Before MTV videos, You Tube, digital downloads, nickelodeons, and television variety shows, fans of American popular music had to go to live music venues to enjoy their favorite artists.  From the stages of these spaces, both large and small, audiences experienced the larger-than-life talents behind the

recorded music that had enthralled them as they listened intently at home.  As much as the technology of recording had changed the musical experience, for many Americans, it could never replace the excitement of a live show.  Glamour, drama, comedy, dancing, and, most important, a good song combined to make these events erupt with pleasures and delights as well as brim with social and cultural significance.  A stellar example that towers above all others in its singularity is the Apollo Theater.

When it opened the Apollo was a quintessentially American institution, drawing on several important strands of the country’s history.  The cultural force of these strands coalesced at the nexus of the Apollo and contributed to its significance.  Throughout the nineteenth century, our musical culture gradually lost its European pedigree and became more “American” in its style, tenor, and goals.  As the focus of music making became less centered on home parlors and more on public entertainment, venues were built to accommodate this shifting sensibility.  Part of this appeal could be attributed to the allure of the specific musical culture of black citizens, who had since the days of blackface minstrelsy provided a foundational aesthetic for what was considered the “popular.”

Publishing: The Beginning of the Industry

The loose network of varied and sundry popular entertainments gradually coalesced into an integrated system of songwriters, performers, agents, managers, attorneys, publishers, theater owners, and recording labels—a modern industry that challenged the preciously held notion that art and commerce were irreconcilable forces.  Indeed, before its latest status as a foundation, the success of the Apollo’s formula had always rested on resolving this complicated, wholly American, assumption about artistry and its presentation and dissemination.  Thus, the Apollo’s legacy was built, on the one hand, by harnessing the variety show format familiar to American audiences, and on the other, by challenging the notion that art and economics could not be reconciled easily.  It is perhaps only in the context of Jim Crow separatism, indeed, within an environment in which black bodies were policed by law and custom that such an experiment could succeed.  Black artists were making brilliant artistic worlds within an environment that tried to contain them to status quo, second-class social positions.  As they turned the world on its ear, their work became true commodities, turning profits for all involved.  The dam burst at the Apollo, and the flood is still flowing.

Tuliza Fleming and Guthrie Ramsey: co-curators of the touring exhibition on the Apollo Theater "Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing."

Since its inception seventy years ago, Harlem’s Apollo Theater has been America’s premiere venue for the showcasing of black entertainment.  Situated in the center of one of the nation’s largest and most diverse black communities, the theater has existed as the “spiritual heartbeat” of New York’s live entertainment in the music industry.  From its inauspicious beginning as a burlesque theater in 1913 with a “whites only” policy, the Apollo opened its doors to black patrons in 1934, and quickly thereafter rose to become the most respected presenter of American popular culture for decades.

James Brown: The Business of Show

As an institution that was instrumental in launching and promoting numerous show business careers, the Apollo is singular.  As such the exhibition celebrates many of the great entertainers who have rocked this house for seven decades.  Through compelling artifacts, photographs, and audio/visual presentations, visitors experience the complex of outsize talent, glamour, and charisma that form the bedrock of American-styled celebrity.  The riff and rumble of a stunning number of genres of American music have been featured at the Apollo as each has moved in and out of vogue.

The Supreme Ones at the Apollo

The jumping beats of swing, the avant-garde sounds of bebop, the infectious rhythms of rhythm and blues, soul and rock n roll, and even the scintillating strains of Latin music have all graced the Apollo’s roster. And although many know the Apollo as a music venue, it also featured other expressive forms—comedy, boxing, spoken-word, and dance are part of the its history.

The myriad themes running through this story are fascinating.  A biography of the theater tells us much about the communities of Americans who developed the country’s culture industry into one of the most influential entities in the world.  As a social space, the industry was one of the arenas in which African Americans and Jews labored in tandem to further each groups’ push for a piece of the American pie.  Black New Yorkers migrated to Harlem in the early twentieth century, and the conditions there created a need for entertainment and respite from their generally harsh existence behind the walls of segregation.  Businessmen like Frank Schiffman understood this and used his expertise to develop a venue that catered to the specific yet varied tastes of the black community.  In other cities with large black communities such as Chicago, Washington D.C., and Philadelphia, we see similar developments: migration patterns of racial segregation created the need for black entertainment and white entrepreneurs positioned themselves to supply the demand successfully.

Gowns of the Supremes in the exhibition "Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing"

These theaters became important to an emerging black star system; they provided black artists and their audiences with the space to enjoy prestige, income, and visibility separate and apart from their white counterparts with whom they were not considered social equals.  As such, the Apollo and her sister venues throughout the black archipelago provided an incubator for the showcasing and development of black talent—indeed, they became pinnacles of achievement beyond the less prestigious “chittlin’ circuit” venues in which they were forced to perform.  Behind the curtain of segregated performance spaces, black artists honed their respective crafts, created their own artistic standards, tutored one another, competed, thrilled audiences, earned living wages, and ultimately created art that became the musical lingua franca of the world.

