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~ Where Music's Past & Present Collide

Dr. Guy's MusiQologY

Tag Archives: Kennedy Center

Revisit: Cultural Arts Immersion in the Era of Stop and Frisk

05 Tuesday Mar 2013

Posted by MusiQologY in African American Music, Black Music, Calypso, Folk, Funk, General, Hip-Hop, Jazz, Pop Music, R&B, Rap

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Tags

Boy and Girls Club, David Oliver, DuPont Park, Guthrie Ramsey, Joe Coleman, Juliette Jones, Kennedy Center, Marvin Burton, Nathan Jolley, Rachel Winder, Shayna Small, TAP, Teen Arts Performance Camp, The Platters, Tony Small, Victor Provost, Washington DC

The other day I participated in a conversation on HuffPost Live with actor Gbenga Akinnagbe and attorney Ale Fernandez about “Stop and Frisk” and racial profiling practices. I joked on Facebook that I’d be talking about something I don’t study. I was reminded, however, that, I had experienced the long arm of the law in a case of mistaken identity.  It was not my best day.  Race and racism impact my life in particular ways, and music scholarship generally avoids direct confrontation with some of the uglier facts of human nature. But “it” must be acknowledged. Much of music history scholarship has tended toward ruminations on the beautiful.  Music, as we know, can provide a reliable shelter from the struggles of everyday existence.  Another characteristic of music scholarship is a different kind of problem.  Scholars Richard Leppert and Susan McClary have critiqued this notion of “autonomy,” writing against the idea that music “shapes itself in accordance with self-contained, abstract principles that are unrelated to the outside social world.” We know that the social experiences of musicians, audiences and critics always shape what the music means. And all this reminded me of a piece I wrote last summer after spending some time among young men who experience life as one of the prime targets of the worse kind of racial profiling.

Watch the HuffPost Live segment here.

~Guthrie Ramsey, MusiQology Editor in Chief

This past weekend I spent time with the Boys and Girls Club of the Greater Washington DC’s TAP (Teen Arts Performance Camp).  The two-week, overnight program, which is in its fifth year, provided over forty children and teens the opportunity to get exposure to visual arts, dance, music and drama through intensive training with seasoned professionals.  Cap-stoning their two weeks of relentless rehearsals, master classes, rap sessions and other activities, the campers presented three impressive performances in area venues, including the Kennedy Center and the DuPont Park Summer Stage.  Directed and developed by master musician and arts educator Tony Small, the camp experience is designed to provide more than a laundry list of artistic skill sets.  It also allows the campers to see models of leadership, mentoring, sacrifice and civility at a time when these principles are seemingly harder to come by in our everyday lives.

These are hard times.  A bullying culture abounds among the young.  And many of them are buttressed on the other side by state-sanctioned tactics like “stop and frisk,” designed to protect their own communities from their demographic group.  Some kids grow up real fast in order to successfully navigate our present anti-youth social terrain, one in which arts education is disappearing.

As I read it, TAP purposes to offer an alternative safe space for its campers, one that invites them to explore creativity as an outlet, as a key—as a tool to learn focus and discipline, and in turn, to use it as an avenue to discover their inner power and light.  The final performances that showcased what they’d learned spanned styles from across the American musical landscape.  We heard jazz, soul, rhythm and blues, gospel, hip-hop, Broadway, folk, rock, Motown, Afro-Latin, Caribbean, and fusion.  They performed skits and danced tightly choreographed routines from all the major dance styles of the last century.  And all these activities were shot through with elements of improvisation, an activity known to fire-up certain areas of the brain.  It was a rousing and moving state of affairs for all involved: artists, audience, campers and parents.

Recently I’ve read missives from various corners about very real anxieties surrounding what they see as the correlation between musical practice and the perceived ruin of our youth.  Thoughtful disagreements circle around the relative value of this or that style (particularly jazz and hip-hop) for gaining ground in the fight to “reclaim” the young from the clenches of nihilism, bullying, apathy, all forms of bigotry, and to a certain extent, the various industries of mass mediation.  What I witnessed this weekend makes me believe that we could focus less on determining the merit of readily available mass-mediated forms and more on the idea of broad arts immersion and sharing as a principle.

Elsewhere I’ve written about a “culture of sharing culture”—particularly to the generation below—that defined many social spaces of my own youth.  When there wasn’t much in the material realm, there was nonetheless always something being passed along.  One of those things for me, of course, was music.  And I know from reading history that visual arts, spoken art forms, and dance at one time permeated the community, the church, the school, and the home.  The sight and, and most important, the tangible feeling of witnessing the creation of an “achievement community” will be tough to forget.

