American Review The H. Wiley Hitchcock Institute for Studies in American Music Conservatory of Music, Brooklyn College of the City University of New York

Volume XLIII, Number 1 Fall 2013 and the Racial Politics of Orchestral Carol J. Oja,

While researching a book about the Broadway musical , I quickly realized that the show’s initial production in 1944 was remarkable for its progressive deployment of a mixed-race cast.1 On the Town marked the Broadway debut of , Betty Comden, Adolph Green, and Jerome Robbins. Its star was the Japanese American dancer Sono Osato, and its cast included six out of a total of fifty-four. Today, those numbers would appear as tokenism. Within the context of World War II, however, with a conten- tiously segregated military, detainment of Japanese Americans as “alien enemies,” and racial stereotypes of the minstrel show fully in practice, On the Town aimed to challenge the status quo. Black and white males in military uniforms stood side-by-side on stage, modeling a desegregated military, and black men held hands with white women in scenes of inter-racial dancing. The show’s intentional desegregation made a statement.

An equally important racial landmark occurred nine months into the run of On the Town, when during the week of 9 September 1945 Everett Lee, an African American conductor, ascended to the podium of the show’s otherwise all-white pit . Previously, Lee had been the orchestra’s . In an era of Jim Crow segrega- tion in performance, Lee’s appointment was downright remarkable, and it has been followed by an equally exceptional career. His first wife Sylvia Olden Lee (ca. 1918-2004) emerged professionally at the same time as her husband, and their development as was deeply intertwined. She ultimately became a celebrated accompanist and vocal coach, working with African American divas such as Jessye Norman and Kathleen Battle.

Everett Lee with Reverend J. C. Olden, Civil Rights While considerable attention has been directed to the racial deseg- leader and father of Lee’s first wife, Sylvia Olden Lee regation of , far less scholarship has focused on how the process Courtesy of The Courier-Journal unfolded in New York City’s classical-music industry and in musical and courier-journal.com theater. Key moments stand out—such as Todd Duncan’s debut with the New York City Opera in 1945 or Marian Anderson’s debut with the in 1955, which was the first time that the famed company featured an African American singer on Inside This Issue stage. The Met took this step at a shock- ingly late date. Among black conductors Institute News by Jeffrey Taylor...... 8 struggling with racial limitations, Dean The State of Vallenato in New York City by Jorge Arévalo Mateus...... 9 Dixon was best known among Lee’s New York Improviser-Composers by Amanda L. Scherbenske ...... 14 contemporaries. Both conductors faced Reading Jazz Recordings by Matthew K. Carter...... 18 a climate of “orchestrated discrimina- Gershwin Critical Edition by Mark Clague...... 21 tion,” as the Civil Rights leader Vernon E. Jordan, Jr. once rued the stubbornly Everett Lee and the Racial Politics of Orchestral Conducting (cont.) slow desegregation of American symphonies, and they Oscar Hammerstein II and a new arrangement of Bi- devised resourceful strategies to keep working.2 zet’s score by Robert Russell Bennett. “To the right of renowned conductor, Joseph Littau,” reported the New Here, I explore the central outline of Everett Lee’s York Amsterdam News in late January 1944, nearly career, which offers an inside view of racial segrega- two months into the show’s run, “sits the concertmeis- tion’s impact on gifted black performers. I was for- ter, in this particular instance a young man of comely tunate enough to have two extended telephone inter- appearance, with a face that brightens and shines when views with Lee at his home in Norrköping, Sweden, you talk about music, and probably the only Negro where he continues to thrive in his nineties. Added to ever to have held that title.”9 The rest of the orches- that, the digitization of historically black newspapers has tra was white, with the exception of the black jazz opened access to valuable information about the world in drummer William “Cozy” Cole, who also appeared on which he was launched. stage.10 Very quickly, Lee’s talent was recognized, and Everett Lee (b. 1916) grew up in a middle-class he substituted as a conductor of Carmen Jones even family dedicated to his development as a . before his debut with On the Town; he also had a brief The wild card was race. Born in Wheeling, West conducting opportunity with a revival of Porgy and Virginia, Lee moved with his parents to Cleveland Bess in the spring of 1944.11 in 1927 as part of the Great Migration.3 His father, Everett Lee, Sr., climbed up through the civil service, Lee’s appointment as of On the achieving leadership roles in largely white contexts Town put him fully in charge of a Broadway pit or- and providing a model for his talented son. During chestra for an extended period. In an interview with WWII, the elder Lee became Executive Secretary of the Daily Worker in October 1945, Lee praised On the Ration Board 11 in Cleveland and was credited with Town, saying it “has done some splendid pioneering inaugurating “a system of making the rationing pro- work on Broadway.” Beth McHenry, reporter for the gram fit the individual, [which] stamped out all dis- Worker, expounded on Lee’s statement: crimination involving race or riches.”4 As a teenager Everett had a job at a local hotel as an elevator opera- What he referred to particularly, he said, tor and busboy. There, he met Artur Rodzinski, con- was the integration of Negro artists with ductor of the Cleveland Orchestra. “And Rodzinski,” others in the cast of On The Town, not Lee recalled in one of our interviews, “somebody told in the usual ‘specialty number’ category him that this kid is a very promising musician, and he but in the regular assembly of dancers. just asked me ‘who are you,’ and I told him, and he Mr. Lee attributes this to the honest and said, ‘well, come to my concerts.’ Every Saturday I democratic ideas and efforts of the musi- could go to the Cleveland Orchestra concerts.”5 Rodz- cal’s authors—Betty Comden and Adolph inski became central to Lee’s development. “My early Green and to the cooperative efforts of the conducting aspirations were nurtured by him,” Lee whole cast. He himself was urged to come told a reporter from the Pittsburgh Courier in 1948. to this show by Leonard Bernstein, the “Rodzinski helped me in many ways—he would go composer.12 over scores with me and give me pointers.”6 During this period, Lee studied violin at the Cleveland Insti- In the mid-1940s, even as On the Town was still in tute of Music, a historically white conservatory, where its run, Lee was also on the rise within top-flight, pre- he was awarded a Ranney Scholarship and his primary dominantly white institutions of . He teacher was the famed violin virtuoso Joseph Fuchs.7 was one of the soloists in Vivaldi’s Concerto for Four Violins, performed in late February 1945 by the New Lee enlisted in the military in June of 1943, be- York City Symphony, conducted by Leopold Stokows- coming an “aviation cadet at the Tuskegee Army Air ki. Another violinist that evening was the renowned Field.”8 He was released early because of an injury Roman Totenberg, which signals the level of Lee’s and recruited for the pit orchestra of the all-black virtuosity.13 As segregation was challenged, interra- show Carmen Jones, which included a new libretto by cial networks began to form. In Lee’s case, Rodzinski

