904, 1906 and 1910; and the celebrated publication of the Twenty-Four Negro Melodies arranged for solo piano opus 59 (1904), for which Booker T. Washington wrote the Preface. The eminent historian and sociologist W. E. B. Du Bois dedicated a memorial essay to Coleridge-Taylor titled “The Immortal Child” from Darkwater: Voices From Within The Veil (1920). Coleridge-Taylor was the youngest delegate to attend the First Pan-African Conference at London in the summer of 1900; he provided musical interludes between the conference sessions, and personally entertained Du Bois at his home in Croydon.  Du Bois’s reminiscent essay reflects upon that pair of now-historic occasions: his meeting Coleridge-Taylor and the development of Pan-Africanism. In Booker T. Washington’s view, the full set of “Negro melodies” constituted the Negro’s contribution to the body of art-music compositions that made him (and her!!) a worthy voice of expression on the heels of what had become a global, fully human “conference and conversation”--whether that Negro place of origin is the African continent, the Caribbean, the United Kingdom or the United States of America. Five of the melodies were arranged for piano, violin and cello and published by Novello in 1906, of which three are featured here.

James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938) was the “Renaissance Man of the Harlem Renaissance”—two decades after writing the poem “Lift Ev’ry Voice And Sing” in honor of the birthday of Abraham Lincoln and a 1899 school visit and speech made by Booker T. Washington in Jacksonville, Florida. James Weldon Johnson had at least seven “careers” in the course of his life: composer-entertainer, diplomat, literary historian and university professor, lawyer, public administrator and civil rights advocate. The half of his story still awaits complete telling. His brother the composer John Rosamond Johnson (1873-1954) set “Lift Ev’ry Voice And Sing” to music, and it quickly became known as the “Negro national anthem” and remains so today. Two challenges of “performance-practice tradition” also persist for all audiences to meet: singing all three verses AND standing up to sing!! TWH

"Daybreak in Alabama" (Langston Hughes)

When I get to be a composer
I'm gonna write me some music about
Daybreak in Alabama
And I'm gonna put the purtiest songs in it
Rising out of the ground like a swamp mist
And falling out of heaven like soft dew.
I'm gonna put some tall tall trees in it
And the scent of pine needles
And the smell of red clay after rain
And long red necks
And poppy colored faces
And big brown arms
And the field daisy eyes
Of black and white black white black people
And I'm gonna put white hands
And black hands and brown and yellow hands
And red clay earth hands in it
Touching everybody with kind fingers
And touching each other natural as dew
In that dawn of music when I
Get to be a composer
And write about daybreak
In Alabama.

"Night" (Louise C. Wallace)

Night comes, a Madonna clad in scented blue.
Rose red her mouth and deep her eyes,
She lights her stars, and turns to where,
Beneath her silver lamp the moon,
Upon a couch of shadow lies
A dreamy child,
The wearied Day.

"Feet o’ Jesus" (Langston Hughes)

At the feet o’ Jesus,
Sorrow like a sea.
Lordy, let yo’ mercy
Come driftin’ down on me.

At the feet o’ Jesus
At yo’ feet I stand.
O, ma little Jesus,
Please reach out yo’ hand.

"Dream Variations" (Langston Hughes)

To fling my arms wide
In some place of the sun,
To whirl and to dance
Till the white day is done.
Then rest at cool evening
Beneath a tall tree
While night comes on gently,
Dark like me–
That is my dream!

To fling my arms wide
In the face of the sun,
Dance! Whirl! Whirl!
Till the quick day is done.
Rest at pale evening . . .
A tall, slim tree . . .
Night coming tenderly
Black like me.

"Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing" (James Weldon Johnson)

Lift ev’ry voice and sing
Till earth and heaven ring
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the list'ning skies, let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of faith that the dark past has taught us
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun
Let us march on till victory is won.

Stony the road we trod
Bitter the chast'ning rod
Felt in the day that hope unborn had died
Yet with a steady beat
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place on which our fathers sighed.
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered
Out from the gloomy past, till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.

God of our weary years
God of our silent tears
Thou who has brought us thus far on the way
Thou who has by Thy might
Led us into the light
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee
Lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee
Shadowed beneath Thy hand
May we forever stand
True to our God
True to our native land.

Hidden Gems and Hidden Figures...

