Ain’t But a Few of Us
Black music writers tell their story: STEVE MONROE

DC-based jazz writer Steve Monroe recently pondered the plight of African American jazz writers based on his own experience in this latest installment in our ongoing series of Ain’t but a Few of Us dialogues…

What motivated you to write about serious music in the first place?

I was working for the sports desk of a daily newspaper and wanted to go to features, to cover music, theater, the arts, do profiles of interesting people, especially those in the black community of Rochester, N.Y., where I was. While working features, I started covering all kinds of music and since I was a jazz fan, became especially interested in the jazz performers who came through town and reviewed and interviewed the ones I could, like Dizzy Gillespie, Billy Taylor, Ron Carter, Bill Evans, Grant Green, many others. The first review and profile I did was of Phil Woods and I was fascinated of the stories he told of Charlie Parker and how he was so influenced by him in the music. That started my jazz reviewing and writing career, was in the mid 70s. Up to then was just a fan, but became interested in reviewing and profiling the greats of the music, the trends, because it was so original American music and had so many genres within its own genre to cover, from soul jazz to avant garde, from the vocalists to the whole swing, big band thing, etc.

When you first started writing about the music were you aware of the dearth of African Americans writing about serious music?

No, but since in the 70s there were only a few even writing professionally about general news to some extent, and features,, sports and business in most media, I did not think much of it then

Why do you suppose that’s still such a glaring disparity – where you have a significant number of black musicians making serious music but so few black media commentators on this music?

Because such a minority of our group are writers, and those of us who are writers maybe have had to be drawn to more prosperous, money making type of writing or communications careers. Jazz/black American music itself has become such a niche art form, within that niche only a few have the time to devote to something that doesn’t make enough money on its own to support anybody, not even most of the musicians, I think that has to be a factor.

Jazz I think like many parts of black America, if not all of it, has become something of an archaeological dig for those types who have the time and intellectual leaning to pursue that type of thing and most of those people with that luxury are not black Americans. Not many blacks have the time or inclination….those who have the time and money to devote to it, I think just do not value it as an art form or cultural beacon like we do….they are into their doctor, lawyer, engineer thing above all and just enjoy jazz as recreation, if they do like it at all.

Do you think that disparity or dearth of African American jazz writers contributes to how the music is covered in the media?

Yes, it has become a fringe, niche art form where, if even the African American populace in general doesn’t support the music, why should mass media outlets devote “X” amount of time and space for something only a few white liberals seem crazy about—I think that is a factor for one thing. If there were more black writers beating the drums in all forms of media for our music it would be covered more, and more as a serious art form…to a certain extent…at least it would be covered more by black media itself, which doesn’t seem to cover it even as much as majority media. I have had to fight to get review space, profile space for jazz in black media outlets I have been a part of…and that’s when I was doing it for free!! So if we can’t get it covered prominently by our own, what chance is there for it in the larger media world?

Since you’ve been writing about serious music, have you ever found yourself questioning why some musicians may be elevated over others, and is it your sense that has anything to do with the lack of cultural diversity among writers covering the music?

Yes, have wondered that, and yes, it probably has something to do with that. It would be natural to promote your own. This is not a color neutral or post racial world yet. Maybe people push certain non African American musicians more in order to promote the whole genre of jazz, claiming they have to do that so the masses will pay attention and support it. I give that a grain of possibility.

What’s your sense of the indifference of so many African American-oriented publications towards serious music?

Mind boggling to a certain extent. It may have to do with the fact that so many whites, and others, Europeans, Asians, others around the world think jazz is so great, that some feel it doesn’t need the backing of its own media. Crazy but have no other explanation for it. It seems our media thinks it is more entertainment than culture, than art, and is just appealing to a niche of whites and blacks and others rather than the masses and therefore if the masses don’t get it, black media can’t spend time on it, because black media has to get paid by advertisers who want/demand to be in front of the masses and if the masses want Kayne and Fat Trel, that’s what black media will give them.

How would you react to the contention that the way and tone of how serious music is covered has anything to do with who is writing about it?

Would agree…may go without saying.

In your experience writing about serious music what have been some of your more rewarding encounters?

My first professional music and jazz assignment was to write about Phil Woods. The way he was courteous, patient with me though my knowledge of the music at that time was limited and certainly much more of a fan based thing than as a reviewer or analyst, made me appreciate the art form he and his peers were pursuing as I think about it now. That was not the case in the other things I had covered, general news, sports for example, where veterans of the business like him were often short, discourteous, very unhelpful to a young reporter/writer.

Covering Sarah Vaughn singing with the Rochester Philharmonic was another special event – I didn’t get to interview her, she was at the top then and didn’t give many interviews at all as I understood. But what was special was the interaction between her jazz motif and the classical, for me, since I had not heard much classical music live at that time and it again made this music, jazz/black American music, special, because it seemed to span and engulf so many other art forms and influence other art forms. It was an education on so many levels.
Interviews with Grant Green, Earl “Fatha” Hines, Keith Jarrett (though he was not the easiest person to interview) were so educational early on, they are still special. Violinist Joe Venuti, again, because I was so young in terms of covering music, I was impressed how patient he was in talking about his music and his life. Knowing and covering Buck Hill all these years, and Nasar Abadey, the veteran folks around D.C. has been an ongoing treat. Sonny Rollins, sort of my all time favorite, at least living (Wes Montgomery probably all time all time), concerts at Blues Alley and Wolf Trap have to rank as well as outstanding encounters/events.

Have to add seeing Charlie Mingus and Sun Ra opened my ears to more than just bebop type jazz, and long live D.C. Space, where I heard Don Cherry and got even more into the freer genres of the music back then.

What obstacles have you encountered – besides difficult editors and indifferent publications – in your efforts at covering serious music?

Venues that see you as a fan who just wants to get in free, and not as a journalist covering a legitimate news story, that has bugged me in the past, that some venue owners see the music, the people who make it as not real stories worth telling or letting journalists cover; they are just entertainers, and everyone must pay, and they don’t see value of the publicity, marketing of what I and others do. These days I may just go ahead and pay just not worry about it, unfortunately, tired of fighting the good fight.

What have been the most intriguing new records you’ve heard so far this year?

