Thelonious Monk: American Composer

Here is an interesting documentary on the life and music of Thelonious Monk. It features his son, sister, Randy Weston, Billy Taylor and others who knew Monk and jazz best discussing his legacy, stride influences on his piano style, and his personality. Although Kelley's biography includes some real sleuthing to uncover previously unknown aspects of Monk's background and life, this documentary is more immediate and heart-felt than the book through direct testimonies. Kelley's book should still be read, however, for the greater context it gives of San Juan Hill, North Carolina, and the jazz scene at large. 

James P. Johnson: A Case of Mistaken Identity

Scott E. Brown's biography of James P. Johnson is, to my understanding, the only book-length study of the life and music of the stride pianist. Due to my interest in early jazz and, increasingly, ragtime, I decided to read it to learn more about Johnson's place in the history of jazz. Brown's biography emerged from a student thesis, which can be clearly discerned. However, the provocative title is warranted because Brown's study illustrates many of the innovative and important features of Johnson's music on jazz and black music. Through his influence on Fats Waller, his composing of "serious music" drawing on African American spirituals and blues, and later generations of jazz pianists adapting the stride style, such as Thelonious Monk and Jaki Byard, Johnson's legacy in jazz is large and multifaceted.

As an active participant in the musical scene of New York in the 1910s and 1920s, Johnson witnessed the transformation of ragtime piano and the development of early jazz. Ragtime musicians in New York and New Jersey were, by the time young Johnson began playing in saloons, "ragging" popular tunes and engaging in "cutting contests." The Clef Club's emergence led to better gigs for black musicians and their refined mannerisms were, according to Brown, emulated by Johnson's generation. However, the older Clef Club musicians were not eager to embrace the blues or the polyphony of New Orleans jazz, so the younger artists like Johnson were the ones to channel the blues scale, blue notes, and vocalization to their instruments.

Indeed, the strong influence of black southern folk music and traditions, like the "shout," also help explain the emergence of stride as a distinct piano style from ragtime. The ringshout and similar black southern dances, rooted in the religious musical culture of black slaves and their descendants, transferred to secular expression after Emancipation. The "shout" was witnessed by a young Johnson in the dances held by his parents, and the riffs of stride were based on the rhythmic variations of shout dances. Johnson wasn't alone in attributing the origins of stride to the shout dances brought from the south by black southerners. His friend, Willie the Lion Smith, also noted the influence of the shout dances on stride piano, which, especially in its rhythmic riffing and blues influences, is more jazz than ragtime. 

Besides his ingenious stride piano style and songwriting for black musical theater, what most distinguishes Johnson is his desire to compose "serious" music drawing on the Western classical tradition. In Yamekraw, his Negro rhapsody, or The Organizer-A Blues Opera, a collaboration with Langston Hughes, Johnson drew on the blues, spirituals, and black folk material for classical works. Indeed, he knew Gershwin and likely understood the sources of black folk music better than the latter, although none of his symphonies were as successful as Gershwin's. Just as Joplin's opera, Treemonisha, was steeped in black folk music elements, Johnson endeavored to pursue a similar goal of fusing the "high" art of classical forms with black folkloric and blues roots, something many Harlem Renaissance critics and literary figures were hoping to accomplish in their own works. 

His musical contributions to the blues opera project with Langston Hughes also hints at social reformer or even socialist sympathies of Johnson. Hughes was, for a time in the 1930s, writing militant poetry reflecting his left-wing convictions. His opera with Johnson expresses those sentiments, too, as it involvements a labor organizer among black sharecroppers in the Jim Crow South, teaching them the path to their liberation is organization (to create a world without hunger, with no color line). Unfortunately, Brown's biography does not explore this, but it may suggest something of the degree to which the Communists during the Depression were influencing Harlem jazz musicians as well as intellectuals like Hughes. 

This desire to be taken seriously as a composer has been a consistent theme with many jazz musicians, who encountered a racist music industry and social prejudice. For instance, Johnson's music for black musical theater, often considered the highlight of the various musicals he was involved with, were limited to black musicals often reliant on racial stereotypes and ignored by the white musical establishment. He also sought to live on his composing rather than the brutal nightclub or dancehall circuit, which were the only venues jazz could be heard in during the 1920s. Although it seems like Johnson still enjoyed performing at Harlem rent parties where fellow stride pianists like Fats Waller and Willie the Lion Smith would also pop in, one can see see how he sought to find a place for his music beyond the limitations imposed on jazz as "entertainment" unfit for the high arts. In addition to his efforts at "serious" music and the consolidation of stride piano, his presence at the early days of jazz in New York surely attest to his importance in the jazz pantheon.

