By Brandon Astor Jones
This is an open letter to my grand-daughters. I feel it is both my duty and a privilege to be able to write and leave letters like this one, for all of you. As the subtitle suggests, the basic message here will be music, but there will be other messages as well. I hope you can hear all of them.
Music plays an important role in the lives of many Americans, especially African-Americans. Please keep in mind that I am not giving orders. Rather, I am simply sharing some family history and offering suggestions that you might consider as a result of reading about my experiences.
My hope is that you will explore and appreciate music as a whole, instead of a partial gift. Please do not allow yourselves to be pigeonholed. Sometimes you will encounter those who will try to place your musical appreciation into selfishly convenient little ethnic, cultural and/or racial slots. If you let them, they will have limited your musical souls' ability to expand and soar. Let's see if I can jog a few memories for you here.
About 25 years ago I came across a song entitled "Fancy". A song stylist named Bobbie Gentry sang it — note that I did not refer to her as a "country and western singer". As I recall, the lyrics went something like this (as Gentry sings for the title character, Fancy):
"I remember it all very well lookin' back
It was the summer that I turned eighteen
We lived in a one-room, run-down shack
On the outskirts of New Orleans.
"We didn't have money for food or rent
To say the least we was hard-pressed
When Momma spent every last cent we had
To buy me a dancin' dress.
"Well, it was red, velvet-trimmed, and it fit me good
It was split in the side clean up to my hips!
Mamma washed, combed and curled my hair,
Then painted my eyes and lips.
"Standin' back from the lookin' glass
Was a woman where a half-grown kid had stood."
Chorus (as sung by Fancy's mother):
"Here's your last chance Fancy, don't let me down! [sung twice]
"God forgive me for what I do,
But if you want out girl it's up to you
Now get on out, you better start sleepin' uptown."
Fancy narrates in conclusion:
"Now the wheels of fate had started to turn
And, for me there was no other way out
And it wasn't very long after that
I knew just what my Momma was talkin' bout.
"Now it's been a long time since I left that ol' rickety shack
The welfare people came and took the baby
Momma died and I ain't been back.
"Since then I've charmed a king, a congressman
And an occasional aristocrat.
And I got me a elegant Georgia mansion
And a New York town house flat
Now I ain't done bad."
At that point the finale culminates in an orchestration of trumpets and guitars that briskly fade "Fancy" away in off-time syncopation.
I was deeply moved by the tragic story told in that song, and I never forgot it. Poverty was so deeply entrenched in that old shack that Fancy's own mother was obliged to turn her daughter out into a life of selective prostitution in her well-intended but misguided hope that her daughter could, as a consequence, escape that poverty.
My purpose in bringing that song to your attention is this: Another AfricanAmerican and I were discussing music. I brought up the content of that song and the song-styling respect I have for the woman who sang it.
We did not know that a man was eavesdropping. He eventually interrupted our conversation, expressing amazement that I could like what he labelled, "a country and western song!" With genuine surprise and without the slightest bit of contempt, he went on to say, "I ain't never met any black folks who like listenin' to country and western music". (I should note here, too, that white folk have not cornered the market on ignorance: that man could just as easily have been black, brown or from any other ethnic group in the USA.)
If my capacity to appreciate music was left in the hands of a man like him, my musical experiences would be no broader than his musical comprehension, or the lack thereof. This particular white man teaches us all a lesson: his musical appreciation is governed by his misconceptions and notions about race. That explains why his musical comprehension is so limited. I hope you are catching grand-daddy's drift here.
As a little boy growing up in and around Chicago, I was privileged to be in a rich musical environment full of diversity. However, like most people, I have listening preferences. I lean more towards progressive and improvisational jazz idioms.
On Chicago's South Side, amid the short 6300 block of Cottage Grove, there was a place called McKee's Diskjockey Show Lounge. It was referred to, at that time, as the region's premier "jazz showcase". While there were other places to see and hear good jazz — supper clubs and dinner theatres like the Pump Room and the London House, all of those places were on the North Side. They were outrageously expensive, and even if you could have afforded them, "Negroes" were not welcome there unless they were bus boys, waiters or performers. "Negro" was one of the nicer names Caucasian Americans called African-Americans back in the 1950s.
When I was 10 years old, on some weekends, I would often shine shoes from sun-up to well beyond sundown outside McKee's entrance. It was impossible for me not to hear the compelling musical sounds that escaped from within the long, narrow confines of that establishment. Many times passers-by had to be ordered by the police to "move on", so as to discourage congregations that would gather at the entrance to hear the likes of Julian, Nat and Cannonball Adderley's impromptu jam sessions during afternoon rehearsals.