—Antonio Parker’s “Live at HR-57”
—Ran Blake, Christine Correa, “down here below”
—Robert Glasper “Black Radio”
—Billy Hart “All Our Reasons”

When the DC-area based multi-instrumental wizard and all around percussion renaissance man Tom Teasley asked me to write liner notes for his latest global percussion release All The World’s A Stage it got me wondering about the evolution of one who self-identifies as a jazz percussionist, yet has so successfully broadened his base to include theater, teaching across far reaches of the planet, and seemingly all manner of expressions in the percussion universe. I mean, what kind of brain exercises is this cat doing that his horizons appear so limitless? Obviously some questions for Tom Teasley were in order. But first some video to introduce you to the world of Tom Teasley.

1) You’ve always self-identified as a jazz musician, yet your career is so broad-based. How have you gone about diversifying yourself as a percussionist?

I studied orchestral percussion at Peabody Conservatory when I was just out of high school.While there I began freelancing in orchestras and presenting school programs.My teacher, Charles Memphis, was of Greek decent and began exposing me to middle eastern rhythms which would have a profound impact on my music. Later I began setting the poetry of Langston Hughes and others to my original music for my project Word-Beat with my friend and colleague Charles Williams. That setting of poetry to music was a natural stepping stone to the theater work I do now. The most important aspect however is that I always keep an open mind on where my music can live and still maintain the integrity I want.

2) As far as your overall career is concerned, have these diversification efforts been based more on maintaining steady employment or on broadening yourself as a musician?

The employment has always been a result of my sincere desire to create something new, worthwhile and true to my esthetic. I never feel like any of these “alternative” projects are a compromise. Rather each one informs the other and result in a deeper well that I have to draw from for any future projects. I feel like if I had taken the mindset of diversifying only to create income the result would have had less integrity and therefore less value in every way.

3) Again, from the perspective of a jazz musician, how has your theater and education work affected your perspective on music-making?

The theater work has allowed me to tap into an emotional space that I had previously not explored.The best jazz musicians ” tell a story” with the development of their solos. Having the opportunity to set an existing story to my music allows me to explore that concept in a very real way that I can take with me to all other musical applications. I’m now setting silent movies and experimental film to my original music. I’ve discovered that guideposts in the film create a form to build on. This is a natural extension and perhaps more abstract than a twelve bar blues or 32 bar song form but I find many similarities. I also travel as a cultural envoy for the State Department collaborating with indigenous musicians. As I share American jazz concepts with them and I learn about their music and the culture from which it comes I grow as a person and reflect that in my music.

Poetry, Prose, Percussion and Song chronicles Tom Teasley’s fertile collaboration with poet-wordsmith Charles Williams

4) Your new record seems based mainly on your stage and cinematic experiences; is that a fair assessment?

The new record is based on my theater and cinematic experiences. It is also equally based on my extensive travel and collaborations,mainly in the middle east. I remember being invited to perform with Anachid, the premier Palestinian singing and drumming group in a refugee camp in The West Bank during Ramadan. I also remember presenting a drum clinic in the rural marshland in Iraq where the attendees came at risk to their safety to share music, rhythm and friendship.I remember being in war torn Baghdad collaborating with members of the Iraqi Symphony and virtuoso oud master Dahraid Fadhill. All of these memories manifest in the music I create regardless of the venue.

5) What’s next for Tom Teasley?

I’m looking forward to promoting the new record, “All the World’s A Stage”. Soon to be released is an educational video of my jazz approaches to a variety of ethnic drums including djembe, dumbek, riqq, cajon and many others. This is a culmination of my study of western classical music, my studies with master jazz drummer Joe, Morello and my global music adventures. Soon I open Mary Zimmernan’s “Metamorphoses” with Constellation Theatre Company. In the fall I’ll create original music and perform live with The Folger Theatre in “Conference of the Birds” based on the the Sufi poetry of Farid ud-Din Attar. I hope to soon to have a a video of some avant garde films from the 1920s set to my original music. I’m looking at some residencies in art galleries where I create sound installations that have an opening performance followed by a recorded exhibit. I look forward to following the muse and the music and letting it tell me where to go!

All The World’s A Stage is the latest from Tom Teasley, a title that barely does true justice to his incredible range of percussion exploits…

David Baker on the cello, which became his second instrument after an accident ended his trombone days.

When friend and Jazz Education Network board colleague (and fine keyboardist in her own right) Monika Herzig – a proud Indiana University grad and student of National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master David Baker – asked me to contribute a chapter to the book she was editing on David’s rich career and life, I was honored. That ask also took me back to when I first met David after years of reading about his exploits, first as a very promising trombonist whose horn had been silenced by the aftermaths of an auto accident, then as an honored composer, and later how he had contributed so diligently and expertly to jazz pedagogy as an educator. Most important to this writing assignment however was David’s quite significant career as an arts & jazz advocate of the highest order.

In 1984 my work as an arts administrator commenced with a contract with the former Great Lakes Arts Alliance to conduct a jazz field needs assessment in the midwestern states of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio. (GLAA later merged with a fellow regional that worked the upper midwest states of Iowa, Minnesota, North & South Dakota, and Wisconsin to become today’s thriving and visionary 9-state regional Arts Midwest, which took my family to Minneapolis for four wonderful years.) That needs assignment, funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, meant traveling those four states to interview musicians, educators, broadcasters, presenters, and jazz club owners.

David Baker was definitely on the A-list of top priority interviewees for the project, along with folks like drummer J.C. Heard and trumpeter Marcus Belgrave in Michigan, jazz radio legend Oscar Treadwell in Ohio, and members of the AACM in Illinois. Eventually we interviewed over a hundred jazz folks in the region, gathering needs evidence which led to the new merged agency Arts Midwest adopting our nascent efforts into a core jazz services program for the midwest. (Proud to say that among other efforts which arose from that program, we produced the first jazz media conference, at the University of Illinois-Chicago which gave birth to the Jazz Journalists Association, which is about to celebrate its annual Jazz Awards program.)

