"UNFORGETTABLE"

How a "People" were "Served" by their MUSIC 

It was when I read Frederick Douglass' Autobiography, that I first realized the power of the "sounds" that emanated from the "slave fields".  Those "sounds" were carried by those slaves into their "churches";  which were, in the beginning, small gatherings in the woods.   They praised a God they "borrowed" for their own uses.  As the chattel slave period ended, it was soon replaced by JIM CROW government and laws; that lasted past the time when I became an adult.

 

Throughout my early years; through the tragedies within my family and the tragedies in the streets from JIM CROW and the Klan, I was sustained by those "sounds".  When I declared my "independence" from my father in 1958, I boarded a train to St. Louis, where I purchased, at Famous and Barr, two music albums:  Dina Washington's Dinah!, and Ella Fitzgerald's Rogers and Hart Songbook.  Throughout my travels since, I have clung to both of them. 

 

From the 1940's Jazz and Rhythm and Blues, through Rock & Roll (the original in the late 1940's and early 1950's), those "sounds", and those artists of, what whites then deemed RACE MUSIC, sustained me and most of the people I knew in our segregated world.  The whites, later, saw the ability to make "quick bucks" from "covering" those sounds; and the world has not been the same since.

 

Every time I hear the "Unforgettable" duet, (the first of it's type, as I remember) of Natalie singing with her Dad, (who died in 1965, when Natalie was 15 year old); it sends shivers through me.  I remember the "holy" nature of those sounds; produced by thousands of black artists, for each age group, and music segment, of interest to black citizens.  Ragtime was invented in my home town by a student in one of the first colleges established in this country for black students.  Just about every household on our side of the "tracks" had a piano, and most of the children who were my classmates in our segregated school were also incredible piano players.  The music "saved" us in many ways.

 

Today, I have thousands of recordings, in various media, spanning more than seventy years.  I have been fortunate in my travels to meet many of the artists (including an "unforgettable" evening in a lounge at the Hilton in Las Vegas, with Duke Ellington).  I've  mourned the loss of each of them as they "pass"; beginning with Dinah Washington in 1963, and Nat "King" Cole in 1965.  I was able to attend live performances (performed more than 25 years apart) by Ella Fitzgerald in Washington, D.C, and, later, in Los Angeles. 

 

I truly hope there is a "heaven";  because I look forward to meeting them and hearing them "live", once again.

 

Stay Vigilant!  May the "sounds" continue to console and entertain.

 

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