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Gospel Music Heritage Month 2020

Since 2008, September has been designated Gospel Music Heritage Month. Rooted in the African American oral tradition, gospel music helped us get over.

On Wednesday, September 30, 2020, 2:00pm - 3:30pm ET, the Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection at Temple University will celebrate the Reverend Joseph Williams, Jr., an original member of the gospel quartet Sons of the Birds who will be inducted into the Black Music Hall of Fame later this year.

Rev. Williams was also a member of the legendary Dixie Hummingbirds from 1983 to 1987.

Rev. Williams and Dr. Mark Kelly Tyler, pastor of historic Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church will lead a virtual master class in the history and legacy of gospel music through word and song. To join the conversation, use this link: https://temple.zoom.us/j/91499000220.

The program is free and open but registration is encouraged.

Playhouse in the Park

West Fairmount Park’s “Playhouse in the Park” opened on July 30, 1952. It was the brainchild of John B. Kelly Sr., commissioner and later president of the Fairmount Park Commission (renamed Fairmount Park Conservancy in 2001).

In 1956, the tent was replaced with a permanent 1500-seat wooden structure, the country’s first “theater in the round” owned and managed by a municipality.

The Playhouse summer stock theater included “Fiddler on the Roof,” “Zorba,” “A Little Night Music” and “Kiss Me, Kate,” “The Sty of the Blind Pig,” and “The Poison Tree.”

There were programs for children, as well as jazz and blues concerts. Cannonball Adderley recorded a live album here.

A bootleg audio of the concert is available on YouTube.

The last full season was in 1979. The building was demolished in 1997. The site is now a picnic grove.

Music and Social Justice

From Washington, DC to Seattle, Washington, the streets are filled with thousands of protesters demanding justice for Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd and all victims of police brutality.

Music has long fueled movements for social justice. In 1936, Lead Belly denounced racial segregation.

Civil rights activists vowed they weren’t going to let nobody turn them around.

In 1964, Sam Cooke said “a change is gonna come.”

James Brown implored everybody to get involved.

In 1975, Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes told us to wake up; no more sleeping in bed.

In the wake of the lynching of George Floyd, “the world has changed so very much from what it used to be.” Spotify’s Black Lives Matter playlist has nearly 850,000 likes.

Jazz Appreciation Month 2020

April is Jazz Appreciation Month.

This year, the Smithsonian highlights women in jazz:

Jazz Appreciation Month (fondly known as “JAM”) was created right here at the museum in 2001 to recognize and celebrate the extraordinary heritage and history of jazz for the entire month of April.

JAM is intended to stimulate and encourage people of all ages to participate in jazz - to study the music, attend concerts, listen to jazz on radio and recordings, read books about jazz, and more.

This year, JAM celebrates the dynamic impact of the often-overlooked contributions that women have made to jazz, both on and off the stage. As performers and conductors, educators, and producers and directors of jazz festivals, women have made their mark but have continued to struggle for recognition on par with their male counterparts.

In the days of social distancing, gig workers, including women and men in jazz, are struggling. NPR reports:

As panic over the coronavirus sweeps the globe, much of the focus is on the broader economic effects on businesses or venues that have to cancel events. But the coronavirus' toll on working musicians is immediate and sometimes debilitating.

When people speak of the gig economy, they're often thinking of Uber drivers or Instacart shoppers. But for freelance musicians, their patchwork of gigs pays the bills. And in the face of shuttered concert halls and a self-quarantining public, that patchwork is falling apart.

NPR Music is curating a list of livestreamed concerts, including the virtual jazz festival, Live From Our Living Rooms which runs from April 1 through April 7.

Also, the Berks Arts Council is presenting Boscov’s Berks Jazz Fest Encore Online concert series on Facebook Live, Thursday, April 2 through Monday, April 6.

For information on resources for musicians in the Philadelphia metro area, visit Jazz Philadelphia.

Jubilee Singers

Fisk University was founded in January 1866 to educate newly freed blacks. Between 1871 and 1880, the Fisk Jubilee Singers staged a series of fundraising concerts that introduced slave songs to the world.

From Fisk University History:

The tradition of excellence at Fisk has developed out of a history marked by struggle and uncertainty. Fisk's world-famous Jubilee Singers originated as a group of traveling students who set out from Nashville on October 6, 1871, taking the entire contents of the University treasury with them for travel expenses, praying that through their music they could somehow raise enough money to keep open the doors of their debt-ridden school.

The singers struggled at first, but before long, their performances so electrified audiences that they traveled throughout the United States and Europe, moving to tears audiences that included William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Ulysses S. Grant, William Gladstone, Mark Twain, Johann Strauss, and Queen Victoria.

On November 19, 2019, American Experience PBS will air "Jubilee Singers: Sacrifice and Glory."

An Opry Salute to Ray Charles

Ken Burns’ latest film, “Country Music,” makes clear that African American music is at the root of the genre. Long before Lil Nas X, there was DeFord Bailey, Rufus “Tee Top” Payne, Charley Pride – and Ray Charles. Brother Ray’s 1962 album, Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, topped the charts in the U.S. and Britain. The album and its lead single, “I Can't Stop Loving You,” were certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America.

Country Music Hall of Famer Willie Nelson observed:

When Ray did “I Can't Stop Loving You,” that was probably the time when country music was heard by more people than ever before. He kicked country music forward 50 years. Before him, a lot of people had probably never heard of songs by Don Gibson or Hank Williams.

In his autobiography, Brother Ray: Ray Charles’ Own Story, the country music pioneer wrote:

I just wanted to try my hand at hillbilly music. After all, the Grand Ole Opry had been performing inside my head since I was a kid in the country.

The Grand Ole Opry “celebrates the songs of Ray Charles and the influence the revolutionary artist had on country music” in a television special, “An Opry Salute to Ray Charles.”

Hosted by Opry member Darius Rucker, the star-studded salute features Boyz II Men, Cam, Brett Eldredge, Leela James, Jessie Key, Ronnie Milsap, Lukas Nelson, LeAnn Rimes, Allen Stone, Travis Tritt, Charlie Wilson, Trisha Yearwood and Chris Young. The program will air on PBS stations nationwide so check your local listings.

Wade in the Water

In 1994, National Public Radio, in partnership with the Smithsonian Institution, produced a 26-part series, Wade in the Water. As Black Music Month winds down, the radio documentary is a refresher course on the history of gospel music and its impact on soul, jazz, and R&B.

From the NPR Music blog:

In 1994, when Wade in the Water first aired on NPR member stations, the world was different. Many of the voices featured in the series were alive, and were generous with their support. Today, some of those voices have been stilled. But this series, documenting African American sacred music traditions spanning more than 200 years, remains vital because of them.

Wade was an experiment in recording music and musical events, amassing scholarship and conducting interviews in order to make all of those elements accessible to a wider audience. As a first-time partnership between NPR and the Smithsonian Institution, it featured a wide range of styles and subcultures and documented the cultural impact of music on real lives and diverse communities.

Over a five-year production period, Wadewas guided by the steady hand, artistic integrity and groundbreaking scholarship of Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon — historian, musician, MacArthur "genius" and the series' creator and narrator. And Wade's production team members brought our personal and professional best to the series, trekking throughout the country to gather relevant material.

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