Celia Cruz

Embedded in this story, too, is how women performers emerged as a central force in black music.  Artists such as Lena Horne, Dinah Washington, the Supremes, Billie Holiday, Nancy Wilson, Celia Cruz, among many others, forwarded their own brand and standards of beauty, femininity, and expertise that countered prevailing notions of black women’s “natural” suitability for domestic and service work.  Latin musicians from throughout the African Diaspora have contributed significantly to the Apollo’s lore, demonstrating that the Apollo audiences were not only diverse but also “equal-opportunity” minded.  Notoriously vocal and devastatingly discerning, these audiences held whites, blacks, men, and women performers to the same standards of excellence and they were better for it.

James Brown performing “There Was A Time” how he used to do it at the Apollo. Fire and Ice!

Flash of the Spirit is about visual and philosophic streams of creativity and imagination, running parallel to the massive musical and choreographic modalities that connect black persons of the western hemisphere, as well as the millions of European and Asian people attracted to and performing their styles, to Mother Africa. . . . The rise, development, and achievement of Yoruba, Kongo, Fon, Mande, and Ejagham art and philosophy fused with new elements overseas, shaping and defining the black Atlantic visual tradition.

These sentiments, developed during the high years of the Black Consciousness Movement, are from the “Caucasian black cultural nationalist” and art historian Robert Farris Thompson, or “Master T,” as he is affectionately called by his legions of former students. This formidable list includes the path-breaking African American art historians Rick Powell, Michael Harris, Kellie Jones, Judith Wilson, and the late Sylvia Boone, among many others. The words describe his view of the inter-textual relationships in New World black

Visual representations of 19th century church services often depicted similar body language

cultural expressions such as dance, music and visual culture, including vernacular yard work and burial practices.  Rather than depict a set of modalities untouched by history and the social world, as some critics of “African retentions” claim, they urge us to view these relationships as representing historical processes of communal identity building through conscious and selective identification.

The Modest Urban Paradise UpSouth

Nowhere do we see this theory of culture more robustly evident than in traditional black preaching styles.  These epic speech/music events combine the semantic ingenuity of rapping, the musical virtuosity of gospel singing, and the body grammar and mechanics of delivery of the “Soul Man,” a cultural archetype codified in the work of Mark Anthony Neal.  All presented in a contemporary Italian V-collar shirt with extended cuffs and a business suit.  (I can’t see the shoes in the video example below, but I know those “kicks” must be killing; I just know it).  I’d be missing an important point not to mention that this brand of preaching style draws heavily from singing techniques developed by females in the tradition.  In turn, when females occupy this cultural space of whoop and tune, they adopt the growls typically associated with codes of masculinity. (And you thought contemporary gospel star Tonex’s announcement was news?).

To make historical sense of this dynamic tradition, we can look to well-known accounts of the ring shout ritual, a transplanted and transformed cultural practice observed during slavery in the “invisible church”:

About this time I attended a “bush meeting,” where I went to please the pastor whose circuit I was visiting.  After the sermon they formed a ring, and with coats off, sung, clapped their hands and stamped their feet in a most ridiculous and heathenish way . . . I then went, and taking the leader by the arm, requested him to desist and to sit down and sing in a rational manner . . . He replied: “The Spirit of God works upon people in different ways…there must be a ring here, a ring there, a ring over yonder, or sinners will not get converted.

If thousands of black Southerners flooding urban centers in the North during the twentieth century’s great migration left worldly possessions, they brought with them a profound sense of cultural identification, and of course, an openness to the shifts that occurred when these traditions met “modernity.”  Check out this description of a hot 1929 storefront church service:

It is night.  My errand brings me through a busy street of the Negro section in a city having a colored population of seven thousand.  Suddenly I am arrested by bedlam which proceeds from the open transom of a store front whose show windows are smeared to intransparency.  What issues forth is conglomeration itself – a syncopated rhythmic mess of tune accompanied by strumming guitars and jingling tambourines and frequently punctuated by wild shrieks and stamping feet.  Above the din occasionally emerge such words as “Jesus”, “God”, “Hallelujah”, “Glory”, and then I realize that this frenzy is being perpetrated in the name of religion.  A young man of my own race who has stopped in amazement turns to me half-quizzically and says, “What do you know about that? Jazzin’ God.”

Today’s twenty-first century preachers are still valued for their ability to “shout the congregation.”  They need not be seminary trained, nor formally educated, but they must acknowledge a divine “call to preach” which is usually the result of a vision of an “inner witness.” The most successful preachers excel at expressive singing, as the climax of great sermons become powerful musical events.  This ability is sometimes referred to as one aspect of “the anointing.”  The most popular among the “vernacular-styled” black preachers’ singing could rival Otis Redding, James Brown, or Joe Williams in their vocal quality and in power and impact.