“Hidden Gems…and Hidden Figures: The Cello Music of African American Composers, Women And Less Visible Artists”

Friday, October 4, 2019, 7:30pm

Recital Hall, Edwards Music Building, North Carolina Central University 

Still Waters Running Deep (1984)                                        Barbara York, b.1949

Melodie (1911)                                                              Frank Bridge (1879-1941)

Seven Variations in E flat Major on “Bei Mannern” from Mozart’s The Magic Flute (c.1795)

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

Comments on the music

Deep River                                                                   arr. Moses Hogan (1957-2003)

This Little Light Of Mine (1945)                                                John W. Work (1901-1967)

This Little Light Of Mine (2001)                                                James Lee III, b.1975

Troubled Water (1964)                                                               Margaret Allison Bonds (1913-1972)

About these “Hidden Figures and their Hidden Gems”…

The amended titles and content of this afternoon’s program are both intriguing and a bit misleading. One name is by no means a “hidden figure”; during his lifetime Beethoven was one of Europe’s best-known pianists, composers and larger-than-life characters. His Third Symphony nearly became a portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte, and his Ninth Symphony remains a musical metaphor for our yearnings for brotherhood and peace. In contrast, the other composers of this program might appear overshadowed in terms of notoriety; by the close of this program you'll see that Beethoven is rolling in league with some “tough musical competition”!!

The opening work, Still Waters Running Deep of Barbara York possesses both a pastoral and flowing character, evoking several familiar images in its title: “sheep” (human or cloven-hoofed!!) being led by "The Good Shepherd" of the 23^rd Psalm, the depth of thought in human nature (Proverbs 18 & 20), but the depth of this piece lies in the beauty of its melodic line and its harmonic and rhythmic “course”, which resembles a river flowing and cutting deeply through its watershed.

Frank Bridge (1879-1941) lived during two of three crucial national periods of British history, the reign of Kings Edward VII (1901-10) and George V (1910-1936), marked by tremendous industrial, economic, political and military development, turmoil and upheaval. Bridge was a student at the Royal College of Music from 1899 to 1903, and his earliest string music dates from this youthful period. Melodie (1911) was composed for the Felix Salmond (1888-1952), who studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London and the Brussels Conservatory; he was one of the leading cellists in Europe during the years of the Great War (World War I). [It possesses a strong Edwardian sense of dramatic vision that was tragically cut short by the national carnage and sacrifice during the War, which wiped out most of a generation of Britons who believed that “the sun of Britannia would never set”.] Salmond joined the cello faculty of The Juilliard School in 1924, and then the Curtis Institute of Music the next year. He would teach jointly at both institutions for seventeen years (1925-1942). He is one of a host of significant pedagogues who emigrated from Europe, and trained and mentored “an American school” of cello playing. Some of his American students (and “grand-students”!!) are still well-known as performers and pedagogues even today: Orlando Cole, Leonard Rose, Louis Potter, Bernard Greenhouse, Samuel Mayes, Ronald Leonard, and Kermit Moore--Salmond’s only African-American pupil.

The Seven Variations in E flat Major of Ludwig van Beethoven were composed during the early years of Beethoven’s residency in Vienna (c.1795), one that would prove to be life-long. The theme is drawn from the melody (“Bei Mannern welche Liebe fuhlen”) in Act I of Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute, sung by Prince Tamino’s friend Papageno and Princess Pamina as they ponder and discuss the noble desire to live by the power of love (even though they have yet to find those respective significant companions). This operatic dialogue is effectively translated to the instrumental conversation, and the variation form enhances that dialogue between instruments, flowing with equal interest within each variation. The shifts of tempo, key and mood also further magnify the profundity of that flowing progress.

The remainder of this program continues the mining of “gems most strangely hidden”; the African-American folksong genre called the “spiritual” is a familiar gem with a seeming guise of familiarity, due to its adaptive use in many of the nonviolent protest songs of the Civil Right Movement (c.1951-1968), and the international notoriety gained by the touring activities of the Fisk Jubilee Singers (1873-1878). The themes of water and waterways flow very strongly within and throughout the spiritual folksong tradition; all three works of Moses Hogan, John W. Work and James Lee III are drawn from that vocal tradition.