Ornette Coleman: A Harmolodic Life

John Litweiler's biography of Ornette Coleman is a short introduction to the life and works of a major figure in the development of jazz after bebop. As such, it is a worthy read and effort to chronicle his life from his Texas childhood to his career in the 1990s. Of course, like Carr's biography of Keith Jarrett, Litweiler's book is not the most objective overview of Coleman's music. In the introduction, Litweiler makes it clear that he sees Ornette as one of the four major figures in the history of jazz, alongside Buddy Bolden, Louis Armstrong and Charlie Parker. Undoubtedly, Coleman was a major figure in the development of free jazz, but it is not entirely clear how Coleman becomes more seminal than, say, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, or the AACM-affiliated artists out of Chicago. Nonetheless, this leads to the predictable result in which nearly every Coleman recording is praised as exemplary or significant.

At its best, Litweiler's biography should be read with Spellman's Four Lives in the Bebop Business. Litweiler draws on Spellman's important chapter on Coleman, while adding additional layers of detail for Coleman's early life and musical career in periods after 1966. For instance, we learn of the great impact of Coleman's Texas upbringing on his future sidemen, such as Dewey Redman and Charles Moffett, who all grew up in Fort Worth with him. Some of the deep influences of blues and R&B on a young Coleman also become more apparent, just as the the Jim Crow setting limited opportunities for Coleman to be an individual and express himself musically. Coleman's time with a minstrel group in the South and playing in New Orleans are also more interesting than I have realized in the past. For instance, the deep immersion of Ornette's drummer, Ed Blackwell, in New Orleans drumming traditions came about through Paul Barbarin's tutoring of Blackwell. Even more surprisingly, Coleman also played with the father of Wynton Marsalis, Ellis, despite the lack of interest in Coleman's modern jazz in New Orleans.

Coleman's LA years also suggest the importance of California for jazz. Despite the association of the west coast with cool jazz, it becomes clear how a number of innovators were already experimenting and establishing new styles in LA before moving to New York to establish themselves in the jazz capital of the world. It was in LA that Coleman's style began to consolidate (though early on in Texas and the South he was already seen as playing "out there" or "improperly") as he gradually acquired a band (Don Cherry, introduced to him through wife Jayne Cortez, was perhaps his best musical partner). Indeed, according to Eric Dolphy, by 1954 Ornette had already established his unique style on alto saxophone. However, as a black musician attempting something new, he faced adversity from other musicians, racism from bigoted cops in the San Fernando Valley when he ventured to clubs there, and the travails of finding work outside music to support himself. His "big break" eventually came through at the Hillcrest Club engagement of Paul Bley, bringing himself, Cherry, Charlie Haden, and Billy Higgins. His first two LPs, with Contemporary Records, established him as a unique composer and soloist, making the trip to New York City almost inevitable after switching to Atlantic.

The remainder of the biography covers responses to Coleman's music in New York, his influence on Coltrane and the explosion of free jazz in the 1960s and 1970s, his frequent changes in band lineup, and his various ventures in composing, demanding higher fees for performances, recording. Litweiler does analyze some of the shifts in Coleman's sound as his solos by the mid-1960s were more slice of life. Like Mingus, Coleman encountered the same problem of being taken as a serious composer while economic necessity forced him to perform in nightclubs for disrespectful audiences. This is certainly one of the reasons Coleman started Artists House, and became a fixture of sorts of the New York arts and loft jazz scene. But precarious financial standing and his desire to reach a larger audience forced Coleman to continue recording, and his curiosity led to different types of bands (Prime Time, a fusion band) or third stream ventures to have his symphonic pieces performed. Whatever one makes of Coleman's harmolodics or improvisations on trumpet and violin is still up in the air, though Litweiler is full of praise for the airy quality of Coleman's trumpet. Even Litweiler doesn't define harmolodics, which may connote more of a feeling rather than a theory of music. No one really knows what harmolodics are. Even the question of atonality or pantonality is not quite clear in Coleman's oeuvre, as Russell's concept of the latter may be more applicable.