Mega-Churchin'

In the example below of Prophet Brian Carn, we see this cultural formation in high gear.  The sheer power of his voice, his management of all musical parameters comprising this stage of the ritual, and the congregants knowing and enthusiastic expertise in maintaining their labor role in it is a thing of beauty to my ears and eyes.  Note how his crafty modulations ratchet up the intensity of his storyline. (In all fairness, we’re coming in near the end of the event; this sermon was probably not only about Jesus wanting everyone there to have a new house. I hope that Fannie Mae didn’t base its deplorable moves on this thinking).  When he implores the drummer—at mid-sermon!–that he’d rather have him punctuate his phrasing with a crash symbol and not the high-hat without missing a beat, Carn is insisting that the soundscape be filled with a more dynamic mosaic of timbres.  (Umm, very African).  He even upbraids him at one point to push him more “Come on drummer, you ain’t pushing me, you act like you on a break or something.”  This meta-song text in the performance event, the message of everyday uplift, the apparently repurposed building fully loaded with a concert level sound system, the colorful visual backdrop comprised of blue pews and walls, white nurses’ uniforms and grand piano, perfume and pastel church hats, and, of course, the red, black, and white robes are not haphazard.  They work together and purpose to charm every sense.  Indeed, they ground these participants in a common history, comfort them in a challenging present, and encourage to a brighter future.  Y’all don’t hear me. Yeah-ah! Yeah-yeah-ee-yeah!

P.S. I feel for that drummer. This was probably hour five of the shift at his station.  All that Holy Ghost moving can be a little hard on the wrists. (#don’tbeputtingmeinyoursermons).

Preaching, Teaching, and Reaching

Superfy: He Never Came to Dinner

When the film Superfly appeared in 1972, cinematic representations of African American men fit into a rather narrow mold.  The image of actor Sidney Poitier had loomed large since the 1950s.  Suave, worldly, clean-cut, and reared in the Bahamas, this charmer had embossed his virtuous and decidedly non-sexual portrayals of black males onto the consciousness of the American cinema.

His characters distanced black male representations from previous mythic stereotypes such as the “coon,” “buck,” and “tom” of yesteryear.  Despite the fact that these stock characters were merely stereotypes, they

Well, I guess he was "fly" for the Sixties, No?

powerfully shaped the social and political realities of black citizens.  In the 1967 breakthrough film Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, for example, Poitier played a doctor who had on holiday married the very blonde debutante of a liberal white couple from San Francisco.  His character’s polished, aristocratic manner coupled to the peculiarly non-physical relationship with his on-screen spouse did little to challenge the taboo of interracial love, even at the height of the 1960s sexual revolution.  Scored with the lush sound of the 19^th-century orchestra, the message of the film seemed to be that black middle-class-dom could sit comfortably at the dinner table with white America, barring a few bumps.  One would think that Poitier’s “non-confrontational confrontation” of the debilitating array of early twentieth-century black filmic characters would be a welcome change to all African-Americans.  Not so.

Superflysignaled a shift in the cinematic terrain.  The film opens with a scene that characterizes a new genre whose name merged a new militant attitude with an equally aggressive marketing goal: blaxploitation.  Amid a scene of urban blight and bustle, two black men, obviously worn by the struggles of inner city life, engage in agitated conversation.  The words “money” and “connection,” quickly cast this exchange in the underworld of drugs.  Another word, “nigga’” issues from the mouth of one character and charges the gray, winter air with a radical sense of urgency.

The Impressive Impressions

Beneath the frantic dialogue, a flood of key musical symbols underscores the action.   As the men navigate the urban space, moving through trash-strewn, ominous looking blocks toward their destination, we hear another important representation of blackness of era, one distancing this film from that of previous decades: the sound of Curtis Mayfield.  Opening with a Hammond B-3 organ shifting between two chords, other sounds are gradually layered into the mix.  Bongos lace the soundtrack with the essence of the late-1960s Black Power Movement, a historical moment that saw increased interest in symbolic representations of Africa.

Indeed, the scene is saturated with musical and visual symbols of an important historical moment.  The characters shuttle past a wall awash with brilliant hues, announcing a mural project sponsored by the Studio Museum in Harlem, a recently opened venue showcasing the works of African American artists.   Electric bass and a distorted electric guitar wail bring the psychedelic feel of late 1960s rock into the mix, a gesture that is juxtaposed somewhat audaciously to carefully orchestrated strings and horns.  The signature gesture of Mayfield’s work—his unforced, persuasive falsetto voice—provides a dose of gospel-blues to the song even as the saxophonist’s subtle blues licks straddle the piece between the secular and sacred boundaries of African American music.  The brave new world of black cinema needed a soundtrack, and Mayfield, one of the 1960s most prolific composers, provided it. The song underscoring the scene, “Little Child, Runnin’ Wild,” relates the story of a young, fatherless boy who is left to face a world of uncertainty because of the circumstances of his birth.  His mother’s indifferent; he’s left alone to fend for himself—a ghetto child, running wild.  Addicted and broke, he uses dope to ease the pain of existence in this state.  Mayfield’s lyrics and his non-saccharine vocal delivery make a powerful statement against the visual imagery it’s meant to magnify.

Check out the opening of the film Superfly

Art lives here

Last week was not only my time to wind up my fall classes. (Yes!)  It was also a great time to get out on the town and enjoy an eclectic mix of wintertime musicking in Philly.  Although one hears many laments about what the music scene here (and everywhere, it seems) lacks, if you’re persistent and consistent, there’s always something to take in.  You just have to get out of the box.