2 American Music Review Vol. XLIII, No. 1: Fall 2013 Everett Lee and the Racial Politics of Orchestral Conducting (cont.) probably recommended him to Stokowski. Based in him, he turned around and aimed for a higher rung on part in their shared Polish heritage, Stokowski had the ladder. been responsible for bringing Rodzinski to the United States as his assistant in 1925. Furthermore, when Taking matters into his own hands, Lee formed Rodzinski left Ohio in 1943 to become conductor of the Cosmopolitan Symphony Society, an interracial the , he hired Bernstein as his orchestra, in New York in 1947. Other outsider con- assistant conductor.14 ductors have implemented the same strategy, includ- ing in the 1930s and in Bernstein and Lee continued to work together after the 1980s. Lee’s Cosmopolitan Symphony included On the Town closed. In the summer of 1946, both Ev- “Americans of Chinese, Russian, Jewish, Negro, erett and Sylvia Lee attended , the summer Italian and Slavic origin,” as well as several female home of the Symphony Orchestra in the Berk- players.21 Women were also systematically excluded shire Mountains. “Lenny talked to Koussevitzky and I from American during this period. The got the Koussevitzky scholarship, and I was up at Tan- resounding success of the Cosmopolitan Symphony glewood,” Lee recalls, “and boy that was a wonderful demonstrated not only Lee’s musical gifts but also his experience.”15 There Lee not only studied conducting organizational skill and flair for attracting an audience. with Koussevitzky, but also worked with Boris Gold- The orchestra had a civil rights mission at its core, as ovsky in the opera department.16 Just as importantly, the Amsterdam News reported: he observed Bernstein prepare the American premiere of Peter Grimes by Benjamin Britten. The summer The working together of various races at Tanglewood was equally valuable for Sylvia Lee, for mutual sympathy and understanding who served as technical assistant to Goldovsky, which has been successfully accomplished in meant she helped coach singers and apprenticed with churches, choral groups and other en- one of the great opera directors of the day.17 From deavors, and this effort to combine highly late September through October 1946—right after the competent musicians in a grand orches- Tanglewood experience—Everett Lee played first vio- tral ensemble as a cultural venture de- lin for the New York City Symphony, which Bernstein serves the support and good will of every continued to conduct (through the 1947-48 season).18 faithful adherent to the principles of our But his engagement with the orchestra was limited. democracy.22 “I wish I could be playing with you,” Lee wrote to Bernstein, “but . . . it would be impossible for you to “My own group is coming along fairly well, but of release me when my promised show comes up. Of course there is no money in it as yet,” Lee wrote to course you understand how important that is with jobs Bernstein. “I hope to make it grow into something so scarce!”19 At some point in the late 1940s, Lee was good however, and it may be the beginning of break- also a staff violinist with the CBS Orchestra. ing down a lot of foolish barriers.”23 Musicians’ Local 802 assisted the Cosmopolitan Symphony by waiving Lee faced formidable obstacles. In an interview its rates for rehearsals. Lee had to pay union scale for decades later with the New York Amsterdam News, performances, however.24 The orchestra rehearsed in he recalled asking Rodzinski for an audition with the the basement of Grace Congregational Church in Har- New York Philharmonic. This occurred at some point lem through the aegis of its minister, Dr. Herbert King. between 1943 and 1947, when Rodzinski was the Sylvia Olden Lee was organist at the same church, and orchestra’s music director. “He was afraid to encour- her father James Clarence Olden was a Congregational age me to try because he didn’t want me to be hurt,” minister in Washington, D.C. Everett recalls that Lee told the Amsterdam News. “He knew that I would James Olden provided a crucial link between Grace not be accepted into the orchestra. This was one of the Congregational and the Cosmopolitan Symphony.25 factors which helped me decide to try conducting.”20 This episode offers a revealing glimpse of Lee’s re- The first concert of the Cosmopolitan Symphony silience: when told that an opportunity was closed to Society took place at the Great Hall of City College in