Others such as Miles Davis, Gerry Mulligan, Dave Brubeck, Dexter Gordon, Jimmy Smith, Donald Byrd, Horace Silver, Gene Almonds, along with song stylists like Nancy Wilson, Sarah Vaughan, Nina Simone and Dinah Washington, were all regular headliners there.
My purpose in name-dropping is to let you know in advance of your hearing those artists' music that they, and others, played key roles in the expansion and development of my musical tastes. McKee's became a hang-out of sorts for certain people in the entertainment business. When music icons like Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Peggy Lee and a host of others completed their shows at places like the London House or the Pump Room, afterwards they went to McKee's to be entertained themselves. While McKee's only had a 4am license, it rarely closed. Of course, the police were "on the take" which allowed McKee's, like other establishments do today, such freedoms then.
Enough about McKee's. Let me give you some specific titles, and their corresponding artists' names so that you can access some of their music:
"Song for My Father" by Horace Silver. "Exodus to Jazz/Chicago Serenade" by Eddie Harris. "Take Five" by Dave Brubeck. "Christo Rejentor" by Donald Byrd. "Paint it Black" by Herbie Mann. "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" by Jimmy Smith. "Bumpin' on the Sunset" by Wes Montgomery. "Kunsh/Night in Tunisia" by Dizzy Gillespie.
These will be enough to get you started on your own journey of syncopated musical pleasure and exploration. I said "pleasure" because, as your appreciation develops in the various jazz idioms, you will soon recognise your listening experiences for the true self-discovery you will find there. I hope you find that "self" both beautiful and hereditarily artistic. If I am gone, perhaps you will think of me too, then.
My favourite female vocalists are Billie Holiday, Minnie Ripperton, Toni Braxton, Anita Baker, Patti La Belle, Oletea Adams and Barbara Mandrell (time and space do not permit me to list them all). Lady Day (Billie Holiday) is to the ballad, love song and the blues — especially about her man being gone, mean and evil — what Beethoven was and is to the intricacies of classical music.
I should warn you, though, that much of Lady Day's music was inspired by the "mean and evil" treatment she endured from the men in her life, not the least of which was her husband Clarence Holiday. I urge each of you to steer clear and beware of the Clarence Holidays of the world; I assure you there are many.
I was in my late teens before I began to fully appreciate how significant the blues have been, and continue to be, on almost every kind of popular American lyrical composition. I should also note that the bulk of sincere blues artists tend to come from the Mississippi delta. Incidentally, Bobbie Gentry comes from that region as well. Mind you, I do not mean to suggest that other regions do not produce equally sincere blues artists. They do, but the Mississippi delta does produce more than any other region.
The basis of the blues in America is always in a state of constant change because of past and present artists like Muddy Waters, Elmore James, Albert Collins, Ray Charles, Wash Board Slim, Lightnin' Hopkins, Big Mabell (she belongs in this line-up), Screamin' J. Hawkins, Bobby Blue Bland, Little Willie John, B.B. King and lots of others.
Forgive me for the absence of Bessie Smith's name in the same breath as those I just mentioned. It will take a better writer to do justice to her artistry. To write about her music somehow does an ineffable disservice to the lyrical quality of it. I think it was meant only to be listened to, so I will not write about it.
Like Lady Day, Bessie Smith's life was at best extremely painful, but in very different ways. I would suggest that you try to hear her music before you learn about the pain of her personal life; otherwise, you may be unable to objectively absorb her music on its merits alone without being prejudiced by what you know about her.
Her music shares a commonality with all heart- and soul-wrenching melodies. Yet, because of her African-American heritage, I suspect the previously mentioned eavesdropper would probably have difficulty admitting that most contemporary story-telling lyricists and musicians owe much of their craft techniques to Smith and others like her.
Let us not forget how the great African diaspora has produced so many wonderful Caribbean, South and Central American contributions to the world's music. Speeding flamenco rhythms, reggae percussions along with Latin American infusions have greatly expanded the various jazz idioms in particular. You must be certain to treat yourself to deeply moving compositions like Willie Bo Bo's "Hurt So Bad", Carlos Santana's "Waiting", El Chicano's "I'll Never Go Back to Georgia" and a long list of Sergio Mendes' and Bob Marley's compositions. Each of those artists' creations bears their unique musical fingerprints of greatness.
The worldwide amalgam of music is vast and employs so many variations on so many different cultural disciplines that in the listening we are often pleasantly confused. You can use your local library to access the world's musical genesis and sort out whatever confusion that might arise. The musical roots and routes you will be able to trace will lead you to know the music's people, creators and innovators, along with a knowledge of your place in that timeless amalgamation.
You will find that you figure prominently, I assure you: your new-found knowledge will give you confidence and musical astuteness that many others do not know. So don't be fooled or misled by would-be musical know-it-alls.