Jamaaladeen Tacuma, Wadud Ahmad, Terry Adkins, and Webb Thomas. Not Pictured, Yoichi Uzeki

First, there was another installment of J. Michael Harrison’s live music series at the Vivant Art Gallery.  Featuring Jamaaladeen Tacuma, a local bass-thumping hero, this CD release event played to a packed house full of enthusiasm and good vibes.  Tacuma’s new music is the virgin voyage for his label JAM-ALL.  Yoichi Uzeki, Webb Thomas, Terry Adkins, and Wadud Ahmad filled out the roster with verve.  Tacuma’s new music spans and combines the wide range of his compositional signature: avant-garde modernism, funky grooves framed in disjunctive, though infectious ositnato patterns all overlaid with tricky melodic statements that flirt on the edges of “catchy.”

Visual artist and Penn colleague Terry Adkins performed admirably on alto sax

The ultimate Afro-futurist, Tacuma is actively pursuing the twin tracks of pushy creativity and pushier entrepreneurialism with verve.  Dug the crowd, and the feeling.  Mr. Ahmad opened the set admirably with a cerebral spoken word performance that was set as a call-response with the pre-recorded voice of Ornette Coleman, Mr. Tacuma’s mentor.  An inspired “art” move.

At the Annenberg Theater, U of Penn,

Preservation Hall Jazz Band sound checking at Annenberg

the Preservation Hall Jazz Band was back for a sold out engagement.  Philly digs this group, and here’s the reason.  During a public pre-concert interview that I conducted with the group’s musical director, Ben Jaffe, he stressed the underlying spirituality of the band’s philosophy.  Jaffe, whose parents started the band in the 1960s, made a point that PHJB is not a repertory ensemble. They don’t’ transcribe and play, verbatim, old recordings. (Glad to hear that one).  They believe music heals, as they are exporting a holistic attitude about the power of music making and its connection to life from their native New Orleans.  The repertory is delivered with an earnestness that sweeps one up not into nostalgia, but into a spirit of “let’s enjoy our present” together. Musicianship is at a premium in this band as members move easily between virtuoso instrumentality and molasses-dipped vocals, often in one song.

The legend and lore of Dave Holland, bassist supreme, was confirmed during his recent performance at the Painted Bride Arts Center.  The venue was perfect for his big band project, which was formed in 2000 and has since been nominated for a Grammy.

The quiet before Dave Holland's storm at the Painted Bride

It was a special treat to hear many of today’s brightest stars—Chris Potter, Josh Roseman, Craig Taborn, Nate Smith, and Antonio Hart, to name a few—on this set of inspired music.  Holland’s compositional palette combines the typical scoring techniques of big band—interlocking interplay between solos, soli, and tutti practice. (If this makes no sense to you, take my history of jazz course, LOL: trust me, he’s doing it).

Dave Holland, jazz legend who's still innovating and educating

But he also has a very singular way of combining certain timbres that make you sit up and listen.  I was particularly struck by his beautiful use of alto sax and muted trumpet in some of the lines.  Another key factor driving the concept of this ensemble, of course, is how one can experience the different soloing styles of, say, Chris Potter’s hyper-modernism with emotion and Antonio Hart’s emotion-charged, blues-drenched modernism in a single song.  And Holland’s looping exploration of cyclic patterns with constantly shifting harmonic centers provides a challenging terrain for his soloists.

Instead of a 15-page paper, double-spaced, 12-point font, (with a bibliography), as their capstone experience in my History of American music class, my students made music.  The course surveys American music life from the colonial period to the present.  If you ever wondered what the 19^th century Swedish soprano Jenny Lind and Lady Gaga have in common, take this class.  Or if you ever think about the connection between Master P and PT Barnum—you got it.  We put on a benefit concert for the Penn Music Mentoring Program, a community service group dedicated to providing West Philadelphia with

Final Exam: Ramsey and students Joshua and Alex play some 1970s-style fusion. The young boys were into it.

music lessons and education.  The concert featured William Billings chorale music from 1770, a late 19^th-century string quartet, Gershwin songs, jazz, solo piano music, a guest Glee Club appearance, and more.  I participated as well, performing Jean-Luc Ponty’s “Question with No Answer,” with Josh Levy (violin) and Alex Utay (guitar).  I’ve wanted to perform that piece since the late 197os.  Life is good.  Sarah Van Sciver, a sophomore, gave us a sneak peak at her original musical based on Hamlet—definitely a high point—gotta’ love living composers.  And I’d be remiss not to mention that a student performed 4’33’’ by John Cage.  If you don’t know that piece, youtube it and turn your speakers up.  Way up.

Composer/pianist Sarah Van Sciver, a Carole King for our time, performs a work-in-progress

I left that concert and headed twenty blocks up Walnut into West Philly to a Sunday night event: the 35^th Pastoral Anniversary and 81^st birthday celebration of Bishop Audrey F. Bronson.