American Music Review Vol. XLIII, No. 1: Fall 2013 3 Everett Lee and the Racial Politics of Orchestral Conducting (cont.) Harlem on 9 November 1947. “A capacity audience” there, both from the Broadway world and that reacted with “enthusiasm and unstinted applause” classical world. And so Oscar said, ‘Ev- to this “cultural effort which has such historic impli- erett, come in here, I want to talk to you.’ cations,” reported the Amsterdam News.26 The con- He said, ‘Everett, we’ve got to explain cert blended standard European symphonic literature something to you.’ So we went into an- (Beethoven’s First Symphony) with an aria and recita- other room, and yeah it was at Rodgers’s tive from La Traviata performed by the black soprano home – apartment. He said, ‘You know, June McMechen. Five Mosaics by the African Ameri- Dick and I.’ Dick, you know, Richard. can composer Ulysses Kay received its premiere, ‘Dick and I have talked about you, and and Sylvia Olden Lee was the featured soloist for you know we have so many big shows Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A Minor (first move- going. We thought to bring you in on ment). one, but you would be the boss. We were going to, we had talked about putting you The Cosmopolitan Orchestra gave a notable concert on the road, sending you on the road with on May 21, 1948 at Town Hall, a midtown concert one of our big shows. But you’re too well facility noted for its egalitarian policies. The New York known. If a colored boy is the conductor, Times covered the event, which was unusual for the and we go into the South, we would lose, time for any concert of classical music that involved we would not be—they would deny our black musicians, praising Lee as a conductor “who coming in. But I want you to know, Ev- possesses decided talent” and the orchestra as a “gifted erett, that we had thought about you, and group.”27 Like Lee’s first concert, this one blended we had planned one of our big shows.30 European classics with a new work by Kay, Brief Elegy, and included black soloists. Concerts by the or- In other words, Lee had achieved enough success so ganization continued at Harlem churches, and another that his name would be recognized in Jim Crow ter- at the Great Hall of City College in 1952 yielded the ritory, and according to the warped racial logic of the orchestra’s “finest performance,” according to Nora day that meant he was too accomplished and well- Holt, classical music critic for the Amsterdam News. known to be hired. Described as “thrilling” by Holt, that event played to a “sold-out audience” of 2,100 “uptown music lovers.”28 More barriers appeared. Based on the success of his During this period, Lee conducted elsewhere as well, Town Hall concerts with the Cosmopolitan Symphony, including for the Boston Pops in July 1949, albeit as Lee approached , the foremost concert part of its “traditional Colored American Night.”29 manager of the day, hoping to get work as a guest conductor with established orchestras. Judson man- Navigating a career in the United States “was a aged the New York Philharmonic and the struggle,” Lee told me in an interview. He recalled a Orchestra, as well as other major American concert sobering conversation with the famed lyricist Oscar organizations and virtuosi. Sylvia Lee recalled what Hammerstein II: Everett told her about the interview: “Judson turned and said, ‘Oh, come in, young man. I’m reading these First as a violinist, that’s how I first made reviews. They are out of this world. You really have my name, made a splash. Made concert- something. But I might as well tell you, right now, I master of two orchestras, and then getting don’t believe in Negro symphony conductors. . . . No, on staff at CBS. . . . And then I began to you may play solo with our symphonies, all over this conduct, and naturally my name spread country. You can dance with them, sing with them. around like fire. And I remember when But a Negro, standing in front of a white symphony . . . Oscar Hammerstein had a big party, group? No. I’m sorry.”31 Everett reported to Sylvia and I don’t know whether it was at his that he was “stupefied,” adding that Judson concluded, home or Richard Rodgers’s home. And “I’m sorry, young man. I told the same thing to Dean so everybody in the musical world was Dixon.” Everett responded by saying, “Yes, Dean