Perhaps subsequent biographies of Coleman will cover his 1970s-1990s depth and life in more detail, in particular albums given short treatment by Litweiler. I would have loved to read more about Coleman the person in his later years, as his reputation was firmly established and he was known globally. What would Coleman have made of the state of jazz in the 2010s? The disconnect between black jazz innovators and black audiences during the zenith of free jazz? Coleman personally knew Anthony Braxton and the Art Ensemble of Chicago, but what did he make of the AACM's belief in community performances and arts in the Windy City? Was he still interested in non-Western music's way of relating to audiences, of which he only found a semblance in the church music he heard while growing up? Many aspects of his life and work remain to be studied. 

Black Bottom Stomp

While randomly listening to Jelly Roll Morton's "Black Bottom Stomp" today, I noticed a similarity with "Castle House Rag" by James Reese Europe, recorded in 1914. The 1926 recording by Jelly Roll Morton demonstrates the clear link to ragtime in "Black Bottom Stomp," particularly in a brief banjo solo that nearly echoes the "hot section" around 3 minutes into "Castle House Rag." Alternatively, the inspiration for Jelly Roll Morton's ragtime-inspired segment could hail from "12th Street Rag," but the banjoist's rollicking style brings to mind the banjo and mandolin players of Europe's Society Orchestra.  While Reese Europe's Society Orchestra in 1914 was still not quite jazz, it's interesting to note how Jelly Roll Morton was deeply aware of ragtime black music and incorporated elements of it into his own compositions, which were complex arrangements showing Morton's skills as what Gunther Schuller called the first great composer of jazz

Le problème des classes à travers l'histoire d'Haïti

Le problème des classes à travers l'histoire d'Haïti is a worthwhile read for all eager to understand the roots of Duvalierism and its legacy in Haiti. What is particularly striking about it is the ways in whcih Lorimer Denis and  François Duvalier contort Haitian history and apply noirist lens to develop an argument for the rule of noir elites. Their argument rests on their ideological sleight of hand that allows them to collapse the distinctions between race and class for their analysis of Haitian social relations.  Moreover, their account of the Haitian Revolution offered in the text is surely out of date or lacking the nuanced interpretation of Jean Price-Mars's La vocation de l'élite. 

Indeed, while the former acknowledges contradictions between the enslaved masses and the black and "mulatto" leaders in the Haitian Revolution, Denis and Duvalier make Toussaint L'ouverture into the incarnation of the aspirations of the slave classe. Even more than the incarnation of their collective hopes and aspirations, Denis and Duvalier defend his labor regime despite its similarities with that of Rigaud in the South. Throughout the text, the authors make clear their admiration for strong man leadership, of Ataturk, of authoritarian collectivism in a nation-state. Their willingness to apply psycho-sociology and racial theory further buttress their argument for la brave classe moyenne and its intellectuals as the rightful leaders for the nation. 

However, there is also a call for a politics of equilibrium that, one would hope, brings together the two classes (affranchis and the bourgeois of today, slaves and the Haitian majority) into unity for the fulfillment of the nation's destiny. So there is a call to national unity across the "color" line while the authentic representatives of the black masses (the intellectual elites of black middle class) should lead. What definitely distinguishes Denis and Duvalier from Price-Mars (besides the emphasis on color in Duvalier and his contemporaries) is their admiration for authoritarian individual rule, which, if representative of the masses, can still be democratic in their eyes. There are more than enough hints in Le problème des classes à travers l'histoire d'Haïti of what types of political systems appealed to Duvalier the decade after its initial publication.

In some respects, Duvalier and Denis offer an overview of Haitian social relations that echoes Jacques Roumain's Analyse schématique. Both see parallels between the Haiti of today and the colonial-era social structure. Both groups show some degree of nuance in understanding the complex interplay of color and class. But the proposed solutions differ profoundly, whether the "national socialist" quasi-fascist mysticism of Duvalier or the Haitian Left's appropriation of Marxism in an underdeveloped, semi-colonial context. But again, one cannot help but see parallels in the proposed routes to national freedom in Price-Mars, Duvalier, and, to a certain extent, the Haitian Left's belief in a vanguard or national bourgeoisie (PSP and its descendants). This is a topic of further interest for the blog. 