“Deep River” is one of a host of spirituals arranged for voice and piano by Moses Hogan, a pianist and choral conductor who left us ‘way too soon. The two settings of “This Little Light Of Mine” couldn’t be more complimentarily contrastive in their harmonic and expressive effect. John W. Work was the second of three generations of musicians associated with Fisk University and the historic Jubilee Singers. James Lee III is a nationally recognized “STILL young” composer who studied piano and composition at The University of Michigan. He now serves as associate professor of music at Morgan State University.

“Troubled Water” is the closing movement of the Spiritual Suite for solo piano, composed by Margaret Bonds in 1947-48; she arranged it for cello and piano for the cellist Kermit Moore. Both musicians performed together quite frequently; in addition to being great friends, they also worked under the same artist management as a duo.

The Golden Rule Door...

This door is what I now call "The Golden Rule Door". It is the southeast entry and exit door of the Farrison-Newton Communications Building at North Carolina Central University in Durham, North Carolina.  It faces the parking lot  behind the building, which borders it to the east. The black rail pictured separates a wheelchair access walkway to the door and a sidewalk running alongside part of the parking lot. I'm sure that both building (and door!!) have been there longer than I have thus far. Many of the buildings on campus that share such an architectural design and style date from the same general year of construction (c.1975-77), but this particular door intrigues--and occasionally frustrates!!... everyone who enters and exits this building every day!!

Murphy's Law or the Golden Rule...
A closer look and encounter will reveal several wondrous details: its hinges are located on the left, and the handle and doorjamb on the right. Most single-door thresholds have those elements reversed so the door opens from left to right, and one approaching the threshold can do so from the left and find reaching for the door handle much easier. However, DIS heah doh'...ain't set up this here way!! ERR'BODY who comes from the most accessible direction (south) has to reach across the threshold to grab the door handle. This is where "Murphy's Law" swings into enthusiastic motion!! The door borders a rear sidewalk and the parking lot, but the other side of that threshold...is a short basement landing at the bottom of three floors worth of the southeast stairwell. Most folks (faculty/staff) who have reserved (purchased) parking privileges in the lot approach from the north side of the door...the "handle" side. But most people who don't park in that lot or walk to the building as pedestrians...approach from the southeast, the "long reach side". Folks who exit the building at this point have NO visual forewarning of anyone on approaching from the other side of the door.  As also pictured in the photograph, the window mounted in the door offers a laughably scant field of vision (c.3 inches wide and 2.5 feet high)...out and in. At this point, individually, collectively, hypothetically and/or realistically...the principle of "The Golden Rule"...MUST come into play.

The Conclusion of the Matter...
Aside from this moral/ethical/philosophical juncture, it is all too convenient to hasten and conclude that the State of North Carolina, the UNC System and North Carolina Central University have each colluded to place each citizen--guest, student, staff, faculty member and administrator--at the open risk of injury both small and substantial. But in my regular daily entries and exits via this doorway, one unwritten yet profound rule always manages to prevail: that of "doing unto the one coming in...as you would wish to have done for you coming out". Those who open the door from the inside can often be found holding the door and waiting for numerous fellow students/colleagues approaching from nearly thirty feet away. Those who arrive to open the same door from the outside do so often with care and patience, knowing that someone is at or very close to the other side of the same threshold!!

I would love to know about any other public institutions in the State of North Carolina built around the same time as the Farrison-Newton Communications Building...that might have a similar or even identical plan for their entry and exit thresholds. The one most mysterious takeaway in all this is both the oddest and most profound: in the matter of communication, the portal of greatest hazard...is also the portal of greatest potential opportunity. Perhaps this is the true metaphor...of all manner of communication. An awkwardly placed portal, threshold, window (narrow yet long) and angle of access, entry and exit...

Mo' Betta Friday: Jazz as a Musical Expression of the Gospel...and one mis-reaction to the term (19 April 2019)

Some regular--FAITHFUL--observers and readers of this blog series will know that I perform, teach at a university, volunteer at a local hospice...and occasionally write about my experiences.  I had one such experience while working live during the "Midday Jazz Adjustment" on 90.7 FM, WNCU in Durham (www.wncu.org), which airs on Monday through Friday from 11am-1pm.