4 American Music Review Vol. XLIII, No. 1: Fall 2013 Everett Lee and the Racial Politics of Orchestral Conducting (cont.) Dixon had to leave his country to be a man and a mu- Yet Lee still became an expatriate. Beginning in sician.” Judson then suggested that Everett consider 1957, he and Sylvia moved to Munich, where he going abroad. conducted the opera and founded the Amerika Haus Orchestra.39 That same year, Leonard Bernstein was In 1952, Everett and Sylvia Lee did just that, appointed conductor of the New York Philharmonic, receiving Fulbright fellowships to study in France, yielding a sharp contrast in the trajectory of their Germany, and Italy, and their departure marked the careers. In 1963 Lee became music director of the first stage in Everett’s career-in-exile. This strategy symphony orchestra in Norrköping, Sweden, south- was chosen by many African-American performers west of Stockholm.40 Dean Dixon had conducted the after World War II. When the Lee’s left the country, Gothenburg Symphony in Sweden from 1953 to 1960, the Cosmopolitan Sym- and Lee held his own phony came to an end.32 Swedish post for over a The couple returned to decade, finding Sweden the United States one to be a place where he year later in what turned could make music with- out to be a temporary out racial complications. step. In 1953, Everett was guest conductor In 1965, Symphony with the Louisville Or- of the New World was chestra, in what the New formed in New York York Times claimed to be City, and Lee became a “one of the first concerts central figure. An inter- in which a Negro has led racial orchestra, Sym- an orchestra of white Everett Lee conducting the Louisville Orchestra in 1953 phony of the New World 33 musicians.” The as published in Jet, October 1, 1953 essentially picked up concert was not part of where the Cosmopolitan the orchestra’s regular season but rather was billed as Symphony had left off. Out of eighty-eight “top musi- a “special” event, outside of the subscription series.34 cians,” it included thirty-six African Americans and thirty women.41 Initially, Everett Lee, , Other major breakthroughs took place for both and James DePriest were the main conductors.42 De- Everett and Sylvia Lee in the early 1950s. In 1953, Priest was the nephew of Marian Anderson, and Lewis Sylvia was hired by the Metropolitan Opera’s Kathryn was then married to mezzo-soprano , Turney Long Department, and she was credited as the with whom he collaborated professionally. Coleridge- first African American on the Met’s staff.35 As a result, Taylor Perkinson also became one of the organiza- Sylvia was in residence when Marian Anderson made tion’s principal conductors. When Lee returned to the her Metropolitan Opera debut. Both she and Everett U.S. to conduct the new orchestra in 1966, the New developed a close working relationship with Max York Times reported that the engagement marked “his Rudolph, a conductor and central figure in the Met’s first appearances in this country since he conducted for management. In 1955, another major development oc- the New York City Opera in 1956.”43 Once again, a curred when Everett conducted La Traviata at the New Harlem church provided an anchor for the orchestra— York City Opera, becoming “the first Negro conductor this time, the Metropolitan Community Church. to be engaged by the company,” according to the New York Times.36 He went on to conduct La Bohème with Lee made his debut with the New York Philhar- City Opera the following fall.37 In 1956, he reportedly monic as a guest conductor on 15 January 1976. He signed a contract with the National Artists Corpora- was then sixty years old, and the concert took place on tion, one of the most influential management compa- the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. Similar to pro- nies for American musicians.38 gramming of the Cosmopolitan Symphony, the concert included Sibelius’s Violin Concerto, Rachmaninoff’s

American Music Review Vol. XLIII, No. 1: Fall 2013 5 Everett Lee and the Racial Politics of Orchestral Conducting (cont.) Third Symphony, and Kosbro by the African American 7 Lee’s scholarship is mentioned in many newspaper articles, including composer . Harold Schonberg of the New “Give Reception for Newlyweds,” Chicago Defender, 26 February York Times gave Lee a positive if somewhat patron- 1944. izing review, stating that he “conducted a fine concert” and “made good music without bending over back- 8 “Pilot’s Wings are Sought by Violinist,” Chicago Defender, 19 June 1943. ward to impress.” While “a Philharmonic debut can be heady stuff,” Schonberg concluded sardonically, “Mr. 9 Nora Holt, “Everett Lee, First Negro Concert Meister, Soloist in Lee . . . refus[ed] to be drawn into the temptation to ‘Carmen Jones,’” New York Amsterdam News, 29 January 1944. give the audience cheap thrills.”44 This breakthrough for Lee occurred during the U.S. Bicentennial, when 10 Lee interview, 25 March 2009. awareness of supporting African-American perform- ers and composers was at an all-time high.45 Bernstein 11 Regarding Lee and Carmen Jones: “Violinist in ‘Carmen’ Hits was then the orchestra’s Laureate Conductor. for Another,” Chicago Defender, 13 May 1944; and “Everett Lee Youngest Conductor on Broadway,” Pittsburgh Courier, 3 June In the ensuing years, Lee has continued to have a 1944. Lee’s work with Carmen Jones is discussed in Annegret successful career working with orchestras around the Fauser, “‘Dixie Carmen’: War, Race, and Identity in Oscar Ham- world. During the 1940s and 1950s, when he built merstein’s Carmen Jones (1943),” Journal of the Society for his reputation as a conductor and stepped onto major American Music 4/2 (2010): 164. Regarding Lee and Porgy: Lee stages in Europe, American conductors were absent was reported as conducting the orchestra of Porgy “last week,” in from podiums in the United States, no matter what Constance Curtis, “New Yorker’s ,” New York Amsterdam their race. For a conductor of color, however, barriers News, 8 April 1944. defined the game. No prominent African American conductor of classical music from the generation born 12 Beth McHenry, “Everett Lee, First Negro Musician To Lead before 1925—not Dean Dixon, not Everett Lee—was Orchestra in Bway Play,” Daily Worker, 13 October 1945. permitted a sustained position on the playing field. Yet Lee resiliently created opportunities for himself, es- 13 “Stokowski Offers Concert Novelties,” New York Times, 27 sentially establishing his own league. February 1945.

