| WARE: | I'm honored to be here with people like David Hardiman, Koncepts Cultural Gallery, Ike Paggett--all these wonderful people. I'm Robbin Ware, Director and Founder of the California Cultural Assembly, a nonprofit organization formed in 1980, and I'm here with Raymond Walker, my good friend and colleague. He's tremendously knowledgeable and I would like him to say a few words as well. I want to read this speech by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (At the 1964 Berlin Jazz Festival). |
"God has wrought many things out of oppression. He has endowed his creatures with the capacity to create, and from this capacity have flowed the sweet songs of sorrow and of joy that have allowed man to cope with his environment in many situations. Jazz speaks of life. The blues tell the stories of life's difficulties, and if you will think for a moment, you will realize that they take the hardest realities of life and put music only to come out with some new hope or sense or triumph. This is triumphant music. Modern jazz has continued in this tradition, singing the songs of a more complicated urban existence. When life itself offers no order and meaning, the musician creates an order and meaning from the sounds of earth which flow through his instrument.(COMPLETES READING OF DR. KING'S SPEECH)
It is no wonder that so much of the search for identity among American negroes was championed by jazz musicians. Long before the modern essayists and scholars wrote of 'racial identity' as a problem for a multiracial world, musicians were returning to their roots to affirm that which was stirring within their souls.
Much of the power of our movement in the United States has come from this music. It has strengthened us with its powerful rhythms when courage began to fail. It has calmed us with its rich harmonies when spirits were down.
And now, jazz is exported to the world. For in the particular struggle of the-negro in America there is something akin to the universal struggle of modern man. Everybody has the blues. Everybody longs for meaning. Everybody needs to love and be loved. Everybody needs to clap hands and be happy. Everybody longs for faith. In music, especially that broad category called jazz, there is a stepping stone toward all of these."
| I read this because some of the problem stems from the black churches and the media. The media particularly has perpetuated an image of jazz as gut music or booze music or drug music or whatever. But it isn't that at all. Through the California cultural assembly, I started many years ago to take jazz to the high schools by conducing summer jazz workshops for the students. We travel to various high schools and community colleges throughout this area performing live, conducing workshops, master classes, and clinics. We have also brought in artists such as Wayne Shorter to the Crest Theater, Frank Morgan to McClatchy High School, and the Duke Ellington Orchestra to the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament. The Arts Council provides me with only $1,300 a year to put on these programs. I have worked with the brilliant, phenomenal Ike Paggett (who is in the audience, a music teacher at Sacramento High School's School of the Arts) who is terribly underrated, overlooked and ignored in this community. I met with a group of Sacramento music instructors not too long ago. Even though Ike Paggett was not there, they told me that he was probably the finest musician, teacher, expert in Northern California. I want to mention before I get started that I have experienced retaliation for the things I know and the things I say. But I don't stop saying them. The people who hold positions of power within Sacramento Arts Commission, the state Arts Council, and KXJZ are almost entirely white and male. This is part of the problem. It angers me. I raise these issues. I've complained to KXJZ, Anne Rudin (Mayor of Sacramento), Grantland Johnson (County Supervisor), and Il-la Collins (City Council). Why are all the people who have power to determine the course of art white? Why? I think it's wrong, I think it's a disgrace, and I think it's perpetrated by people who ought to know better. | |
| MURRAY: | If these entities were not all white, what would be different? |
| WARE: | There would be balance and diversity as opposed to the current Euro-centric view of art. There would be cultural sensitivity, cultural diversity, and a collective consciousness conducive to nurturing jazz. |
| MURRAY: | The gift should come from where it came originally. Whites cannot have the experience of blacks and blacks cannot be white. This art form can't go forward unless these entities diversify culturally. Jazz is creative music. African Americans have paid their dues as major creators in the music field when it comes to jazz, blues, or rock ... In addition to integrating some of these boards and commissions, are there any other things that we as a society and/or government can do to enhance the preservation of jazz? |
| WARE: | There are programs such as the Technical Assistance Program. Raymond Walker can answer that question, but I think it has been already answered to a large extent. The Arts Commission can do a lot. It should be mandated to set aside certain amounts of money for this original, American art form. Jazz is an indigenous art form that comes from the bowels of this country, yet it has been ignored and, as someone said earlier (Buddy Collette), "relegated to the back of the bus". The legislature itself should put pressure on the Arts Commission, on local arts councils, and on the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). The NEA just came out with a brand new grant called the Arts Initiative. It's a good initiative because of its commitment to under-appreciated art forms. There should be a concerted effort with people like David Hardiman (a music teacher at San Francisco City College), John Lee Hooker (a blues musician), Ike Paggett (teacher at Sacramento High School) and Raymond Walker (artist and illustrator, Del Paso Heights School District). These people are experts who can help you create legislation that will bring about the very thing you want out of this hearing. If we don't retain what we have, it will be taken from us, and it is being taken. For example, Sacramento used to have the Blues Festival which was sponsored by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the Los Rios Consumnes College District and held annually for 14 years at William Land Park. Then it was moved to Sacramento City College--I knew it was doomed then--and then moved to Old Sacramento. The Mayor tried to get the warring parties together but after the war was finished, black folks (NAACP) were told never again to use the words "Blues Festival". |
| MURRAY: | Do you think there's a conspiracy to suppress this music? |
| WARE: | In some quarters, yes. The Sacramento NAACP can't use the word "Blues Festival". It is now run by Phil Givant, a teacher at American River College. I attended the Blues Festival after the NAACP lost control of it, and the audience was 99.9 percent white. It's alienating to take this music out of the community, but it has been effectively done. |
| MURRAY: | What's the significance that 99.9 percent of the audience was white? |
| WARE: | I think it's wonderful, but at the same time it shows the tremendous need for black people to participate in these kinds of events and to fight to keep them within our communities. The environment must be of the nature where black folks feel comfortable. Most black folks don't feel comfortable attending anything in Old Sacramento. An example of the racial environment in Sacramento can be illustrated by an incident six years ago. George Dean, Director of the Urban League, and Grantland Johnson, who is on the county Board of Supervisors had planned a trip to Washington, D.C. In protest of the atrocities going on in South Africa. The white Chamber of Commerce and the Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce warned Mr. Dean that if he went, he would have no job when he returned. That's the kind of climate we live in. This is Sacramento. |
| MURRAY: | Black people are discouraged from going to Old Sacramento? |
| WARE: | Yes, sir. It's been in the newspapers. Old Sacramento is very alien and foreign to most blacks. |
| MURRAY: | Your point is that we need to stage more performances in black areas? |
| WARE: | Yes, rather than take it out of those areas. We also need to bring jazz to the schools in order to encourage its preservation and presentation. The best way to do this is to bring about a new generation of youth who are interested in this music. I am dedicated to this effort. |