I have done live shows on Good Friday for two years now, but the title of this blog post actually derives from a much earlier NON-musical event and memory. From 2006-2010, one of my responsibilities as Director of the University Honors Program at North Carolina Central University involved chairing the planning committee for the Honors Convocation for Academic Excellence, which convenes in early April--often a week or two removed from Passion Week and the culmination of the Lenten season. From department chairs I would receive names of students to be recognized University-wide, and prepare them for two public documents--a rather large laminated poster for display around campus lobby areas, and the event program book. In a faculty meeting I made a brief presentation and advertisement of the Honors Convocation, and referred to the event's date (that year) as "Mo' Betta Friday", borrowing from the title of the motion picture "Mo' Betta Blues" produced and directed by Shelton "Spike" Lee,  starring Denzel Washington, Wesley Snipes, Nicholas and John Turturro. Most of my colleagues caught and chuckled at my sincere play on words, appreciating the strange malapropism attempted amid a bunch of academics!!

In my Good Friday programs in 2018 and 2019, I have intentionally chosen and played selections aimed at providing inspiration and opportunities for some measure of reflection from the wide varieties of jazz repertoire and tradition. Evangelical hymns, Negro spirituals, music of Duke Ellington and many others form my playlist for the show--which actually flies by rather quickly!! I had just finished playing the last tune for the first hour of my show when the studio telephone lit up. Upon answering, a female caller was on the line, most incensed by my on-air use of the term "Mo' Betta Friday". To her ears, apparently my mention of this created holy-day term constituted a sacrilegious replacement of this Holy Week Day, an attempted verbal tantamount to heresy!! She gave me a piece of her mind and attitude that she just couldn't afford to keep to herself!! I patiently heard her out, but even the few comments and words of attempted alleviation offered interjectively...fell on "deaf ears"--or perhaps a closed mind. (Part of me is convinced that she hung out with the Pharisees near the Garden of Gethsemane on Maundy Thursday night!!)  

Nonetheless, my listening ear and representative position kindly and carefully heard and endured her harangue, even though my rising blood pressure was elevated as a result of the awkwardness of "such a mountain made out of molehill". While the second hour proceeded without any further incident (or phone calls!!), it was overshadowed--partly by my biblical recollection of the time of day during which the Crucifixion took place, "from the sixth to the ninth hour", 12 noon until 3 pm, by current daylight saving time clock reference. I had hoped to make it through the midday hours with my reverent on-air corniness intact, but that one call broke the streak and marred the experience.  

On an aesthetic, artistic and musical level, this time of day is one of special meaning and function, as the sum of my "taste" is permitted a most unique platform--one having a very sensitive membrane of aural exposure, access, information, understanding and appreciation. The few callers who make and take the time to call the studio during my leg of the radio relay--usually call with questions about what's been played, suggestions for future selections or my even speech-rhythm!! But such a call as on Good Friday occupies the most unusual category in my suggestion box, and will for quite some time!!

My stepson occasionally poses a quasi-sarcastic question for his mother at the end of a bizarre day of work and interaction with total characters in the workplace, phrased as follows: "so what did we learn today"?? Here is what I learned...on "Mo' Betta Friday": 1. In this nationalized American Judeo-Christian culture, we have been socialized to venerate events and holidays but haven't learned to work harder at following the Golden Rule: doing unto others AS we would have them do unto us. 2. We often listen--NOT for the purpose of learning and understanding, but for the aim of response. Immediate response, with the aim of "one-ups-speakership". The caller called me onto her carpet of cultural correctness over the issue of word choice, usage and grammar...not the relevance of ANY musical selection heard on WNCU/90.7 FM between 11 am and 1 pm on April 19, 2019--the Friday of the Passover celebration known as Good Friday. 3. I learned anew that communication, whether verbal or musical--takes time. People need time and space quite often. The lady who called in to the radio studio on "Mo' Betta Friday" will need time--to just listen to the music I program. WITHOUT any reference to religion, holidays, history or even her own thoughts and attitude. I will need time...to reconsider my motives and thinking for choosing the music I do. Nevertheless, the comfort I retain is that of knowing and loving so many of these organized moments of uncommon grandeur so much...that they defy complete or even coherent description at times. 

I also need to remember...that the folks who didn't call in to fuss about what I called the day...were moving through their pensive day touched by whatever they heard in ways I cannot hope to completely fathom. That is more than sufficient encouragement and validation for me.  Happy Easter to all!! 

#LiveInLove #LiveInPeace #GrowInFreedom