14 The New York Times stated that Bernstein heard Lee conduct- Notes: ing Carmen Jones “and engaged him to conduct his musical, ‘On the Town’” (Ross Parmenter, “The World of Music: Season’s 1 This article is drawn from my forthcoming book, Bernstein Start,” New York Times, 31 August 1947). Also, an article in Meets Broadway: Collaborative Art in a Time of War (Oxford the Pittsburgh Courier (8 May 1948), “Everett Lee to Conduct University Press, to be published in 2014). Symphony: Town Hall Concert on May 21 Awaited,” credited Rodzinski with having “helped him [Lee] make useful contacts in 2 Vernon E. Jordan, Jr., “Orchestrated Discrimination,” New Pitts- the musical world.” burgh Courier, 7 December 1974. 15 Lee interview, 25 March 2009. 3 Much of the biographical information in this paragraph comes from Joseph M. Goldwasser, “Where There’s A Will, There’s Ever- 16 Wallace McClain Cheatham and Sylvia Lee, “Lady Sylvia ett Lee and Family,” Cleveland Call and Post, 10 November 1945. Speaks,” Black Music Research Journal 16/1 (Spring 1996): 201- 202. This interview was also published in Dialogues on Opera and 4 Ibid. the African-American Experience, ed. Wallace McClain Cheatham (The Scarecrow Press, 1997), 42-67. That same volume includes a 5 Everett Lee, interview with the author, 25 March 2009. terrific interview with Everett Lee (pp. 24-42).

6 “Everett Lee to Conduct Symphony: Town Hall Concert on May 17 “Violinist, Wife in Joint Recital,” Chicago Defender, 22 June 1946. 21 Awaited,” Pittsburgh Courier, 8 May 1948.

6 American Music Review Vol. XLIII, No. 1: Fall 2013 Everett Lee and the Racial Politics of Orchestral Conducting (cont.)

18 Lee is listed as first violin in programs from the week of 30 with Sylvia Olden Lee,” Fidelio Magazine, 7/1 (Spring 1998), September through the week of 28 October 1946 (The Program- http://www.schillerinstitute.org/fid_97-01/fid_981_lee_interview. Magazine of the New York City Center 4/4-4/9, Bernstein Collec- html, accessed 18 January 2013. The remaining quotations in this tion, Library of Congress, Box 335/Folder 3). paragraph come from the same interview.

19 Lee, letter to Bernstein (perhaps in 1947), Bernstein Collection, 32 “Plan ‘Bon Voyage’ Affair for Everett Lee and Wife,” New York Box 35/Folder 15. Amsterdam News, 13 September 1952.

20 Raoul Abdul, “Reading the Score: Conversation with Everett 33 “Negro to Direct in South: Everett Lee Will Conduct White Musi- Lee,” New York Amsterdam News, 8 October 1977. cians in Louisville Concert,” New York Times, 19 September 1953.

21 Regarding races and nationalities represented: “Everett Lee to 34 This information comes from the program for the Louisville Present Mixed Symphony Group,” New York Amsterdam News, concert, as conveyed by Addie Peyronnin, Operations Assistant, 25 October 1947. Regarding women: N.S. [Noel Straus], “Sym- Louisville Orchestra (email to the author, 18 March 2009). phony Group in Formal Debut,” New York Times, 22 May 1948. 35 Sylvia Lee recalled that the Kathryn Turney Long Department 22 “Everett Lee to Present Mixed Symphony Group.” did not allow women to work there during the main opera season, so Lee was employed for six weeks before the season and six 23 Lee, letter to Bernstein, undated; Bernstein Collection, Box 35/ weeks afterwards (Cheatham and Lee, 202). Folder 15. 36 “City Opera Engages Two Conductors,” New York Times, 10 24 The “cooperation” of Local 802 is noted in: “Everett Lee February 1955. Organizes Interracial Symphony,” New York Amsterdam News, 30 August 1947. Also Lee explained his arrangement with the 37 “New York City Opera Chores,” New York Times, 22 September 1955. union in an interview with me: “I asked the musician’s union if I could just get a bunch of musicians together. The union gave me 38 “Conductor,” New York Times, 29 April 1956. permission to rehearse these people. And of course with stipula- tions, there was no recordings, and if I were to have a concert, 39 “To Conduct UN Concert at Philharmonic Hall,” New York then I would have to, naturally they would have to be paid (28 Amsterdam News, 15 October 1966. March 2009). 40 Ross Parmenter, “The World of Music,” New York Times, 8 July 1962. 25 Everett Lee, interview with the author, 28 March 2009. 41 Sara Slack, “Symphony of the New World A Truly Integrated 26 “Cosmopolitan First Concert Wins Acclaim,” New York Am- Group,” New York Amsterdam News, 5 March 1966. sterdam News, 15 November, 1947. 42 “New World Symphony Will Play,” New York Amsterdam 27 N.S. [Noel Straus], “Symphony Group in Formal Debut.” News, 17 April 1965.

28 Nora Holt, “Cosmopolitan Symphony in its Finest Perfor- 43 Raymond Ericson, “Two Elek(c)tras Come to Town,” New York mance: Sold-Out Audience of 2,100 Acclaims Lee’s Production,” Times, 23 October 1966. In 1974, Lee became head conductor of New York Amsterdam News, 8 March 1952. the orchestra (Donal Henahan, “‘New and Newer Music’ Begins its Fourth Season,” New York Times, 29 January 1974). 29 “Guest Conductor for Boston Concert,” Chicago Defender, 2 July 1949. 44 Harold C. Schonberg, “Everett Lee Leads Philharmonic in Debut,” New York Times, 16 January 1976. 30 Lee interview, 28 March 2009. 45 For example, Columbia Records issued its important “Black 31 Everett Lee, as paraphrased by Sylvia Olden Lee, in “Dialogue Composers Series” between 1974 and 1979.