The doors of the church are open, and Jerry ThompSon's B-3 was bumpin'

My friend, producer, engineer, and music master Jerry ThompSon was “subbing” on the Hammond B-3 for the regular organist at the Sanctuary Church of the Open Door.  We know that there’s no such thing as a good African American Pentecostal service without the filtering sounds of a B-3 through some well-oiled Leslie speakers.  The Spirit don’t like that.  So JT was holding it down in the beautiful world of what my sister-in-law, writer Lisa Jones, calls “black pageantry.”  I was late (are you ever really  late for such celebrations?) and heard the last of the preaching, some exhortation, some good ole, impromptu, sanctified church songs, and the

This usher board is never bored moving to the beat

offering.  Yes, I said it: I “heard” the offering, always a good excuse for some soul stirring, down home, Up South musicking from the rhythm section.  Led by JT, the soul brothers did not disappoint the listener in this re-purposed sanctuary, once a huge and high cathedral designed acoustically for chant and hymn, now tailored for reprise and stomp . The female ushers were rocking and directing traffic, as JT was working the drawbars for varying timbres, riffing off of melodies in the upper register like Chick Corea, working over the inner voices with upper extensions of chords, and driving the songs forward, ahead of the beat. Yeah, and Amen, as they say.

And I was back home in time to catch the last half of Sunday Night Football.  Who says you can’t have it all in Philly?

Dr. Guy

Earth, Wind, and Fired Up: Ready for Takeoff

Earth Wind and Fire’s 1981 hit, “Let’s Groove,” kicks off with a shuffled hi-hat rhythm penetrated by deep, tight bass drum kicks. In the lower registers, vocals passing through a vocoder synthesizer conflate the line between words and bass, mouthing a thick and fuzzy “Down…boogie down…down uh oh…”. When the chorus kicks in after two measures, the listener is introduced to the upbeat, infectious, and interlocking rhythms of funk—Earth, Wind, and Fire style. An electric bass takes over the vocal line, electronic claps mark the snare, and horns intersperse Maurice White’s vocalizations: “Let’s groove tonight/ Share the spice of life/ Baby slice it right /We’re gonna groove tonight.”

Earth, Wind, and Fire, formed by Maurice White in Chicago in 1967, continues to be a decades-long funk phenomenon, but there is more to their approach to funk than feel-good lyrics and a party mentality. The video to “Let’s Groove” exhibits several key features of what sociologist Alondra Nelson and other scholars have labeled “Afrofuturism.”  Briefly, the term denotes an African American ideological current associated with aesthetic references to outer space, non-Western cosmologies, religious and historical revisionism, and a stringent critique of the socio-economic plights of African Americans (and diasporic and continental Africans more broadly). Indeed, “Let’s Groove” includes multiple aesthetic references to Afrofuturism: a backdrop of flying white stars in the vastness of outer space, glittery and metallic-colored spacesuit costumes, and a group line dance preceding through a receding, neon pyramid. The line dance—a salient feature of the Chicago-originated television series Soul Train, proceeds through a potent symbol of Egyptology: the pyramid. Egyptology, an influential religious current during the 1960’s and 1970’s, placed black people at the center of Western and world history, and the pyramid adorns several EWF album covers, including 1977’s All ‘N All.

1977's All 'N All. Design cover by Japanese illustrator Shusei Nagaoka

Indeed, upon closer examination 1970’s funk holds deeper implications for not only the transcendent aspirations of Afrofuturism but spirituality more generally. In a 1981 interview, founder Maurice White emphasized the spiritual component of Earth Wind and Fire, saying “the creativity and the spirituality…is all one. With my spirituality being together, I can more or less call upon my creativity… You can’t have one without the other.” Additionally, scholar Ricky Vincent has connected funk to African spirituality, saying “funk is deeply rooted in African cosmology—the idea that people are created in harmony with the rhythms of nature and that free expression is tantamount to spiritual and mental health.”

Not only funk but various styles of music coming out of black Chicago in the late 1960’s and 1970’s reflected deep ties to ideology, lived experience, heritage, and community. Music was not simply art but life.  Indeed, it embodied life that reflected the ideological and political currents of a turbulent era.

Writing in 1998 in the journal Lenox Avenue, musician and scholar George Lewis—at the urging of musicologist Samuel A. Floyd, Jr.—argued eloquently for an “integrative” approach to music scholarship, one that fully recognized the multi-dimensionality of musical practice. His article, “Singing Omar’s Song: A (Re)construction of Great Black Music,” emphasized not only the auto-criticality and self-reflexivity of Black musicians in the 1970’s Art Ensemble of Chicago.  It also explained the collective’s deeply ideological, historically-responsive, and spiritual approaches to music. Lewis’ integrative approach to music scholarship offers a rich lens through which to view the artistic output of 1970’s Black Chicago. And Earth, Wind, and Fire exemplify deeply integrative tactics, combining visual references, fashion, music, and deeply self-reflexive spirituality in their unique concoction of one of the 1970’s most salient genres—funk.

Ruthie Meadows

Chicago

Every city has a pulse. The heart of Chicago culture has a rhythmic pulse beat that hits with every sound imaginable—from the heavy bass of hip-hop to the blaring horns of funk. The cultural trajectory of Chicago is one based in a timeless diversity of black music.

