June is Black Music month! A tribute to New Orleans music
21st June 2022 · 0 Comments
Part I
The National Museum of African American History and Culture credits then-President Jimmy Carter with creating the appreciation month in 1979, noting that it “celebrates the African-American musical influences that comprise an essential part of our nation’s treasured cultural heritage.” The celebration, the museum notes, is reestablished annually by presidential proclamation.
In 2009, President Barack Obama renamed Black Music Month to African-American Music Appreciation Month. He also highlighted the importance of this month and the various genres in Black music.
President Joe Biden issued a proclamation on June 2, 2022, recognizing June as Black Music Appreciation Month, celebrating the music as “intricately woven into the tapestry of our Nation.”
“Perhaps no music has had as profound and powerful an impact in shaping America’s musical score as Black music,” Biden said in the proclamation.
None of the presidential proclamations paid homage to New Orleans’ place in America’s music history as the birthplace of this country’s first indigenous music forms.
So, this year, The Louisiana Weekly will recognize and pay homage to the great musical artists whose contributions influenced music worldwide:
“I’m not sure, but I’m almost positive, that all music came from New Orleans.” – Ernie K-Doe
The late, great R&B singer Ernie K-Doe is right. New Orleans is the birthplace of America’s indigenous music genres: jazz (traditional music), blues, r&b, rock & roll, funk, brass band and bounce music.
New Orleans’ centuries-old legacy of award-winning Black musicians, songwriters, composers, singers, and performers is unparalleled. Before there was Motown, there was New Orleans, the music mecca of America.
New Orleans’ music history begins in Congo Square, in Armstrong Park, where enslaved people of African descent congregated on Sundays. They played crude, homemade instruments and danced, according to historians.
Jazz & Blues Pioneers
Charles Joseph “Buddy” Bolden is considered to be the “father of jazz.” Born in New Orleans in 1877, Bolden formed his own band in 1895 and earned the nickname “King of Jazz.”
New Orleans native and America’s Music Ambassador Louis Armstrong said of Bolden, “He was just a one-man genius that was ahead of them all … too good for his time.”
Duke Ellington paid tribute to Bolden in his 1957 suite “A Drum Is a Woman.” New Orleans native Wynton Marsalis speaks about Bolden in an introduction and performs “Buddy Bolden” on his album Live at the Village Vanguard.
“The most powerful trumpet player I’ve ever heard,” said Jelly Roll Morton, New Orleans’ renowned blues/ragtime/jazz pianist.
While Bolden’s career was short-lived – he played music for 11 years before being committed to a state hospital for dementia – he left a timeless music legacy.
Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe was born in New Orleans in 1890 and adopted his stepfather’s last name, Morton. A music savant, he learned to play piano at age 10, and within a few years, he played in the red-light district, where prostitution was legal, and he earned the nickname “Jelly Roll.”
Morton recorded The Bolden Band tune “Funky Butt” under the title “Buddy Bolden’s Blues.” Morton recorded another version of the song, “I Thought I Heard Buddy Bolden Say.”
Buddy Bolden’s Blues has been covered by hundreds of artists, including Dr. John, on his album “Goin’ Back to New Orleans” and Hugh Laurie, on his album “Let Them Talk.” A statute of Bolden stands in Armstrong Park.
Morton was the first jazz musician to put his arrangement on paper, with the “Original Jelly Roll Blues” the genre’s first published work.
Alan Lomax, a U.S. Library of Congress (LOC) assistant archivist of American Folk Song, convinced Jelly Roll to record his music at the LOC in 1939. Sixty-five years after Morton’s death, Lomax’s daughter produced a box set of eight CDs of Morton’s LOC recordings. The compilation won two Grammy Awards in 2006 for Best Historical Album and Best Album Notes.
Most fascinating about Morton’s recordings is his eyewitness accounts of New Orleans’ Black musicians and culture during the 1920s.
Morton was a colorful and profane character. He cursed like a sailor. His “Murder Ballard” lyrics are shockingly obscene. Indeed, he dubbed his band Jelly Roll Morton and The Red Hot Peppers.
“Morton billed himself as ‘the originator of jazz, stomps, and blues.’ His recordings with his Red Hot Peppers in mid-1920s Chicago were groundbreaking works of genius. Jelly Roll Morton proved himself to be a magnificent musician and a superb bandleader and record producer,” according to a Stanford University study.
Among musicians in Morton’s orchestra was famed clarinetist Sidney Bechet, whose statue stands in Armstrong Park. In 1941, Bechet recorded “The Sheik of Araby” and “Blues of Bechet,” playing all six instruments himself by overdubbing each part.
Following in Bolden’s footsteps were jazz trumpeters Bunk Johnson, Freddie Keppard, King Oliver, and Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong.
Louis Armstrong was born in New Orleans in 1901. Armstrong’s mentor was Bunk Johnson, who played in Bolden’s band. He discovered Armstrong playing on street corners in Storyville and took him under his wing. Armstrong would go on to achieve fame as America’s first Music Ambassador, Grammy-winning recording artist (Hello Dolly), and actor.
Armstrong never forgot his roots, although he moved from New Orleans to pursue fame and fortune. He signed his correspondence “Red Beans & Ricely Yours,” was feted as King Zulu in 1949, and made famous the song, “Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans?”
Daniel (Danny) Barker and his wife, Blue Lu Barker, were world-renowned jazz and blues artists. Daniel Barker was a rhythm guitarist for Cab Calloway, Lucky Millinder, and Benny Carter during the 1930s. He played with Jelly Roll Morton, Baby Dodds, James P. Johnson, Sidney Bechet, Mezz Mezzrow, and Red Allen throughout his career.
In the 1960s, Barker’s work with the Fairview Baptist Church Brass Band was pivotal in ensuring the longevity of jazz in New Orleans, producing generations of new talent, including Wynton and Branford Marsalis. They played in the band as youths.
Danny Barker was born to a family of musicians in New Orleans in 1909, the grandson of bandleader Isidore Barbarin and nephew of drummers Paul Barbarin and Louis Barbarin. He took up clarinet and drums before switching to a ukulele that his aunt got him and then a banjo from his uncle or a trumpeter named Lee Collins. He also played in his uncle Paul Barbarin’s Onward Brass Band.
Paul Barbarin was one of New Orleans’ most influential drummers and composers. One of his most performed compositions is “The Second Line,” or “Paul Barbarin’s Second Line.”
The legacy of New Orleans jazz & blues is evident in the fusions of these genres by contemporary artists including James Rivers, Germaine Bazzle, Charmaine Neville, Stephanie Jordan, Wynton Marsalis, Dr. Michael White, Branford Marsalis, Terrence Blanchard, and numerous Brass Bands, including Grammy Winners Hot 8 Brass Band and Rebirth Brass Band that keep the music alive.
This article originally published in the June 20, 2022 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