American Music Review Vol. XLIII, No. 1: Fall 2013 7 Institute News Jeffrey Taylor, Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center, CUNY

Fall 2013 represents our third electronic issue of Ameri- Cirque du Soleil.” In October she performed a lecture- can Music Review. I’m happy to report that the response recital on of Blind Tom Wiggins at Hollins Uni- to our move into cyberspace has generally been positive, versity in Virginia, and in November she gave a paper and we have been delighted by the possibilities for mul- titled “Music and Disability in the TV Series Glee” at the timedia use that have been opening up. Of course, we al- annual meeting of the American Musicological Society. ways welcome comments and suggestions (email or snail October also saw (hurray!) the publication of her A-R mail!). And I remind all our readers that hard copies are edition of Miriam Gideon’s 1958 opera Fortunato in the available on request, though these versions of course Recent Researches in American Music series. In October lack the Internet functionality of our online issues. our Graduate Assistant Whitney George presented a composition recital “Vignettes” at the CUNY Graduate Along with this mainstay of HISAM’s presence, Center, featuring electro-acoustic and chamber works we continue to offer a full slate of live events here at performed by The Curiosity Cabinet (with Whitney at Brooklyn College. On 23 October, our Advisory Board the podium). In addition she wrote original music for a member Guthrie P. Ramsey, Jr. introduced his new theatrical production titled A Hand in My Heart, which book The Amazing Bud Powell: Black Genius, Jazz in December enjoyed a five-day run at the Standard History, and the Challenge of Bebop (California, 2013) Toykraft in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. This fall season with a discussion of jazz, Afro-modernism, and mental also marked Whitney’s fourth year as artistic director health, topics closely linked to Powell’s life and career. and conductor of the Graduate Center’s Contemporary On 5 November, Arturo O’Farrill, who is currently Music Ensemble. Recently the group presented a con- leading the Brooklyn College Jazz Ensembles, offered cert titled Music of the American Theater that included a presentation on Latin jazz that included a typically Copland’s “Music for the Theater,” Seymour Shifrin’s exhilarating piano performance. And on the same day, “Satires of Circumstance” and a new work by Graduate producer, journalist and scholar Pat Thomas gave a Center composer Sarah Curzi. Finally, in November Di- look at the subjects of his recent volume Listen, Whitey!: rector Jeff Taylor was invited to join a panel on Theresa The Sounds of Black Power 1965-1975 (Fantagraphics, Bernstein, an unjustly neglected visual artist whose long 2012), a lavishly-illustrated treatment of a complex and life (she died in 2002, just two weeks shy of her 112th turbulent period in African American history. The book, birthday!) was filled with imaginative work that cast a incidentally, is accompanied by a CD of rare music and fascinating eye on New York’s social and cultural scene. spoken-word recordings, many unearthed by Thomas She was, for example, a lifelong fan of jazz and featured himself. Finally, on 13 November playwright and com- New York-based jazz musicians in many of her most im- poser Dan Shore, Assistant Professor at Xavier Univer- portant pieces. Her drawings and paintings are currently sity of Louisiana and CUNY Graduate Center alumnus, on view at the Graduate Center in an exhibit, curated by spoke on his opera Freedom Ride: Rosa Parks and the Distinguished Professor of Art History Gail Levin, that Civil Rights Movement. He discussed the complex pro- will tour a number of other US cities. cess of composing an opera for an all-black cast from his vantage point as a white professor at a historically black If an unfamiliar voice answers when you call the college, and the reception to his opera thus far. Institute, it is Evan Moskowitz, our new College As- sistant. Evan, a student at the CUNY Graduate Center, To paraphrase Garrison Keillor, it has been anything joined the HISAM staff this fall, and his interests in- but a quiet term for the staff of the Institute. In Novem- clude history of the avant-garde, mysticism in the 20th ber Senior Research Associate Ray Allen delivered a century, musical and literary modernism, and the music paper on Woody Guthrie’s Jewish/Coney Island songs of Giacinto Scelsi. Finally, we would like to welcome at the annual meeting of the American Studies Associa- Susan Tyler Hitchcock, Wiley’s daughter, as the newest tion. Research Associate Stephanie Jensen-Moulton had member of our Advisory Board. I have already been in a busy fall of guest lectures and recitals. In September she touch with Susan about future plans for the Institute, and gave the opening talk at Boston University’s / I look forward to her continued support and enthusiasm! series on the topic “Bodily Difference in

8 American Music Review Vol. XLIII, No. 1: Fall 2013 Don’t Shoot the Piano Player: The State of Vallenato in New York City1 Jorge Arévalo Mateus, Hunter College, CUNY & the Center for Traditional Music and Dance