It is this history that has created the work of Professor Guthrie Ramsey. I sat down with him to discuss his most recent endeavor, “The Chicago Project.” This aptly titled look into the sounds of a city has its roots in a course taught by Ramsey entitled, “From Blues to Obama: History, Culture and Power in Black Chicago.” Not only does this include works from his students, but also special events and performances; all capturing the soul of Chicago. Prof. Ramsey himself puts it best, “This project comes out my research of the great Chicago artists like Curtis Mayfield and Ramsey Lewis. What I’m trying to do with this endeavor is contextualize their contributions to the Chicago aesthetic as a whole—musically, politically and otherwise.”

This project will inevitably explore cultural aesthetics overlooked by many and perhaps known to few in such detail. Beyond the scholarly work, the University of Pennsylvania hosted legendary jazz pianist, band leader, and native Chicagoan Dr. Ramsey Lewis as Spring 2010 Artist-in-Residence in association with Center for Africana Studies for a three day event on March 17-19th.

Ramsey Lewis

One of the most exciting aspects of the Chicago Project lies in the genius of  Dr. Ramsey Lewis. To say that Dr. Lewis is an exemplar of longevity and prolificacy may be an understatement; a testament to his stellar artistic journey. Continuing a career ranging over sixty years, Lewis has built a resume boasting dynamic genre-bending jazz sounds with even more dynamic performances. Beyond that he has worked in both popular radio and television series, broadcasting his musical tastes to audiences around the world. The roots of Dr. Lewis come out of a Chicago tradition, known quite well by Prof. Ramsey.

As a Chicago native himself, Prof. Ramsey referred to the musical landscape of the city as “diverse and wide-ranging.”

“Today, I hear radio stations focusing in on one genre. Growing up in Chicago, I could turn on the radio and hear everything on one station—Jazz, Blues, Gospel, R&B. That’s Chicago.”

There is no better example of this principle than Dr. Lewis. While heralded and typified as a jazz artist, Lewis transcended the single genre boundaries. Beginning a career in the acoustic feel of standard jazz and mixtures of classical sounds, his music of the 1970s saw major appearances by vocalists Maurice and Verdine White of the legendary Chicago Funk band Earth, Wind & Fire. From there, Lewis went on to explore the smooth jazz and R&B styling, while never forget his early jazz roots.

Ramsey Lewis Trio – Hang On Sloopy (1973)

It was within this microcosm that Professor Guthrie Ramsey was nurtured. When I asked him who he listened to as a youth, he paused as wide grin spread across his face. For a second, even I myself forgot the expansive list of great musical acts coming out of the Windy City. After his elongated pause he said, “Honestly, I listened to everyone. Of course, the well-known artists like Ramsey Lewis, Curtis Mayfield, Jerry Butler, Chaka Khan and Earth, Wind & Fire. But there was so much more. I grew up in a time when you could really hear your local artists—Von Freeman, Binky Green. Lonnie Plaxico. I could go on for days…”

Of course, Professor Ramsey is no stranger to the stage himself having performed with the timeless Chicago group, The Chi-Lites. As an artist, the diverse musical landscape has shaped the way in which he models his career. “I look for that mixture when I’m recording an album. I don’t want to confine myself to this specific genre or that specific genre. I just want to do music—in all its forms.”

The Chi-Lites with Eugene Record – Have You Seen Her

One cannot help but get excited when discussing the project with Professor Ramsey. This project is much more than simple academic research for the professor. For him, it is a look into a cities’ history, his city, his history. However, the music of Chicago has become a part of a widespread tradition of amazing music. The taste of Chicago has become a slice of Americana tradition, one which can be enjoyed by all.

PAUL PENNINGTON

Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye

Stevie Wonder – Superstition

The music that we hear now will be the basis of the music that we will be listening to twenty years from now.  Musical genres are constantly evolving from and influencing one another.  This trend is evident simply by examining the roots of the musical genres that have emerged during the past century .  Two musical movements that shared similar beginnings, but also have fundamental differences in their musical objectives was the Motown movement of the 1960s and today’s Indie rock movement.  Both emerged from existing musical genres (Motown from soul, rhythm, and blues; Indie rock from the punk movement as well as contemporary pop-rock music) and further defined the existing genres into more specific terms.

Marvin Gaye – Heard It Through the Grapevine

Motown began in Detroit in the 1960s, when Berry Gordy, Jr. founded Motown Record Corporation.  Motown Records had a profound influence on the music scene, and it is widely considered the first truly successful mainstream record label to be owned by an African American.  Motown is responsible for introducing many famous black artists, such as Stevie Wonder, The Jackson 5, and Marvin Gaye, into the “pop” music scene.  Motown music was considered to be on the simpler side, as the label tended to avoid producing songs that were overly complex or difficult to understand musically.  The Motown sound was suited to pop music and optimized to be embraced by the masses.  Motown Records was very successful at not only integrating black musicians into mainstream music culture but also in helping them achieve commercial success.