Taking my dreams outside of the neighborhood back in the day.

I can still remember powerfully what internal growth I experienced in such settings in my youth.  This arts immersion model of leadership development, community building, sacrifice, and self-actualization works well.  More of our youth should experience this mode of education.

Tony Small and Joe Coleman lead the charge on the final night.

The rhythm section, which included Scott McCormick, David Oliver, Nathan Jolley, and Victor Provost, brought the fire every night.

What a powerful image to see showbiz vet, Joe Coleman of The Platters fame, on the stage with the kids, singing his heart out in chorus after soulful chorus with the fortitude of someone forty years his junior.  He entreated the younger performers singing background for him to not only join in the magic but to make their own as well. They believed him because throughout the week he, along with the other counselors and artists, had been teaching them other values outside of the music enterprise.  That’s how you do it. Activities like TAP deserve our moral and financial support—involvement on any level is a must. Instead of “stop and frisk” we need to “stop and fund.” Our collective future depends on it.

It rained right before the final performance; it stopped suddenly and a double rainbow appeared. Some of the campers–many of them in other circumstances a prime target of “stop and frisk” policies–stood in awe and appreciation. One teenage boy asked me innocently as I passed, “Doc, what does it all mean?” Great moment.

Camp Director Tony Small and two teaching artists: Small’s daughter actress Shayna Small and violinist/Assistant Artistic Director, Juliette Jones celebrate the success of the camp.

Rachel Winder and Marvin Burton running some changes.

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Cultural Arts Immersion in the Era of Stop and Frisk

15 Sunday Jul 2012

Posted by MusiQologY in African American Music, Black Music, Calypso, Folk, Funk, General, Hip-Hop, Jazz, Pop Music, R&B, Rap

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Boy and Girls Club, David Oliver, DuPont Park, Guthrie Ramsey, Joe Coleman, Juliette Jones, Kennedy Center, Marvin Burton, Nathan Jolley, Rachel Winder, Shayna Small, TAP, Teen Arts Performance Camp, The Platters, Tony Small, Victor Provost, Washington DC

This past weekend I spent time with the Boys and Girls Club of the Greater Washington DC’s TAP (Teen Arts Performance Camp).  The two-week, overnight program, which is in its fifth year, provided over forty children and teens the opportunity to get exposure to visual arts, dance, music and drama through intensive training with seasoned professionals.  Cap-stoning their two weeks of relentless rehearsals, master classes, rap sessions and other activities, the campers presented three impressive performances in area venues, including the Kennedy Center and the DuPont Park Summer Stage.  Directed and developed by master musician and arts educator Tony Small, the camp experience is designed to provide more than a laundry list of artistic skill sets.  It also allows the campers to see models of leadership, mentoring, sacrifice and civility at a time when these principles are seemingly harder to come by in our everyday lives.

These are hard times.  A bullying culture abounds among the young.  And many of them are buttressed on the other side by state-sanctioned tactics like “stop and frisk,” designed to protect their own communities from their demographic group.  Some kids grow up real fast in order to successfully navigate our present anti-youth social terrain, one in which arts education is disappearing.

As I read it, TAP purposes to offer an alternative safe space for its campers, one that invites them to explore creativity as an outlet, as a key—as a tool to learn focus and discipline, and in turn, to use it as an avenue to discover their inner power and light.  The final performances that showcased what they’d learned spanned styles from across the American musical landscape.  We heard jazz, soul, rhythm and blues, gospel, hip-hop, Broadway, folk, rock, Motown, Afro-Latin, Caribbean, and fusion.  They performed skits and danced tightly choreographed routines from all the major dance styles of the last century.  And all these activities were shot through with elements of improvisation, an activity known to fire-up certain areas of the brain.  It was a rousing and moving state of affairs for all involved: artists, audience, campers and parents.

Recently I’ve read missives from various corners about very real anxieties surrounding what they see as the correlation between musical practice and the perceived ruin of our youth.  Thoughtful disagreements circle around the relative value of this or that style (particularly jazz and hip-hop) for gaining ground in the fight to “reclaim” the young from the clenches of nihilism, bullying, apathy, all forms of bigotry, and to a certain extent, the various industries of mass mediation.  What I witnessed this weekend makes me believe that we could focus less on determining the merit of readily available mass-mediated forms and more on the idea of broad arts immersion and sharing as a principle.