So early one Thursday morning in ’84 I flew into Indianapolis, rented a car and drove down to Bloomington to meet and interview David Baker. We took the tour of IU’s music conservatory, met some of Dave’s students at the time (including bassist Robert Hurst and drummer Shawn Pelton, and trumpeter Pat Harbison), and sat down at the Baker home for a very illuminating interview. I was impressed by Baker’s obvious credentials as a true jazz renaissance man. Little did I know at the time that our paths would cross quite significantly in the future, starting in ’89 when I was appointed executive director of the ill-fated National Jazz Service Organization, when Baker was still the NJSO board chair. We’ve continued to connect, through yet another ill-fated jazz service organization, the late International Association of Jazz Educators, and more recently through my coordinating work with the NEA Jazz Masters Live grant program. So Monika’s assignment of chronicling David Baker’s jazz and arts service career was a no-brainer. Below is one of our more extensive conversations for that chapter in the 2011 book David Baker: A Legacy in Music (by Monika Herzig; Indiana University Press).

David Baker conversation

Willard Jenkins: Beyond playing, composing & educating, you’ve also had a career in service to jazz. What do you consider true service to the artform?

David Baker: I think the basic thing is the perpetuation of the artform, and that perpetuation is in the hands of young people; making sure that they get the truth from our griots – because we’re losing them every time you look up. It was such a shock again, even at 91 that Hank Jones would pass away. But this is happening with some regularity, we’re losing what’s remaining of the people who were the progenitors of the music. If we don’t do something to make sure that those things are preserved – while we’re getting them in truth from people who were there, much like the perpetuation of the legends in an African tribe when you’re talking about the griots, and I guess in every generation.

The other thing is investing money in trying to set up situations where old and young come together. I think basically one of my jobs, like with the Smithsonian [Jazz Masterworks Orchestra], is to take the Smithsonian to places where we make the impossible possible – by having them hear Chick Webb in 1934 and people like Ella – but to hear how the music keeps changing, because I think any time a music starts to stagnate it’s gonna die. I know people – educators as well as writers — are becoming a lot more tolerant of hip hop and all of these other tangents because a lot has changed since the major books were written in the 1950s and 1960s, and somebody’s got to replace them.

It is happening somewhat in the new book on Fats Navarro and one on Duke Ellington, Monk and those people. Those are very, very good, but it needs also the vibrancy of the major writers to deal with this in a lot of ways, because many of them have fallen into the business of perpetuating the music that you fell in love to. I can dig that, but I just think that putting boundaries to the music – Ellington said ‘don’t put the music in a box’, and it’s easy enough to do. I think Clark Terry said ‘the difference between a groove and a grave is just a couple of letters.’

As you developed your craft as a musician, composer & educator, at what point did you begin to seriously contemplate actual service to the artform and why?

DB: I’m not sure that I made the decision, I think the decision was made for me because I was drafted into it. I think one of the most valuable ones was the one you were executive director of [NJSO]. As somebody who was a goody two shoes in school, I got things thrust upon me that I would not anticipate always doing. Like with the jazz program here at [IU], I didn’t start out to try to put that together – Jerry Coker had single [jazz ] courses and things. But then Dean Bain asked me to do that, then I understood a little bit how that led up to the appointment to the National Council on the Arts and the NEA and stuff like that. And I think that it is as much happenstance as it is planning the thing, but I think the good idea is to be prepared when that circumstance takes place.

What would you say was your first effort in the way of service to jazz in particular and the arts in general?

DB: I think maybe it wasn’t even within the purview of just jazz, because it was being appointed, right after Nancy Hanks had taken over, being appointed to those NEA panels. The panels gave us, if nothing else, a picture of how the American government viewed us. Those very first meetings – late 1960s – you stop and think that at that time they were giving maybe a million dollars to the symphony and the ballet, and the entire money for the Folk-Ethnic panel [which covered jazz grants at the time] which I chaired, with Milt Hinton and all those guys, that whole amount was probably less than $5K; that’s anecdotal, I don’t remember the exact number.

But it was enough to show me that jazz was not being afforded the same kind of position in the music world that classical music was.

Were you selected for that NEA Folk-Ethnic panel in the 60s out of the blue, or was that something that developed over time?

DB: I think it was out of the blue at the time, because basically Jimmy Owens, Clark Terry, a few of us were at that time stationary. So consequently, because they could locate me all of the time [due to his teaching position at IU] here at IU, they would ask me to be on the panels more quickly than somebody like Cannonball [Adderley], who they had to chase [due to the Adderley Quintet’s busy schedule]. So it was the luck of the draw a lot of the times that I would get in those kind of situations, and one inevitably led to the other.

I remember Antoinette Handy [dir. of the Music program], busy as she could be sometimes, was very instrumental in picking out people [for NEA panel service] who she thought would take the time – and since I didn’t have a major career playing the music, I was stationary at the school – she was able to do that, and knowing that I didn’t have any axes to grind either. At that time I hadn’t built any kind of large career, except with George Russell.

You mentioned some of the people who were involved in those early stages of jazz funding support and some of those early panels. Was it your sense that at that time the Endowment was looking for ways to support jazz, and looking for you and the members of that panel to help guide them in that sense?

DB: I think it was partially that, but the other thing I think they were responding to any criticism of them that was aimed at them about them NOT doing what they should for American music; and particularly American music which – as Quincy Jones has said so many times, you can go anywhere… Japan, China, Romania… and the music that you hear that is common to everybody is not often the folk songs, but it’s American jazz and American music; whether it’s American jazz, American blues, hip hop or whatever. And then I heard A.B. Spellman say once that anywhere there was music on a Saturday night, you could trace it back to the jazz diaspora. I really believe that. For me, because I’m stationary [giving service to jazz] is something that I enjoy doing, even though I have never learned how to say no to somebody who needs something [from me].

With those NEA panels, were they asking questions of you in terms of seeking to find ways to better support jazz?

DB: I think that was the case, but I also think they were looking for things which were high profile enough to enable them to say ‘this is what we’re doing [for jazz].’ For instance when they ran that study that Harold Horowitz did [1985] on the jazz audience, I think it was as much publicity as it was devotion to the music. What seemed to happen was that each time they had a new person [as Director of the NEA] – they had started with a bureacrat and then they started going to people like Jane Alexander and people who had big faces but people also who had a lot of cache as far as being able to publicize what they were doing. When we went through the whole [Mapplethorpe controversy during the Reagan administration] thing when they tried to take the NEA out, when they had the really controversial [visual arts] exhibitions.