Vampire Weekend – Cousins

Another movement, which is more contemporary, is the indie rock movement, which began in the 80s but really took off in the late 90s and during the new millennium.  The indie rock movement is not so much a change in musical style as it is a change in the way that artists think about marketing and promoting themselves and their music.  Whereas Motown was trying to take the genres of soul, gospel, and blues and introduce them to the mainstream, indie rock is trying to do the exact opposite, taking control of the music away from the record labels and putting it back into the hands of the musicians.  Indie rock bands primarily generate popularity and interest for themselves via word-of-mouth and the internet through social media such as Myspace, Twitter, and Facebook.  Artists of the indie rock movement place retention of their creative licenses as their number one priority, choosing to forgo  popularity and success on the mainstream music scene in exchange for the ability to have  control over the production and promotion of their  music.

NICK BARETTA

Marvin Gaye

The 1960s was a decade of monumental change in sociopolitical, technological, and musical spheres.  The United States was in the midst of an unpopular war and for the first time the American people were brought to the front lines.  Each night families would sit in front of their television screens and watch the images of violence and destruction that planted the seeds for thousands of protest songs.  Civil rights and war became the motifs of rock bands, folk musicians and Motown vocalists.  The Protest Song Movement reached across the lines that had been drawn to separate genres.  Its success is a reminder that labels and distinctions are the products of critics and record companies.  Although the mediums of self-expression varied from musician to musician, the message in the lyrics was often the same.  The focal point of the Protest Song Movement of the 1960s was the Vietnam War.  Today, artists remain political but the scope of their involvement has changed as they are now speaking out against the American dependence on the media, commercialism, and most recently the condition of Africa.

Marvin Gaye – What’s Going On

As the 1960s came to a close, two artists were working vigorously on anthems that would define their beliefs.  Marvin Gaye, a Motown soul singer wrote “What’s Going On” and John Lennon penned “Imagine”.  These two musicians had very different backgrounds.  One was African American, the other a British citizen.  One had started his career as a rock musician, the other had roots in Soul/ R&B.  However, both Lennon and Gaye had written songs protesting the senseless of war and urging peace.  There was a sense of community in the music world that crossed boundaries.  Normally, folk movements start with the common people and rise to popularity.  Here the movement came from the top down, and the community that spawned the Protest Movement was composed of popular musicians themselves.  This was a folk movement without precedent, not based on art or the media, yet truly influential.

John Lennon – Imagine

Today, American musicians have reached a level of self-involvement and passiveness that seems shocking when analyzed.  Underground music continues to make statements, but these bands have such limited influence that their points have little influence on the American people.  A minority of musicians continue to push their opinions, protesting commercialism, the media, and African apartheid.  These artists are attempting to reverse the negative effects of the media and mobilize their listeners to make a change.  If other musicians would only resist the opinions and trends that the mass media implements, songs protesting and advocating other causes could reemerge.

Green Day – American Idiot

In 2004, the punk rock band Green Day released the album titled American Idiot, which became an instant hit and went all the way to number one on the American Billboard charts.  The title track refers to the “new media” and those who follow it as “American idiots”.  Of course punk rock has always been anti-establishment and continues to be one of the strongest forces in the modern Protest Song Movement.  However, even the self-centered Kanye West took a stab at the protest song with 2005′s “Diamonds from Sierra Leone”, which claims that the diamonds we consume are the product of child slave labor.  Not only does this song denounce consumerism, but it also addresses Africa, which has been a hot issue among musicians this decade.  Finally, it’s a common belief that the media and commercialism institute conformity, and in 2003 the alternative rock group Radiohead released “2+2=5″ (an allusion to George Orwell’s 1984). Americans today allow the media to make choices for them.  The message is clear:  “You have not been paying attention.”

Kanye West – Diamonds of Sierra Leone

The Protest Song continues to survive in modern music.  Although it attracts a much smaller following than its 1960s counterpart, its scope remains as broad as ever.  Every genre has artists with issues that need to be heard.  But how come the protest song has become such a rarity, and refuses to address the current unpopular war?  It’s possible that many musicians fear a backlash, as was the case when the Dixie Chicks bashed President George W. Bush and severely hindered their record sales.  In the 1960s, artists used songs as a medium to spread their message, and to many this was far more important than success or album sales.  Today, the message is only of secondary importance after the music.  Kanye might sing about child labor now, but ask him to take a pay cut, he might be singing a slightly different tune.

Radiohead – 2+2=5

Brandon Batzel

Sam Cooke

The 1960’s was an era categorized by vast political and cultural change. America had elected its first Catholic President, succeeded in launching a revolutionary expedition to the moon, experienced vast racial strife, and was plagued by the most unpopular war in domestic history. From a peripheral view, it may seem that these paramount events define 1960’s America.

Looking back on this decade, it is important to note how the artistic and political advancements of the era were very much intertwine with one another. The Civil Rights Movement, in particular, sparked vast musical and artistic creativity. Talented musicians from all over the nation told their stories of grief and struggle through the powerful tool of song. African-Americans of the era hoped that these ballads would raise awareness of their cause, and ultimately eradicate the proverbial racial fissure that existed in American society. One man who embraced this philosophy wholeheartedly was R&B singer-songwriter Sam Cooke.