Elsewhere I’ve written about a “culture of sharing culture”—particularly to the generation below—that defined many social spaces of my own youth.  When there wasn’t much in the material realm, there was nonetheless always something being passed along.  One of those things for me, of course, was music.  And I know from reading history that visual arts, spoken art forms, and dance at one time permeated the community, the church, the school, and the home.  The sight and, and most important, the tangible feeling of witnessing the creation of an “achievement community” will be tough to forget.

Taking my dreams outside of the neighborhood back in the day.

I can still remember powerfully what internal growth I experienced in such settings in my youth.  This arts immersion model of leadership development, community building, sacrifice, and self-actualization works well.  More of our youth should experience this mode of education.

Tony Small and Joe Coleman lead the charge on the final night.

The rhythm section, which included Scott McCormick, David Oliver, Nathan Jolley, and Victor Provost, brought the fire every night.

What a powerful image to see showbiz vet, Joe Coleman of The Platters fame, on the stage with the kids, singing his heart out in chorus after soulful chorus with the fortitude of someone forty years his junior.  He entreated the younger performers singing background for him to not only join in the magic but to make their own as well. They believed him because throughout the week he, along with the other counselors and artists, had been teaching them other values outside of the music enterprise.  That’s how you do it. Activities like TAP deserve our moral and financial support—involvement on any level is a must. Instead of “stop and frisk” we need to “stop and fund.” Our collective future depends on it.

It rained right before the final performance; it stopped suddenly and a double rainbow appeared. Some of the campers–many of them in other circumstances a prime target of “stop and frisk” policies–stood in awe and appreciation. One teenage boy asked me innocently as I passed, “Doc, what does it all mean?” Great moment.

Camp Director Tony Small and two teaching artists: Small’s daughter actress Shayna Small and violinist/Assistant Artistic Director, Juliette Jones celebrate the success of the camp.

Rachel Winder and Marvin Burton running some changes.

Yes, We Still Can: Proclaiming Hope, One More Time with Feeling

15 Monday Nov 2010

Posted by MusiQologY in Jazz

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Gil Evans, Kennedy Center, Proclamation of Hope, Ramsey Lewis, Ravinia, Scott Hall

I had the good fortune last night of hearing the Kennedy Center debut of pianist/composer Ramsey Lewis’ Symphonic Poem, A Proclamation of Hope.   The piece premiered at the Ravinia Music Festival summer 2009 in a casual outdoor setting. In this venue, the opulent Eisenhower concert hall on the Kennedy Center’s campus, the feeling of the piece generated a somewhat different response.  Still jet lagged from the Jazz and Race Conference in the UK, I hopped the Amtrak south to DC’s orange line, and then taxied to the grand entrance of the Center.  Rushing across the very plush (okay I was running late—had to stop and let the brothers in the DC train station put a quick spit shine on my kicks—Chi-town thing, you understand), Chinese red carpet and squeezing past the well-heeled, well-dressed crowd to an orchestra seat, the diversity of the crowd was the first striking observation.

Ramsey and Ramsey: Planning the Next Attack

Cutting across demographic stereotypes of “the” jazz audience, Ramsey seems to have an appeal that defies category.  Interestingly, one of the papers at the conference last week presented preliminary findings on the make-up of jazz audiences in London. This particular thing was on my mind as I sat in the theater among youngsters, high school students, and all kinds of adults.

One reviewer commented at the premiere last year that the work could use a little editing down.  Scott Hall, the piece’s arranger, conductor, and master of the orchestration, took the bait and did a great job of it.  This version of Proclamation of Hope is leaner and meaner.   Hall cut the fat from the original without sacrificing power or intent.  Ramsey was cutting up as usual—fluid runs, bluesy figures, and lightening speed double octaves to spare.  The collaboration of Hall and Ramsey recalls the teamwork of Miles Davis and Gil Evans.  The latter’s lyrical and lush touch framed Davis’ singular voice in a number of milestone recordings.  Hall did the same here by brushing brilliant timbres, dynamic rhythms, and straightforward harmonies around the pianist, who presided over the proceedings like a stately prince.

It’s fascinating to read the script I wrote for the Proclamation this far into Obama’s presidency. At that time, Mr. Obama had not long been installed as the first black president of the United States.  For many, it was a time of hopeful optimism for the country despite our economic challenges, involvement in two costly military conflicts, and waning stature in the world.  In the face of the divisiveness, discord, and dissin’ in general that characterized our democratic process in the recent midterm elections, last night, Mr. Lewis’ piece felt like he was standing his ground, guarding the dream, sticking to his story, and pointing us toward a higher plane of discourse.  My hope is that the audience could hear what the man was saying in this important piece without lyrics.

A lighter note from Ramsey from lighter times: 

Dr. Guy

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