When you were on the panel did you find a sense of openness for what you, Jimmy Owens and some of the others were recommending?

DB: Only in the sense that they were giving individual grants, and the individual grants almost always mirrored the people who were enjoying some kind of adulation with the public, the names I would have seen in the music magazines.

One of the next service opportunities was when you became President of the [late] International Association of Jazz Educators.

DB: And that came as a little bit of a surprise, because at that time we [the jazz education field] were still in the throes of Stan Kenton and Neophonic Jazz… anything that was like “spectacular” or whatever. I’m not even sure how it came about [his IAJE presidency], but again I think it was because I was in a central location. We had seen in the jazz education situation, teachers teaching teachers to teach teachers to teach teachers… and not going to people [as educators] who had some experience playing the music.

Certainly they had Clark Terry, they had Milt Hinton, George Russell… but when they got somebody to take charge of [IAJE], I think maybe they wanted somebody who maybe had a little distance so they weren’t simply in search of grants. Now again, that’s speculation on my part.

What year were you president of IAJE? Is it your suggestion that at the time you were president of IAJE, jazz education was at a bit of a crossroads?

DB: (June 2002-July 2004) I think it was at a crossroads, but the crossroads this time was one that was on its way trying to go up. I told them when they asked me if I would take that position, my first thing was is it going to be a point of stasis where we’re standing still, if not why don’t we change the name to International because basically we’re still the leaders of the world as far as changes – formative changes – in this music. That had been denied by a lot of people; I got tired of reading in magazines where ‘if its gonna be good, it’s going to come from Europe, Japan or somewhere else, even back then. I thought this was a timely place for IAJE to begin expanding; I have no notion how it worked because we know [IAJE] had a troublesome ending, but I think the idea [of moving NAJE to IAJE] was the right one because we know there were people in Czechoslovakia, people who were in other places, who did acknowledge that America was the birthplace of this music. Not only that, I’m not sure that it was the most accurate use of the word “America’s Music”, but I think it certainly was very, very high on the pole representing what this music was supposed to stand for in the world.

[Warrick Carter and Bunky Green preceded DB and Ron McCurdy succeeded him. He muses that IAJE wanted to make sure it wasn’t an African dynasty.]

Then we come to NJSO. How did you become involved in the development of the National Jazz Service Organization?

DB: This again was Antoinette Handy. She called a meeting and said why don’t we get together some of the best minds in jazz and we’ll meet up at Wingspread [the Johnson Foundation conference center in Wisconsin]. It was intended to just explore ideas; and the ideas – they had Billy Taylor, Donald Byrd and all the cats up there. Out of that grew the notion that maybe – and at this time it really was groundbreaking because when they asked us ‘what is a service organization?’ I don’t think any one of us could have told them what’s the model we were going to use, what is it supposed to do and how does it work.

So, all across those years – however many you & us were together with this, it was still trying in a lot of ways to find out [what we were supposed to do with this]. We were bailed out a little bit by the Lila Wallace Fund, which gave a kind of illusory notion that this was the way it was going to be continually, that there would be these major funding sources making themselves available. [Here David is speaking about the then-unprecedented $3.4 million dollar grant from Lila Wallace that NJSO co-administered with the New England Foundation for the Arts and which developed the pioneering National Jazz Network of presenting organizations, which later morphed, after a fashion, into the Doris Duke Foundation JazzNet project.]

But when we fell out of the limelight, it seemed like that money began to dry up also. I think people look for something that they think is already successful and I don’t care how you try to perpetuate that success, it depends then on new blood all the time. I think it became like an albatross at the time, because if we hadn’t had that [Wallace] money we might have been encouraged to try to find a [funding] source that was going to be a continuing source. I think that was not going to happen, I didn’t see any of the big companies buying into [NJSO] like they might have had it been West Side Story and Leonard Bernstein.

Describe some of the responsibilities you took on in the initial stages of NJSO.

DB: We put together what we thought was a very good and very diverse board. I think Muhal [Richard Abrams], Donald Byrd, James Jordan… we all had great things in mind but I’m not sure we had a firm plan. I would like sometime to go back and see what our mission statement was. And after the mission statement, what were the goals that would come out of that mission statement. You can have a vision, but a vision without action is marking time. The only way we could have gotten the action that we wanted was to have the same thing that happens to these major organizations now that exist that are in classical music or contemporary art, because we have since run into the same kind of wall trying to do something with Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra; trying to find people to back it; we find people who say ‘I believe in it, but I ain’t got no money…’

I think there was a good mix of brainpower [on IAJE’s board] of people who could get along with each other about what we were going to do because I don’t think we were wedded to any particular [style] of [jazz]. For instance, it would have been very easy given the fluidity of the thinking of Muhal for it to have gone that route. But at the same token you’ve got Billy [Taylor] who’s standing in the center of jazz at that time, and I think if we maybe had been able to have each one of these factors brought into play it would have made sense. But none of us could contribute full time to this.

You were the first and only board president of NJSO?

DB: Yes.

One of the original aims of NJSO was the development of a national center for jazz, which is how you characterized it [in the New Perspectives on Jazz book which chronicled the discussions at Wingspread that led to NJSO’s birth; a book which was eventually marketed as NJSO’s first “product”]. We’re seeing such efforts on different scales in different parts of the world, but what would you say happened to that plan for a national center for jazz?

DB: I think first of all it got diffused, because it went from that to having a support system. To be truthful, I didn’t know and I think a lot of these cats didn’t know what a service organization did, what had it done in other areas. We were still floundering trying to figure out how do we cover something that covers America as a whole and [the many styles of jazz] in general rather than specific things. It’s a little easier when you concentrate on a particular area, which means inevitably you have people who have like goals. I think it would have been easier to focus had our goals not been so lofty.

So you think it was a matter of NJSO never really developing a true focus?

