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Anna Lisa Allegretti

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Issue 7.5

Here is the Jazz Town Meeting article that I had to wait to write:

* December 6, 2002 * City Hall, Philadelphia * Trane Stop's Jazz Town Meeting * Keynote Speaker: Bill Lee, Father of Spike Lee, contemporary and friend of Langston Hughes and Willis Laurence James- author of "Stars in De Elements: A Study of Negro Folk Music"

When I heard about the Jazz Town Meeting, I got ridiculously excited...I just knew it was going to be good. This is the kind of thing I needed to go to as a college student, as an aspiring contributor to the music world- an open forum of educators, professionals and musicians speaking on the history and for the preservation of music. The preservation, specifically, of Jazz, described by one of the speakers as "our classical music" referring to the rich African cultural heritage and its manifestation in the United States. Now, I was in a bad mood before I got there, and a little bit afterwards, but boy, the aura in that room made no space for negativity. Positive vibes as far as you could feel. We got there a bit late due to traffic and snow, but we seemed to arrive at the perfect time. As we made our way down the spacious hall of City Hall's second floor, we followed the sound of music- which is the best way to find somewhere you want to be if you ask me. Blues and jazz pulled us around the corners and right to the open door. We entered the room, looking probably a bit misplaced and in the process of assessing the goings-on, but not for long. I quickly discovered it was impossible to be alone in that room, and I liked it. An older man with a greying beard and classes shimmies past us juantily, sort of smile-laughing as he tells us to get comfortable, take a seat. Suddenly, a woman with arms full of paper appears in front of us. She's wearing a lime green hat that exposes one deep brown j-shaped curl, swooping toward her eye. She asks us if we had registered yet, and we answer in the negative so she hands me two registration forms and two packets of information regarding Trane Stop, a foundation formed in honor of John Coltrane, as well as other articles regarding music issues and performance. Then she looks at me with a pause and asks, "Do you have a pen?" I did. "Good" she laughs, "Then I don't have to share." She urges us to sit down, pointing to some open seats in the second row. As we turn to head towards them she grabs the back of my jacket and encourages us to load up on the buffet goodies "Get it before it's gone!" She's right, everything looks great, but at this point we just wanted to settle in. Not long after we sit down, the band that had been playing our beacon blues tunes stepped aside to make way for a man in an amazing and uniquely patriotic get-up. He sported a fuzzy cap with a small buffalo horns on each side, from underneath which emerged what looked like a bundle of very long dredlocks, tightly wrapped together and brought up around the other side of his neck to create a sort of necklace. Aside from that, there was too much going on with his clothes for me to make out much more than an american flag pattern everywhere, a kilt, knee-highs, and the bagpipe that he carried, which ended in a buffalo head hornpeice. He played a bagpipe accompanyment to a John Coltrane tune, saying that Coltrane had wanted to get into bagpipes before he passed, and he had taken to them himself. When the performances ended, a brief introductory speech by Harrison Ridley, one of the resident DJs of 90.1FM WRTI welcomed Bill Lee. Mr. Lee got up and by way of introduction let us know that he had prepared a 45 minute speech, but they had informed him he would only get to speak for about 15 minutes. Cries came from around the room for him to "go on with it" and he began. He told us first that when people ask him how old he is, he says "Well, I'm about 500 years old." And I believed him. Not because of his appearance, but because of the amazing verbal history with which he recounted names, places and events of the past flawlessly. The vibrant 74 year old began his story in the deep back woods of the south, sitting under his mother's piano while she played mostly classical peices. Until one day she came home and started playing a different tune, a bouncing rhythm overlaid with the kind of energetic elaborations that find your finger snapping and your head bopping at the end of every note. And that- was what he wanted to do. And so he has. Bill Lee is one of the most recorded musicians in history, having performed with the likes of Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughn, Dizzy Gillespie, Billy Strayhorn, Carmen McCrae, Art Blakey, Ray Bryant, McCoy Turner, Herbie Hancock, Chet Baker and Philly Joe Jones, as well as members of the folk music tribe, Odetta, Simon & Garfunkel and Peter, Paul and Mary. More recently, he won the L.A. Critics Award for best original soundtrack on Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing. As a producer and arranger he has worked with Max Roach, and has independently created 8 jazz/folk operas, founded 6 music groups, including the 'Mo' Better Quartet' and the 'New York Bass Violin Choir.' And when he sat down, he took the opportunity to introduce his son, who was perhaps 16, and an Alto Sax afficionado. If I only get to do to half as much in my lifetime I will be lucky. And that's not even all. But we'll get to that later. This meeting discussed Philadelphia as the "strongest local jazz community." Here, our street musicians make about $75 a night, while in New York they are only making about $30-45, which is less of a comparison and more of an indication as to how much Philadelphia fosters its music environment. It is reknowned as one of the strongest, if not the strongest music community in the world. At this Town Meeting, to which city council members are invited but have yet to attend, music, educational and funding issues are addressed. The primary calls are for a stronger music education system, more music in schools, more support of the street-musician enterprise, and more help for musicians who are already out there, trying to make a living. There are organizations dedicated to securing the financial future of current musicians so that they can retire and "not be on skid row." But this is not an easy task- "even some of the most talented traditional jazz musicians are struggling to surive, as jazz clubs disappear and bars discontinue live performances, radio programming for jazz is cut back and performance opportunities in general, even at cultural festivals are drying up" says the organization. Essentially, there is a great love of good music, but it is becoming decreasingly available to the public largely because many people are not willing to pay for performances. Aside from Jazz, radio airwaves are sacrificing cultural and quality music for top 40 flops and mainstream "jigga" beats. There is hope for a resurgence of a strong music community, as well as for a renewed vigor in radio programming (friends of mine at WMMR would love to play better music than you are hearing, but everything is programmed down to the second). There is much to be done in the music world, and the best thing we can do right now is seek out the quality, listen to something you've never heard instead of something that has been deemed good enough for mainstream distribution. There is more time for these issues in perhaps another article, as there are too many to list without fully losing focus. We find ourselves again in a formidable room in City Hall, and several people have stood to present their issues regarding musical education as part of an archival knowledge of culture, street performers, support for various organizations and hopeful messages of expansion of music outside of our own community- one organization regularly exchanges music with Jamaica, and as many as 15 Philadelphia artists are heard on Jamaican airwaves each day. As the meeting has gone about 45 minutes over people break and are encouraged to eat the food so it doesn't have to be taken home, and the key part of the evening happens- networking. This is how a music community maintains. As I am personally newer to the scene and only beginning to figure out exactly where I fit in, there was simply one man I wanted to talk to. I knew he held the most precious commodity- information. So, between an insane crowding for autographs and mini-discussions as well as exchanges of respect, I slid in to talk to Bill Lee. He smiled right away and took my hand. I only had the opportunity to mention that I was going to be writing a book on what was going on in the music world, and wanted to know if there was any way I could contact him. He simply took his pencil and wrote down his name and phone number on the back of my Trane Stop packet, then asked me my name, shook my hand again and apologetically excused himself as he had been accosted for photo opportunities. I couldn't have hoped for a more gracious informant. And this is the way we left the Trane Stop. If you would like to find out more about local jazz/blues events, or help this cause, you can e-mail Thetranestop@aol.com

Issue#8

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Your momma procrastinate so much…

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