Livery Stable Blues

In my quest to learn more about early jazz, one cannot ignore the Original Dixieland Jazz Band. This white group out of New Orleans were the first recorded jazz (according to most critics) band in 1917. However, before they entered a recording studio, the band went to Chicago in 1916. Before the existence of recorded jazz, the genre was present in a variety of cities besides New Orleans. But, there is a joyful sound in early jazz, including novelty sounds and animal-like horn playing. One can see why recordings like "Livery Stable Blues" were so exciting a century ago and led to other record labels joining the jazz craze.

Regrèt Nèt

Joel Lorquet's 1981 graphic novel, Regrèt Nèt, is an interesting read on a tragic subject: boat people. Written at a time when the boat people crisis was more frequent and demonization of Haitians was on the rise, it tells the tale of an unfortunate man whose miraculous survival ends in humiliation and defeat. While Lorquet's art style is a little too simplistic for my taste, he manages to convey in words and illustration the shame, fear, suffering, and all-too-human pain of misery that compels one to risk one's life in search of opportunity. The only other writer who has managed to capture the life of Haitian boat people like this is Edwidge Danticat in Krik Krak. Like Danticat's later short story, Lorquet's graphic novel conveys the full scope of the eponymous character's motivations for leaving Haiti as well as the harrowing journey doomed to end in tragedy.

I have long thought of slave ships when reading disheartening stories of boat people drowning at sea. The fate of Regrèt Nèt's ship brings this home. Indeed, the ship is destroyed a storm and crashing into reefs, which leads to many on board committing suicide. Although their trip to Miami was only to last 2 days, they're at sea for over a week without enough supplies. The crammed conditions below the deck, with an insufferable heat, are full of hungry people who paid 500 gourdes to risk their lives on this voyage. Tempers are wearing thin, and a fight over a bowl of mayi moulen leads to one man drowning. The dehumanizing conditions of their voyage have turned the passengers against each other. I can see the parallels with our enslaved ancestors who arrived in this hemisphere in similar conditions: crammed  together like sardines, suffering inhumane treatment, subjected to all forms of violence. 

While Regrèt Nèt miraculously survives by grasping a part of the destroyed boat until a ship en route to Puerto Rico rescues him, his fate and backstory are illustrative of the boatpeople dilemma in several ways. First, upon arrival in Puerto Rico, he is forced to take a variety of jobs which he would never have done in Haiti, such as domestic work and cleaning cars. After 8 months of grueling labor that he considered beneath him in Haiti (where he worked as a teacher in a rural school), he is arrested, humiliated, and deported by plane to Haiti, without his 8 months of saving. All of his labor and near-death experiences achieved nothing for him. Thus, he chooses to change his name to Regrèt Nèt, as his decision to try his luck in the land of his dreams achieved nothing but humiliation and shame. Indeed, he sacrificed his life as a schoolteacher, his land, and made promises to his wife and children that will go unfulfilled. 

The overall message of the comic is to urge those considering the risky venture of illegal migration by sea to reconsider. Yet it is very clear how and why the miserable living conditions in Haiti contribute to the pattern and cause many, including the educated Regrèt Nèt, to sacrifice his post as a teacher to find a solution in Mayami. But the multiple layers of exploitation and, for most, death via suicide or shipwreck, illustrate just how persistent the crisis was throughout the 1980s. Unfortunately, just how horrendous conditions were for those detained in centers is not mentioned in the graphic novel, but one can see hints of it in the callous treatment some officers have for Regrèt Nèt in Puerto Rico. Unsurprisingly, the graphic novel avoids any overt reference to the Duvalier dictatorship in fomenting the humanitarian disaster, but a corrupt local officer is bribed before the ship departs from Haiti. Thus, there is Haitian state complicity in the sordid affair.

Lorquet's graphic novel is also interesting to compare with Fanfan's adaptation of Masters of the Dew in Haitian Creole. While Lorquet continues to use French for the narration of his comic, both Fanfan and Lorquet use Creole for the dialogue and appear to have a vision of comics as a medium for the masses. Fanfan was likely the superior artist, since his characters and style are more vivid and memorable, including background scenes or scenery. It would also be interesting to discover to what extent both knew of each other and saw a future for comics in 1980s Haiti, particularly in the media which became increasingly critical of Jean-Claude Duvalier  and successive governments. Were comics to play a didactic role using the vernacular to reach the widest possible audience? What was the relationship between the medium and movements such as ti-legliz?