In Sam Cooke’s “A Change is Gonna Come,” Cooke expresses the hardships that he must bear as a black man in 1960’s American society. He indicates that even though he has been struggling since he was “born by the river in a little tent,” he is optimistic about the future and “a change is gonna come.” In the third stanza he yells, “I go to the movie and I go downtown…somebody keep tellin’ me, don’t ‘hang’ around.” This line portrays how he not only cannot even enjoy simple pleasures in life such as going to the movies or walking down town, without the constant fear of being lynched. In the fourth stanza, his story continues with the phrase “Then I go to my brother and I say brother help me please. But he wind up knocking me back down on my knees.” This statement could symbolize how blacks are constantly trying to earn their equality from whites but the African-American community is perpetually forced into this inferior social status.

Sam Cooke – A Change is Gonna Come

Through the lyrics, Cooke is able to unveil his story, and the shared story of blacks in America to the world. The musical qualities of the song not only supplement the story Cooke is telling, but also humanizes it. The beginning of the song starts off with a string section soli that radiates a pessimistic mood, however by the end of the section, the song lightens up. This transition is symbolic of the entire piece, as Cooke describes the hardships that blacks must endure but ends with the sentiment of hope and optimism. Throughout the song, the listener can hear the sheer emotion in Cooke’s voice. When talking about his life, his timbre is dark and full of anguish. The accompanying string and horn sections supplement his voice with many minor chords, which illuminate the sense of pain and hardship.

When Cooke reaches his prominent phrase that “A Change is Gonna Come,” however, the darkness that encompasses his voice is replaced by a confident and bright timbre. In addition, Cooke uses an array of instruments to illustrate the different sentiments that he is trying to convey. When portraying sadness and grief, he is accompanied by a single violin that seems to trail of into the background. When portraying anger and determination, he is accompanied by the loud riffs of the horn section.

Cooke uses a variety of accompanying instruments and an impressive range of timbre to evoke the many emotions that defined the Civil Rights Movement. “A Change is Gonna Come” has been featured in venues ranging from Malcolm X’s funeral, to Seal concerts, to American Idol. The song was even used as one of the theme songs for Barack Obama’s 2008 Presidential campaign. Even though this piece was written in 1964, today it continues to serve as a paradigm of musical achievement.

President Barack Obama refers to the lyrics of “A Change is Gonna Come” in his presidential acceptance speech in which he mentions “…it’s been a long time coming”, culminating with his statement “Change has come to America”.

Adam Lambert – “A Change is Gonna Come” Live on American Idol Finale

Colin Zelicof

James Brown – Good Foot/ S Power/ Make It Funky (ST 1973)

Recognized as the “Godfather of Soul”, renowned artist James Brown was easily one of the most influential figures in 20^th century popular music.  With his ear-piercing cries and hollers as well as the accompaniment of his flawless, energetic back up bands, Brown created generations of ‘feel-good’ funk and soul music.  In Brown’s live performance at Soul Train on February 10, 1973, he blended three of his well-known songs- Get on the Good Foot, Soul Power, and Make it Funky- to create a fusion that paralleled the energy and creativeness seen throughout much of jazz history.  Abundant in ring shout tropes, the affect of this tune’s various musical components on the audience is alike to the influence of numerous early jazz artists on their listeners.

The driving rhythm created by the drum set, tambourine, bass, and guitars- though it varies a little during the song -is a call to the audience to ‘Get on the Good Foot’ as much as is Brown’s outright demand in his lyrics. The rhythm section’s constant repetition and preciseness embeds a metronomic pulse in the people’s mind to dance to just as Count Basie’s Orchestra would have done so in 1940.  In addition, Brown’s use of call and response with the audience at various moments generates an involvement and interaction between musicians and listeners that enhances the excitement.  Brown asks the people, “What do we need?” and they respond, “Soul Power”, he ask the people, “Can I do it?” and they respond, “Do it!”, and finally he asks the people, “Can I make it funky?” and they respond with “Make it funky”.  This question and answer technique in Brown’s vocals is used for the same purpose as it has been always been used: audience participation. Repeated riffs in the saxophone section, especially those ending in long, bent notes, almost create a countermelody to Brown’s vocals in the first section of the song while providing support for Brown’s spontaneous cries and interjections as well.  These exclamations and shrieks convey the energy and climatic points along the song.  Though Brown’s calls might be more frequent and forward than shouts heard in earlier jazz styles, both forms of vocal improvisations are used to express the emotion at that moment of the song.

Although James Brown’s performance of “Get on the Good Foot, Soul Power, and Make it Funky” occurred decades later than early jazz shows, the tropes infused throughout the song express the same ideas as tropes heard in early jazz tunes.  The constant repetition in the rhythm section, vocals, and band create that driving dance tempo and beat as heard in swing and other forms of jazz.  The brief solos and spontaneous cries almost release the pent up energy that the song produces so that the audience remains relaxed and comfortable.  Though one can’t say that Brown’s music ‘really swings’ or ‘has that ragged ragtime rhythm’, its ability to ‘be funky’ allows any audience to enjoy as they would other forms of jazz.

Allyce Estremera