DB: I think it was partly that, but I also think it was a matter of not being able to devote the [board] time. I think maybe we were naïve, we just didn’t have all the business sense; I think you brought a certain business sense to it, but again somewhere there should have been – even if it was a silent or distant partner who said ‘hey look, you got such a good idea here’s what Eli Lilly, here’s what Ford… can do to help you. I think they might have done that if it had been something about new music – and I’m not talking about jazz music – but new American music that the symphony orchestras were going to play. Now we see that happening because composers get commissions and it’s unbelievable because that commission is committed to be played by an orchestra in every one of the states. We didn’t have anything like that; I don’t think there was even a [board/organizational] consensus as to which is the most I important music to be concentrating on; and I think without that there is a focus missing, because
people have different ideas about what [jazz] is supposed to be and if those ideas don’t somehow or another coalesce, then you’re left struggling. It’s easy, because we didn’t have like an angel.

Was it during or after your tenure at NJSO that you were appointed to a seat on the National Council on the Arts?

DB: I was on the Council before NJSO. That again was Antoinette; by this time I had been on many NEA panels, and they had also called me about educational things because I was the one probably who was the busiest [jazz rep panelist] in strictly education because I was not trying to divide my time [between playing and teaching], except in a very kind of loose way. She never told me this but I believe [Antoinette Handy] came up with the notion that there ought to be jazz representation on the National Council on the Arts.

At that time, as far as jazz is concerned [on the National Council], there was Duke Ellington, then Gunther Schuller, then Billy Taylor, then me. Since that time there have been a couple of [jazz reps] who’ve stepped down. Chico Hamilton only stayed there a year. This guy there now – Irvin Mayfield – I was surprised because of his youth. I don’t think anybody who takes that job, takes that job knowing how it becomes your only job. By the time you read all those [panel-approved grant proposals} – and we had to approve everything, all the grants in whatever area of the arts… You did have people like [choreographer] Arthur Mitchell, who were still very active in what they were doing, so that helped a lot. But I don’t think we ever got full cooperation [from the National Council] as far as jazz goes. That’s why I’m so glad we did get that book “New Perspectives in Jazz” published, because first of all it showed that NJSO was not a monolithic organization; anytime you’ve got Muhal [representing the avant garde side of jazz] and the other people who were very strong-minded, it can be a lot of different things.

Any more I’m so glad that whenever something [a new jazz org.] comes up we start out by setting realistic goals, and I think sometimes the goals can be so extravagant – even though they are so attractive – that they almost carry the seeds of their demise.

When an organization’s goals are too broad, demise is almost a foregone conclusion?

DB: It certainly seems to have been borne out in a lot of situations in the jazz area. I can see now with [the new jazz education organization] Jazz Education Network – and I think they’re starting out the right way – I’m just hoping they can get the numbers, because the numbers are what attract other people. Somebody once said that beyond some point every quantitative change will produce a qualitative change. Until they see the numbers – like when you go to a jazz club and people go where there are people, and I remember when we were playing if the place was packed by Friday night people would be standing around the block trying to get in. But if there were just 10 people in there, nobody went in.

During your tenure on the National Council on the Arts there were a lot of questions about funding for the arts and even the very existence of the NEA. How would you characterize those times on the National Council on the Arts?

DB: Turbulent. I ended up being on there longer than the four-year term. We had a good group but we were being attacked consistently. The Mapplethorpe exhibition was the last straw. People came and picketed us, they stood outside the Old Post Office and picketed us; we had a police escort just in case. Because basically, I felt at that time that Americans weren’t really ready to be respectful of the diversity in the arts. Then you had people who maybe didn’t have the background [on the National Council on the Arts; like if you were talking about black American dance you had one representative, Arthur Mitchell.

One of the things I was surprised they were able to do, which helped [remove some of the anti-Endowment fervor] was to stop giving individual [artist] grants; because with the individual grants I think they had less control.

That was the major upshot of that whole period of controversy, the elimination of Endowment support for individual artists.

DB: I felt that too.

You felt that was a prudent move, to eliminate support for individual artists?

DB: I think, unless they were able to establish some way of tracking the grants, making sure the grants were spent properly, and there was a consistency… but for instance, Clark [Terry] said he went out with one of his groups and one of the groups that had won a grant to travel with him, and he didn’t realize until after a year that he wasn’t supposed to pay for their travel, that the grant was supposed to do that. We made a lot of decisions that were not the most informed decisions, in terms of individual grants.

I just think that we are maybe now finally entering a time when there is enough experience in the jazz field – and maybe enough experience in the American music field – that there are ways of determining [between styles and approaches]. Because to compare an Ellington piece with something which is so far afield that its got nothing to do with African American music, it’s like a lost cause. I don’t care how good the outcome is, it still does not give you solid ground to stand on [as far as making those value judgments between different styles of the music.]

What were some of the other issues of the day that you and your fellow National Council on the Arts members faced in those days?

DB: During that tenure we had cats who were arguing about basically things that came out of the Civil Rights movement. It was never couched in racial language, but it was things that had to do with race. [People who argued against what they viewed as “set asides” on the grounds that this is a democracy.] The same things that were happening with Dr. King when he was trying to deal with some of the most dramatic Civil Rights changes that we’ve seen.

Were people talking in terms of perceived “quotas”?

DB: It was never put that blatantly, but in my mind was what it was about.

So let’s say you or someone else might argue about the fact that jazz should be supported at certain levels, arguments in response to that would be to say ‘we can’t have quotas’?

DB: I don’t think it was ever put that blatantly. They would find a psychological or a political reason, or whatever to not go that direction. Remember, with the Council we didn’t make the initial decisions [to fund or not to fund], we had to adjudicate those decisions. So, for example, if an opera company was granted funding what we did was then argue for however long it took whether that was the way. What was good about [the Council] was you had somebody representing almost every discipline of the arts.

You were there specifically to represent the jazz art form?

DB: They didn’t say that, but maybe [he was there to represent] American music.

Did you ever feel like the proverbial Spook Who Sat By The Door?

DB: What I did feel like sometimes was a voice screaming into the wind. There would be people on the Council like a Gregory Peck or Robert Stack who rarely spoke , but when they spoke it would be a sentence or a paragraph that really had impact. A lot of people told me when I first came on the council, they said ‘look, you don’t have to talk all the time you don’t have to talk just because somebody else is talking. Wait until you have something specific that you have in mind, something you really want to fight for, then bring it up – and look for allies.

It was an exciting experience, except when they came over there because somebody had gotten a grant because they played the cello nude, or somebody else was bathed in chocolate. There were people who vociferously argued that was frivolous. Sometimes we’d reach consensus, sometimes we didn’t. It was a learning experience for me because it also taught me how to deal with people where there is an unequal background – people who had a legal background, people who were millionaires, different backgrounds.

