We are happy to announce the launch of the newly revamped Musiqology.com! Our team has worked tirelessly the past few weeks to think through our mission while listening to you, our great readers. We’re thrilled to share our new look and to work even harder to make Musiqology your reliable and enjoyable source of information about music and its robust relationships to history, society and other art worlds.
I’m writing this from the village of Giverny, France, home of the impressionist painter Claude Monet and the Terra Foundation for American Art Summer Residency, where I’m working on a new book, tentatively titled Twist and Shout: African American Music in Time, Place and Contexts. It’s an integrated history of the music from colonial times to the present with an emphasis on its relationships to other medium like poetry, visual art, and film. I’ll also be putting the finishing touches on my more political book of collected essays Who Hears Here?: Drastic Interpretations on Black Music History and Society. There’s a rumor that the foundation is about to rent a piano, too, so hopefully some new music will be coming your way as well.
Although University is on hiatus, the summer world of Musiqology promises to be busier than ever. I began the season with a talk at UCLA about my new book, The Amazing Bud Powell: Black Genius, Jazz History and the Challenge of Bebop (University of California Press), which was released worldwide last month. The UCLA based art historian Steve Nelson joined me in a rousing give-and-go discussion about the meanings of experimentation, its reception, and the uses of “Africa” in/of the works of several mid-twentieth century musicians and visual artists.
Former member of Dr. Guy’s Musiqology and Guthrie Ramsey rehearse in Los Angeles
The next stop was the dynamic and rich inaugural conference of the Black Arts Initiative (BAI) at Northwestern University. “Black Arts Chicago: Moves and Movements,” convened by professor and performance artist, E. Patrick Johnson, presented a comprehensive look at black arts in Chicago—literature, music, dance, film theater, visual art and more. What really made the conference sing is that practicing artists were featured together with scholars of various traditions. The dialogue was rich, informative and particularly lively as audience members from the broader Chicago artistic community of artists/activists jousted ideas, challenged paradigms and built new ones in ways familiar to native Chicagoans such as myself. It was great to be home, and particularly moving to see the Art Institute’s exhibition “The Seek a City: Chicago and the Art of Migration,” a wonderful tribute to the city’s history of immigration and migration shaped numerous arts and literatures from novels to paintings to sociological treatises. And no trip home would be complete without checking out the spots that are, let’s say, not on the tourists guides—the places where bid whist, steppin’, James Brown and Johnny “Guitar” Watson rule the night. My presentation, “Meat, Migration, Music and Money” engaged all of these issues, referencing my previous work in Race Music: Black Cultures from Bebop to Hip-Hop and concentrating on the political economies of music and identity in the private, communal spaces of black Chicago.
E. Patrick Johnson and Guthrie Ramsey at Black Arts Initiative at Northwestern University
Davarian Baldwin, Darlene Clark Hine, Guthrie Ramsey, John McCluskey
I made it back to Philly for my bi-weekly stint on WURD (900 AM—on air, online, and in the community) to chop it up with the hostess and host with the most, the Vibe Mistress Stephanie Renée and Dr. James Peterson. Their Monday installment of the “Wake up with Wurd” show features rousing discussions about the impact of culture on local politics in the City of Brotherly Love and on a global scale. They bring it hard every week—that day featuring spots with myself, Sonia Sanchez and Professor Tukufu Zuberi. When I finally made it to New York City, I had the wonderful opportunity to speak to Justin Desmangles at KDVS, 90.3 about the Powell book and bebop. He was unbelievably prepared to voice his strong ideas about art and politics in America. If you missed the show, check out the link: the music, poetry and conversation were awesome.
My next posts will cover the artist Lorna Simpson’s new exhibition at the Jeu de Paume Museum in Paris at which I presented; the American jazz singer Denise King during her new release and Parisian residency; the Venice Biennale; and my trip to London to speak to the remarkable cultural critic, Paul Gilroy. We’ll also let you know about the upcoming Bud Powell book tour, which will include live music and a short original film, that will be coming to a city near you in the coming months.
Stay tuned for more excitement from Musiqology as we bring you the world. Welcome abroad and aboard!
Dr. Guy
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