For example, there are those who would have us believe that "rap" is a new musical art form. It is not. Today's rappers are direct descendants of African story tellers from thousands of years past, whose communal commentaries, chants and driving back-beats can be traced through time to jazz's vocalised "bee bop" lyrical and so-called "scat" variations that are still popular today. The only thing new about rap is that now people are getting paid huge sums of money to do it.
Because most North Americans have what is commonly known as cultured characters, rather than self-chosen and self-made characters, they tend to entertain largely myopic and prejudiced notions about music. Such people usually cannot see — let alone hear — the musical kinship that Miles Davis, Ludwig van Beethoven, John Lee Hooker, Alex Bugnon and Oletea Adams share.
We are all connected on every human plane, not the least of which is music. Music, like everything else in this world, began in the geographical heart and soul of humankind's creation — Africa.
Alas, because of the limited vision of some manipulators' musical comprehension, the musical gift and artistry of all people have been obscured by the categorising prejudices of a self-serving, self-righteous few. Such people tend to be either consciously or unconsciously driven by diseases like sexism and/or racism, and they would prefer that their musical comprehension and listening experiences be somehow elite and exclusive of certain other peoples' musical appreciation and roots. You must remember, as I said before, they do not like to be told, in truth, that we are all connected — even, and especially, in music.
Some time ago, while glancing through a music magazine, I came upon photographs of Pattie La Belle and Barbara Mandrell on the same page. I was instantly startled that both women looked like sisters born of the same mother, despite the fact that they represent two distinctly different ethnic cultures, African and Caucasian American respectively. Knowing their music and appreciating both styles, I was immediately moved to pen the following poem:
One Music
When I see Pattie La Belle
I sense her shared kinship with Barbara Mandrell
The music they make, play and sing
Is quite simply beautiful; and all the same thing
Sisters in life, rhythm and melody
Dare not pigeonhole, with a colour, their musical souls for me!
For who among you can really know where Mandrel's Blackness begins?
Or measure, from what point to point where La Belle's Whiteness ends?
Red, Brown, Black or White it is all truly one music!
Okay, so your grandfather is not the world's greatest poet, but the poem's message is clear.
I would also like to bring to your attention how yesterday and today will always be united in music. Miles Davis was considered a jazz man of convention, yet his music was and is timely. Proof of that timeliness can be heard as Miles' muted horn delivery supports and leads the silky and poignant rap lyrics of Easy Mo Bee. The collaborative effort entitled "The Doo Bop Song" (Warner Brothers Records) clearly illustrates how one idiom is deeply rooted in a jazz past that not only embraces, but also conveys the spirit of today's hip hop styles.
In the same way that you do not have to be a carpenter to know that a roof leaks on a rainy day, you do not have to be a musical expert to appreciate and listen to the intricate complexities of music with which you might not be familiar. Enjoyment comes as naturally as breathing in and out. You can easily see and hear yourself through a kind of Infinite Musical Hole through which, in musical time, we have all fallen to date.
So again I urge you: do not let the powers that be label anything for you or anything about you. Search out the truth of your being and know the truth of your particular moment past, or present, musically or otherwise. Keep in mind that while we are now referred to as African-Americans, it was not very long ago that we were called "Negroes", "coloured" and a host of other names used by those same powers to define us for their distorted view of the non-truths that they created for the self-serving purpose of dividing the world's peoples.
Because our esteemed ancestors were forced, under threat of arms, to come here, we have always been and will always be Africans in America. By the right of geographical birth, we have supposedly "the privileges of Americans", and while we all know that is not entirely true, to the extent that we can be, we should be proud of that.
By now I am sure you realise that this open letter is not just about music. It is also about being proud of who and what you are. Know that I have great love and respect for you and your generation. For each one of you is the future of my past.
As I bring this letter to a close, I am reminded of the young rapper KRS-One, when he was asked by Black Entertainment Television talk show host Bev Smith, of Our Voices fame, did he see or "think" of himself as an "African-American?".
His response was much like mine would have been. He asked, "If a cat has kittens in an oven, would you call them biscuits?" Meaning: We will never stop being Africans, no matter what patch of land we are born on. So once again I will stress our need to be proud of who and what we are; and, as proud as we can be of where we were born: in the grand scheme of things where we were born is not nearly as important as who and what we are. As we come from different generations, we are still all one family. Likewise, all music is one.
It does not matter if it is what they call "country and western/jazz/pop/rock/blues/classical". Those are only labels that are used very often to define the musical depths of one's ignorance and the particular pigeonhole(s) the listener has chosen to limit and confine her or himself to. I hope each of you appreciates these truths.
Perhaps in the future some or all of you will write an open letter like this one, and leave it for your grand-daughters and grandsons. In their way, even the words upon this paper are music — left for you not unlike time's beautifully syncopated passage, each one of these words, like each one of you, and I, separate, but yet one music.