It continued the notion that there needed to be somebody – hopefully from academia or who was academia plus performance – that needed to be there to represent American music. I wasn’t the only one or the most prominent voice [for American music] on there because they’d had this lineage of four or five people spread across the years. I would assume Billy Taylor was very active when he was on the Council; I would doubt that Ellington ever even went to a meeting. I know Gunther Schuller would have been very active when he was on there, I don’t know what happened with Chico Hamilton, he didn’t stay on a full term.

What were some of your other learning experiences from that National Council tenure?

DB: I learned first of all – again quoting Quincy Jones – I learned that I needed to listen more than I needed to talk if I was going to make a decision.. Quincy says the reason we should do that is because we have two ears and one mouth. In retrospect that makes good sense to me. I learned a lot about listening and I learned a lot about reaching compromises, compromises that did not destroy an idea but meant you had to make concessions so you can get along, assuming that maybe you’ll need that vote when YOU bring up something. So if I took anything away from the experience at all it would be consensus-building, because that is something that you do on such a minor scale when you’re dealing with a university.

When we are in a position like that, where we are seen as representing a particular artform, we have a tendency to wear our advocacy on our sleeves, to be zealots on behalf of the music, sometimes you have to temper that zealotry in order to make your points.

DB: That is one of the lessons. I did a lot of listening, and I think that out of that I’m able to better function in the world I live in now.

When certain things would come before the Council relative to jazz, did your fellow Council members look for you to take a lead role or did they look to you for your expertise in jazz?

DB: Very often they would ask about the validity of something; it usually wouldn’t be about jazz, because that was too obvious, but it would be about something that affected the jazz field. Asking what kind of music is good music, how do we give one orchestra $4M and another just $2M, what are the criteria we’re gonna use. Then I was able to contribute in a way that I felt conviction for, and I was also aware that they could go another direction. I tried to always throw off anything I felt was dismissed – justifiably dismissed in a way that seemed to be logical, even to somebody that was a neophyte at that moment. There’d be questions about why we needed to support something because it was a “popular” music, or why you need to have support for this because it has never had support before. I was vociferous in dealing with that.

What other service efforts have you been involved in since IAJE, NJSO, and the National Council on the Arts?

DB: One of the things is trying to get our kids – meaning all jazz kids – into this music much earlier than has been. What I’ve been trying to do is reconcile the youth with the older people. For instance, what is it that I learned in the street as a player very young that comes back to me and makes my life rich and makes other people who are retiring from jobs from RCA or wherever, that if they go back again they’re helping these kids find what their life is about. I really feel strongly about that; that we live in a world that you cannot look at with blinders on.

My life’s lesson to kids now is go to sources whenever you can, take advantage of these people that we’re going to be losing at some point; there’s no way we’ll ever be able to do that again. So we’re trying to expose people to as much truth as we can by going back to these sources and seeing that [for example] clog dancing is not so different than tap dancing so maybe there is a common source. If we can succeed in that, when people start to see the commonalities, it is a whole lot easier to reach consensus when they understand that that cat in ancient Africa singing those tones and that we find a cat in Alabama now [doing similar work], to make a case that maybe there’s a relationship there.

For me right now its bringing together the knowledge that I’ve accrued teaching for 50 years and be able to disseminate that knowledge to kids where they’re able to change. When I buy a book now and it says the first thing you have to do if you want to live to be 100 is make sure your parents did, I can’t change that. But if you tell me a kid needs such and such, I can change that. So there’s no point in me worrying about what’s been done and I can’t do, but to profit from the mistakes I’ve made.

A couple of years back, in celebration of the 75th anniversary of the legendary Apollo Theater, I had the great pleasure of contributing two chapters to the lovely commemorative book Ain’t Nothing Like The Real Thing (“How the Apollo Theater shaped American Entertainment”). Researching for this piece meant spending many hours at the Smithsonian Archives Center digging through the collection of the somewhat prickly owner of the Apollo, Frank Schiffman. One of Schiffman’s more useful practices was typing out 5 X 7 index cards for every Apollo performer, with meticulous notes on such elements as how much they earned for the theater, the audience response to their performance, and his often pointed review of their performances. Modern jazz did indeed thrive during the golden era of the Apollo Theater. Read on…

Modern Jazz at the Apollo: 1950s-1960s
By Willard Jenkins
When the Apollo Theatre opened the doors for its inaugural show on Friday, January 26, 1934, the trendsetting variety bill included the great jazzman Benny Carter and his orchestra. The big band, or so-called Swing Era was in full flower and these swinging 17-piece behemoths, sparkplugs of the happy feet crowd at historic Harlem haunts like the Savoy Ballroom, soon found a welcoming home at the Apollo. Such great big bands as those of Duke Ellington, Chick Webb, Fletcher Henderson, Coleman Hawkins, Cab Calloway, Earl Hines, Benny Goodman, Lionel Hampton and others were a core element of the Apollo’s salad days in the 30s and 40s. They paved the way towards the Apollo accommodating the modern jazz combos of succeeding years. It was in those wonderful big bands that ignited the 125th street entertainment palace that so many of the original vanguard of the modern jazz movement prepped.

The early 40s proto-bebop Earl Hines Orchestra was a classic example. That band was a veritable prep school for modernists, including two of the pacesetters of the small group jazz also known as bebop, trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and alto saxophonist Charlie “Yardbird” Parker. As writer Ted Fox recounts in his valuable book Showtime at the Apollo, “The Apollo led the way to exposing bebop to a larger audience. It was Frank Schiffman who first booked the experimental bop band of Earl Hines early in 1943 – with Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, and [trumpeter] Little Benny Harris.” Significantly that Hines band featured the voices of Billy Eckstine and Sarah Vaughan, who also doubled as the band’s second pianist.

In ’44 when Eckstine formed his own band, one that took further steps into the modern era, he not only took Vaughan (who at 18 won the Apollo’s famed Amateur Night) with him, but Mr. B also opened up his trumpet section to Gillespie, Fats Navarro, and younger firebreathers like Kenny Dorham and Miles Davis. The saxophone section was equally prodigious, including Bird, Leo Parker, Gene Ammons, Dexter Gordon, and Lucky Thompson. The rhythm section included bassist Tommy Potter, drummer Art Blakey, and pianist John Malachi.

