04/20/2024
BEWARE; seriously long post
My Friday began with the sad news of the passing of a fellow Fisk Jubilee Singer who had garnered international attention with the success of her professional music career. Mandisa was only 47 years old and although she has departed this life, she has left us with wonderful memories of the outstanding gift she so graciously and willingly shared with the world. We gon' miss you sister and your fellow Jubes as well as your entire Fisk Family grieves your passing.
My grief was soothed a bit as my friend Shawnice Hubbard had me come and share MY musical and spiritual gift with her preschoolers @ the Langston Hughes Elementary School. The kids heaped some needed love on this old fella as I played them some Beethoven and taught them that their ancestors laid the foundation for much of the music the world enjoys today. Those beautiful young people are my hope for America and for our fellow descendants of the great diaspora.
Finally though, After squeezing in a rehearsal of my Park Manor Chancel Choir and working with my Uniting Voices Chicago colleague Heather Isaak Stewart at the Off The Street Club on MY side (wesside) of town (When I see those kids, I see myself 50 years ago...ZAMN!) I hustled downtown to Orchestra Hall @ Symphony Center to see and hear the Gateways Music Festival Orchestra in a MAGNIFICENT evening of music. In the hall that is home of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, it was wonderful to see a sea of black musicians playing at the highest level and adding our own little "spice" to the mix. The Chicago Symphony is considered one of the world's greatest Orchestras yet, in its 133 year history (dating back to 1891), the orchestra has had only ONE black member. Only one...in 133 years. So, seeing and orchestra with ONLY US stirred such emotion in me and so many in the audience. What I'm saying here is that, like most places in America, we've been systematically kept out. The message that has been delivered is that we, the black musician, are not quite good enough to play in the best ensembles. Funny how this has been said in EVERY AMERICAN INSTITUTION. The fact that there are many who don't either understand this or refuse to acknowledge this as fact now bothers me very very little if at all. You see, for me, the finishing touches on instilling a sense and knowledge of self and self worth happened at that little school on the hill in North Nashville TN. It was there that I finally realized how this thing worked and how America wouldn't be what it is without me and will NEVER be what it can be without me! My black existence challenges America to realize the words GOD gave those founder/slavers way back in the 1770's. Additionally, the only way America realizes the shortcomings of its racism is when I knock down the door of it! In sports it was Jackie and Willie and Hank and Jim Brown and Wilt, Bill and Kareem. In medicine it was Charles Drew. In the Law it was Thourgood. In Politics it was Frederick Douglass and W.E.B. and Martin, Medgar and Malcolm. In music, it was the Fisk Jubilee Singers and Roland Hayes and Paul Robeson and Marian Anderson and Leontyne. So when this old fella that studied Bach, Beethoven and Chopin as a kid and had a dream to play like Watts and Horowitz, who listened to WVON 1450 every night and played Jackson 5 tunes for his grade school friends to their complete AWE; when I saw my friend Lucinda Ali-Landing and her beautiful/brilliant daughter Ife on stage playing in an ALL BLACK orchestra with my other friends Phyllis Griffen, Sylvia De La Cerna and Edith Yokley interpreting the works of Samuel Coleridge Taylor Perkinson (who ran the Center for Black Music Research with my old college music professor the late great Dr. Samuel Floyd) Edward Elgar and Margret Bonds and finishing with Oakwood University's ground breaking Vocal dynamos "Take Six"... The tremendous excellence of the entire evening's presentation...I mean, I ain't sayin Larry Bird wasn't a BMF! But Magic and the lakers kicked his ass more than he kicked theirs. And look at how that fair competition turned out for the NBA. For Basketball GLOBALLY! America, JUST STOP WITH THE FU***NG RACSIM! Just stop! Let's be what we're supposed to be. A Government Of, By and For the PEOPLE. A meritocracy where we revere and value CONTENT OF CHARACTER more than bluster and "alternative facts" If you weren't at Symphony Center last night, you missed one of the greatest mights of music in the history of MAN! NO EXAGGERATION! No I'm gonna go and visit my piano...haven't been over there in a long time!!! LOL! https://www.facebook.com/gatewaysmusicfestival
Celebrating Black classical artistry!