Vallenato is Colombia’s lively, accordion-driven popu- its poetic foundation as symbols of Colombian iden- lar dance music with roots in the country’s costeño tity.5 Zuleta’s , the Vallenato Collective, performs (Atlantic coastal) rural communities. Traditional regularly throughout the city in venues such as Barbés vallenato ensembles consisted of the diatonic button in Brooklyn, La Terraza in Queens, and The Shrine in acordeón (accordion), guacharaca (stick scraper), and Manhattan. Despite his advocacy for vallenato’s preser- caja (small, single headed drum), while more commer- vation, Zuleta’s substitution of the genre’s traditionally cial, urban vallenato tropical groups have added electric central instrument—the diatonic button acordeón—with bass, keyboards, horns, and Afro-Cuban percussion electronic piano, provides a glimpse of the changes and (congas, timbales, and bongos) to their instrumentation.2 challenges young vallenato artists face in New York The music has a strong tradition of family practitioners, today. In breaking with vallenato’s standard ensemble with the Celedons, Oñates, and Zuletas standing out configuration, Zuleta’s approach raises questions that among vallenato’s musical dynasties. Since the 1980s, perpetuate ongoing debates about authenticity, innova- vallenato has become increasingly popular, so much tion, and the preservation of tradition. As a result, the so that presently, along with Colombian salsa, it is the Vallenato Collective is somewhat controversial, and most commercially successful and global Colombian although his vision seeks to expand upon standard mu- , overshadowing cumbia, champeta, and sical trademarks of traditional vallenato as exelimpified even Afro-Colombian rap.3 by the Zuletas, his methods are indicative of the genre’s musical, social, and cultural malleability. As a result of increased immigration since the early 1970s, vallenato tropical has become popular in New Another young from Bogotá who re- York City’s Colombian neighborhoods located in Jackson located in New York, accordionist Gregorio Uribe, Heights, East Elmhurst, Corona, and Astoria as well as also conducts experiments with vallenato, but with an sections of Brooklyn and neighboring New Jersey. None- entirely different orientation. Uribe adapts the tropical theless, there is mounting evidence that in addition to com- school of vallenato to a dance format. While mercial forms of vallenato, new experimental styles are he adheres to musical practices aligned more with the emerging in Colombian diasporic communities. Colombian costeño dance bands of the 1940s and 1950s that specialized in cumbia, his formal musical educa- In his popular son vallenata “Con la Misma Fuerza,” tion at the Berklee School of Music clearly influences Emiliano Zuleta Baquero (1912-2005), the renowned the dynamic, modern direction that his big band project patriarch of the Zuleta family dynasty, presents the is undertaking.6 As with Zuleta, Uribe reconfigures perspective of a man whose persistent and powerful vallenato tradition, leaning toward experimentation and love for a woman is not only redoubtable but also a innovation, particularly with respect to the band’s or- brash expression of his cockiness.4 In the ’s third chestrations and arrangements. And yet, with or without verse, an “old man” of fifty-nine years emphatically the diatonic button accordion, tradition and modernity are declaims his still robust health, affirming his ability to inextricably linked. Uribe and Zuleta are part of a recent compete on acordeón, throw down brilliant verses, and wave of Nueva Música Colombiana (NMC) or “Colombia sexually satisfy his woman. His refusal to yield to time, Nova,”7 the transnational movement of young Colombian his greatest adversary, and his unquenchable love for musicians entering global centers with proposals for new “Carmen Diaz” that drives his life, are evident in the music which draw from the rich cultural heritage of Co- song’s machismo lyric—arguably vallenato’s signature lombian music. feature. The elder Zuleta’s powerful sense of determi- In order to understand these recent trends in New nation, pride, and passion are also apparent in the work York’s vallenato scene, it is useful to consider the mu- of his great-grandnephew, Alejandro Zuleta. The young sic’s development over the past thirty years. With val- pianist, composer, and arranger continues the family’s lenato’s increasing fame and notoriety during the 1980s legacy and commitment to vallenato in New York. His and 1990s, due in part to the music’s association with strategic identification with the Zuleta lineage, in fact, Colombia’s booming drug trade, the incipient commer- seeks to maintain vallenato’s parranda aesthetics and cial vallenato music industry moved beyond national