Apollo Theatre impresario and major domo Frank Schiffman was no moldy fig, he was said to be quite supportive of the new, modern jazz sound. This new sound developed almost out of rebellion against the strictures of big band playing in favor of a sound that afforded freer flights of improvisation, plus more intricate rhythms and a broader harmonic universe. Although bebop grew out of the jazz atmosphere that encouraged social dancing, its various advancements limited dancing to this new music to only the most skilled terpsichorean hipsters. Ironically it was only natural that this music which seemingly required more of a listening commitment on the part of its audience, would find a place on the Apollo stage shows. It’s safe to say that some of the first modern jazz theatre performances took place on 125th Street.

The two Harlem haunts which served as the most famous modern jazz laboratories were Minton’s Playhouse at 210 W. 118th St., and Monroe’s Uptown House at 198 W. 134th St., with the Apollo roughly equidistant between them. At Minton’s the man later dubbed the High Priest of Bebop, pianist Thelonious Monk, held court at the nightly jam sessions with drummer Kenny “Klook” Clarke, trumpeter Joe Guy, and bassist Nick Fenton. Those sessions, conducted on the downlow beyond the prying eyes of musicians’ union officials who had banned jam sessions (though Minton’s had a leg up in part because its owner was an ex-union official), were particularly combustible on Monday nights. Bandleader Teddy Hill, the manager of Minton’s who controlled the music policy, hosted Monday night buffet dinners for Apollo performers on their night off. This savvy move ensured that the cream of the crop would show up on Mondays to jam, some of the club’s greatest sessions evolved from those buffets.

As Dizzy Gillespie remarked in his memoirs, To Be or Not to Bop, “On Monday nights we used to have a ball. Everybody from the Apollo on Monday nights was a guest at Minton’s, the whole band. We had a big jam session. There was always some food there for you. I was with the [big] bands at the time, and I would come in and out of town. When I was in the city, we were appearing at the Apollo… After the last show we’d go to Minton’s and sit and listen to some of the guys play.” Gillespie met his wife Lorraine at the Apollo, where she was a dancer in the chorus line.
Dizzy Gillespie, who unlike so many of his bop cohorts still had a lingering taste for the big band format, brought his pioneering bebop orchestra into the Apollo on several occasions, most notably in January, 1947 and for two stints in 1949. Performances from these gigs were captured for the film “Jivin’ in Bebop.” Charlie Parker’s dream was his series of Bird with Strings sessions, which for him were efforts at engaging the classical atmosphere he relished. The week of August 17, 1950 Parker’s peerless alto sax bathed in strings onstage at the Apollo, which was also a live radio broadcast. The record shows however that these Parker efforts on the “legit” side came up short of the ever-demanding Apollo audience expectations and were met with a lukewarm response.

Ever the iconoclast, apparently Thelonious Monk brought a different vision to 125th Street. According to Fox in Showtime at the Apollo, “…when the continually inventive pianist and one of the jazz world’s great eccentrics played the Apollo in the late fifties he wore a pink sequined necktie – his one concession to the demands of show business.” Experiencing Monk onstage at the Apollo amidst comics and dancers must’ve been quite the vision. Accessing Frank Schiffman’s meticulous 5 X 8 typed artist ratings index cards in the Smithsonian collection reveals the following Monk notation: “3/13/59 Very exciting jazz group.” Later that year… “6/5/59 Not nearly as good as first time. No box office.” The following year Thelonious’ new band apparently righted the ship… “7/22/60 With quintet… very well received.”

As the forties evolved into the fifties and sixties jazz made further stylistic advancements; those developments were more frequently featured on the stage of the Apollo than bebop, particularly in the early ‘60s. By this time bebop had evolved into post- or hard bop, a sound characterized by more extended lines imbued with bluesy qualities that were labeled as funky or soul jazz as the next generation of jazz musicians expanded on the examples of Monk, Gillespie, Parker and their cohorts.

Concurrently, particularly in the late 1950s and early 1960s rhythm & blues, an Apollo staple, began giving way to its natural progression, what came to be labeled “soul music.” As a result the Schiffmans opened up their shows to more jazz attractions. The more song oriented, and the bluesiest of the hard boppers who had that sanctified sound were the most frequent modern jazzers then booked into the Apollo: Horace Silver, Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, Cannonball Adderley, Jimmy Smith and the like. Popular white jazz artists of the day also found a welcome Apollo stage, including Dave Brubeck, Stan Getz, Buddy Rich, and Maynard Ferguson. The singers were an essential element of these shows, particularly to balance out the more innovative types, like Miles Davis, Monk, and John Coltrane. According to Lionel Hampton: “I saw Coltrane play the Apollo one time. The place was packed when he went in there. When he left, there wasn’t but a handful of people in there. He was playing his piece “My Favorite Things” [his 1960 hit recording] and he played that piece for about half an hour.”

Reflecting the fact that this was a period when the Apollo opened up to various radio deejay-produced extravaganzas, on the jazz side such radio show hosts as Symphony Sid (“the all night, all frantic one”) and Mort Fega brought shows to the Harlem stage. On March 30, 1962 Symphony Sid hosted a power-packed lineup featuring John Coltrane, Herbie Mann, Betty Carter, Jimmy Smith, Barry Harris, and Oscar Brown Jr. And it was the Apollo stage that engaged Sid’s growing taste in Latin sounds as well; witness his June 22, 1962 show featuring Tito Puente, Thelonious Monk, Mongo Santamaria, Arthur Prysock, the Tommy Ray Steel Band, and dancers. Such a show was clearly in keeping with the Apollo policy of mixing genres, as with another 1962 show mixing Horace Silver, Aretha Franklin, sonero Tito Rodriguez, (comic) Timmie Rogers, Nigerian drummer Olatunji, and Herbie Mann – with this Schiffman notation: “…may keep [this show] 10 days…” The week of September 6, 1963 Mort Fega hosted Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers (“Cooperative and probably the finest jazz group in the country,” according to Frank Schiffman’s rating card, “individually & collectively – but worn a bit thin in this house [attraction-wise]”), singer Teri Thornton, organist Jimmy McGriff, Flip Wilson, and Oscar Peterson.

“Symphony Sid’s Afro Jazz” brought Art Blakey (with guest Montego Joe), 3 dancers, Arthur Prysock, Mongo Santamaria, Eddie Palmieri, and Flip Wilson to the theatre. One notes a common thread through all of these jazz-laden shows – the presence of at least one singer and usually a comedian as well. Singers in particular were included because Schiffman, despite his support of and appreciation of modern jazz, always felt that his shows needed at least one singer to ensure box office success. One of the great singers who came to prominence in the 1960s was Nancy Wilson. Her longtime manager John Levy, former bassist and pioneering African American artist personal manager, produced several shows at the Apollo with the Schiffmans’ blessings. “I had a great working relationship with the Schiffmans, both Bobby and the old man [Frank],” Levy, 97 years young and sharp as a tack at publication time, exclaimed during a recent conversation.
The week of March 6, 1964 the Apollo hosted “John Levy presents Free Sounds of ‘64”, featuring Nancy Wilson, Cannonball Adderley, Ramsey Lewis, and comic Slappy White. A high point of the show came when Nancy sang her big hit of the day, “Guess Who I Saw Today,” and as she sang the big finish – “…I saw YOU…” she gestured stage left and the spotlight shone on a big white chair with Oscar Brown Jr. sitting with his back to the audience, whereupon Brown rose from his chair to the audience’s delight, intoning the signature line from one of his hits “…But I was cool!” Unlike jazz festival shows of today, these shows were not a matter of one full set following another. According to John Levy the entire cast would come on together to open the show, the duration of which was typically 90 minutes; “…one act introduced the other act,” says Levy. Then in typical Apollo tradition… 30 minute break… do it all over again. Showtime at the Apollo – on a jazz tip. “We got a great response, we sold the houses out… and I made money,” Levy concluded.

One of the more impressive young musicians to arrive in DC in recent years is trombonist Reginald Cyntje. A native of the Virgin Islands, Cyntje is blessed with impressive facility and an immediacy of sound that, coupled with evident section blending proclivities, stands out in a crowd – a feat he has achieved admirably in several area big band stints (including the launch performance of the Mid-Atlantic Jazz Festival Orchestra last February). He is also blessed with the adroit flexibility necessary for a small ensemble team player, equipped with the skills to stand in bold relief when its his turn at bat. His current recording is “Freedom’s Children,” a DIY effort that among others boasts the quicksilver vocal skills of Christie Dashiell from that pride of Howard University, the vocal ensemble Afro Blue, and the prodigiously talented multi-instrumentalist Warren Wolf on vibes. Some questions for Reginald Cyntje (pron. Sin-chee) are in order.

What was your overall intent with “Freedom’s Children” (and talk about the subtitle “A Celebration”)?

The intent of the album was to heal and inspire using music. Each song contains a double meaning; one for community and the other for the individual. I feel we are all Freedom’s Children. Our ancestors have paid a great price for us to be here today. The subtitle “The Celebration” stands for where we can be if we achieve the goal of equality. As a community we have come a long way, but we still have not arrived at a place where social justice is the norm.

What part of the Virgin Islands are you from and how did you determine to play this creative music?

I was born on the island of Dominica and raised in the US Virgin Islands (USVI). I was introduced to jazz by drummer Amin Gumbs. We grew up together. We are the same age and we were born on the same day. While I was playing European classical music, he was exploring the music we call jazz with his cousin [bassist] Reuben Rogers. One day, he handed me a Miles Davis recording and I fell in love with the vibe of this creative music.

What role does your background play in how you express this music, and how do you filter your upbringing through this music?

The traditional music of the Virgin Islands contains an element of spontaneous composition. I remember hearing the music everywhere as a child. As I became comfortable with playing the trombone, I would imitate the way my mentors played festive USVI songs. When I began learning jazz standards, I would listen to elders play them with a Caribbean groove. It felt natural to express my musical voice illuminating the beauty of my USVI home. Depending on the setting, the Caribbean vibe can be subtle or obvious. I just do my best to be sincere.

Considering your contemporaries, musicians like Reuben Rogers, Ron Blake, Dion Parson (all from V.I.), Trinidad & Tobago’s Etienne Charles, Jonathan Schwartz-Bart (Guadeloupe) and yourelf, would you say there’s a new pipeline of Caribbean-born musicians of jazz orientation from islands other than Cuba and Puerto Rico?

Yes. I believe the jazz musicians coming out of the Caribbean today are celebrating their unique cultural heritage. Musicians like Ron Blake can clearly articulate the jazz lineage on his instrument but you can also hear that he is from the “islands.” In the early stages of jazz, many Caribbean musicians performed and inspired other musicians at Congo Square. Later on, Caribbean musicians, like Lord Kitchener, were influenced by great jazz musicians. Today’s Caribbean jazz-oriented musicians are the perfect marriage of the two worlds.

Who have you discovered for inspiration on your instrument, and what have these inspirations contributed to your own expression?

As a child, I was inspired by Christian Lindberg and J.J. Johnson. Christian Lindberg showed me that anything is possible on the trombone. When I first heard J.J. Johnson, I loved the clarity and tastefulness that came from his playing. I loved the way J.J. would edit lines and make clear statements. Later on I was inspired by Curtis Fuller, Slide Hampton, Steve Turre and Robin Eubanks. With Curtis Fuller, I loved his soulfulness. His playing on John Coltrane’s “Blue Train” made me an instant fan. Slide Hampton’s extended lines made me smile and gave me a lot of work in the shed. Steve Turre and Robin Eubanks opened the door for modern trombone playing. Steve’s harmonic sense opened my ears to fourths and fifths. I was fortunate to study with Steve Turre and gain a greater understanding of the trombone. Each of these great players expressed their unique personality in their music. To build on their legacy, I do my best to be tasteful, clear, expressive, knowledgeable and inspirational.

What have you got planned for your next release?

For the next album, I want to record songs that inspire the listener to be their best self. Focusing on self awareness and self respect, I want the title of the album to be “Love” and have each song elaborate on the principles of love. I feel that it is the responsibility of the artist to inspire the listener. I want to save lives with music.

www.reginaldcyntje.com