American Music Review Vol. XLIII, No. 1: Fall 2013 9 The State of Vallenato in New York City (cont.) borders into the diaspora. In New York the music was groups however, such as Union de Oro, with singer well received by growing numbers of new Colombian Jhon Morales and ‘El Papi’ Rodriguez on accordion, arrivals. On the one hand, there were highly regarded and La Compañia Vallenata, with Roberto Camacho on professional vallenateros, such as Lisandro Meza, who vocals and Juan Carlos Castellar’s accordion, prefer to migrated to New York in an follow the mainstream vallenato attempt to establish a career, model. Interestingly, singer- only to return to Colombia. accordion pairings seem to thrive On the other hand, semi- particularly in the Paterson, New professional musicians such as Jersey area, where Roberto Carlo Eugenio Ortega y Los Macon- Toncel and Jesualdo Borrego, dos, a group from Long Island, for example, emulate popular were presented as authentic vallenato artists such as Felipe carriers of traditional vallenato Peláez and Manuel Julián, Peter folklore by cultural organiza- Manjarres, and Silvestre Dan- tions such as the Center for gon—the current romantic pop Traditional Music and Dance. stars. The artistic focus, then, Gregorio Uribe Big Band performs at BRIC House, for many of these young artists Los Macondos, which in- Brooklyn, New York, 12 October 2013 lies in the shift to the centrality cluded two of Ortega’s sons, Courtesy of Lilihouse Agency of the voice; that is, has had a somewhat amateur become the prominent marker of style of vallenato performance, but for Colombian and what is regarded traditional, at least in the urban space. non-Colombian audiences alike, the group seemed to have a sufficient modicum of vallenato roots authentic- There have also been significant changes with ity. In any case, Los Macondos certainly stood outside respect to clubs and venues where vallenato is per- of the commercial sphere.8 Vallenato in New York City, formed in New York. WKCR radio host Sadys Espitia in fact, has always had multiple and parallel trajectories, notes: “with the sale of Chibcha Night Club and [the] one auténtico (authentic) and one comercial (commer- closure of Melao [and Satalla] … [today] most groups cial), each with varying degrees of either folkoric and/or tend to play in smaller venues in Queens like Tantra modern attributes. Lounge or Terraza 7 … bigger clubs like LaBoom seem to just bring in recognized vallenato and salsa groups By the 1990s, vallenato was well ensconced in the from Colombia.”9 Whereas in the 1990s several small city, with several groups including Kadenas, J and clubs and bars along Roosevelt Avenue provided op- V Mix (Jíbaros y Vallenatos), Esencia Vallenato, La portunities for local amateurs to play, these are rather Fuerza Vallenata, and Impacto Vallenato playing regu- uncommon today. A few restaurants, such as El Fogon larly at clubs including S.O.B.s, Chibcha, and Satalla, Costeño, in Queens, continue to have “Vallenato Sun- the so-called “Temple of World Music.” Local acorde- days,” however these too are rare. And yet, in spite of onistas Dr. Ben Gary Harvey (of Kadenas) and Harold diminishing local spots, Espitia’s remarks nonetheless Rodriguez (of J and V Mix) even provided moments provide evidence of the constant transnational flow of of virtuosic brilliance. In fact, vallenato proliferated to vallenato music and musicians between New York and such an extent that during the 1990s, a local but short- Colombia. lived vallenato competition was started in Queens. This history reveals that vallenato in New York is Presently, the stalwart Foncho Castellar y sus not a new phenomenon. The recent emergence of artists Alegres remains the longest running active vallenato such as Gregorio Uribe and Alejo Zuleta signal transfor- band in New York, playing cumbia and vallenato in mations taking place within the genre in terms of local the older Baranquillero style. Other older groups led performance content, context, and production. Uribe by Jorge Meza, Yumbel Donado Jr. and Pedrito Rogers stakes a claim for dance floor cumbiambas while Zuleta continue to perform regularly in similar fashion. Younger emphasizes the melodic narratives of the parrandas.

10 American Music Review Vol. XLIII, No. 1: Fall 2013 The State of Vallenato in New York City (cont.) Yet both artists blend traditional practices and older the “spirit of creating music in the moment.” Jazz is not conventions with cosmopolitan and urban sensibilities. indigenous to Colombia, at least not like the vallenato For example, the percussion instruments that supply Zuleta grew up with, but in New York he has been able vallenato’s rhythmic underpinning and drive—caja to make intercultural connections between the two mu- and guacharaca—remain front and center in Zuleta’s sical forms. When he arrived and began to play with lo- Vallenato Collective. Yet the band’s harmonic range is cal jazz musicians, he often listened to them talk about wider, with expanded chord voicings that differ from improvisation, eventually realizing that he had heard those of vallenato’s standard harmonic I – V patterns. similar things from his father. As a result, “Jazz was Zuleta’s insertion of electric piano in a manner that uses like vallenato for me: traditional”—that is, a creative methods of jazz improvisation is particularly original, process developed from a deep relationship and con- although problematic for some listeners who prefer the nection to tradition. His mission is to demonstrate respect traditional diatonic button accordion. Afro-Colombian for that tradition while preserving its structural and cultural bassist Diego Obregón, a talented multi-instrumentalist elements: poetry, parranda, and the ritmos (rhythms). To that hailing from Colombia’s Pacific coast, contributes end, Zuleta collaborates with New York experimentalists as syncopated, swinging bass lines that differ from the well as Colombian masters such as Hugo Carlos Granados, contrapuntal, staccato bass lines heard typically in val- another accordion superstar and current “King of Kings.”11 lenato tropical. Meanwhile guitarists Sebastián Cruz and Alejandro Florez further compliment the Vallenato Gregorio Uribe’s project (GUBB) is even less tra- Collective by playing extended melodic lines that are ditional, demonstrating how modern arrangements and interwoven through the piano’s harmonic progressions. performance techniques are deployed to emphasize val- lenato’s popular entertainment value, while, at the same Objections from traditionalists often seem to be more time, employed costeño music’s dynamic rhythms. about the absence of accordion in Zuleta’s group rather Uribe’s presentation—“dancing to the beat while rock- than his inclusion of piano. Speaking about the way he ing out on his accordion”12—is reminiscent of popular uses piano, Zuleta explains: “The piano offers more Latin big of the 1950s and 1960s, such as melodic and harmonic possibilities … it is less limited Tito Puente, Frank “Machito” Grillo, and the telegenic than accordion, even though accordionists are always Desiderio Alberto Arnaz (Desi Arnaz).13 Moreover the altering their instruments … piano adds chromaticism, GUBB reflects the current trend of ensembles such as its pitch range is much wider Arturo O’Farrill’s Afro Latin and the kind of chords I can Jazz Orchestra, Pablo Mayor’s play are more varied … a Folklore Urbano, Pablo Aslan’s certain technical facility al- Avantango, and Pedro Gi- lows me to play more rapidly, raudo’s Expansions Big Band, giving [the music] a different all of whom fuse the traditional kind of expressiveness.”10 and popular styles of their Moreover, Zuleta indicates respective nations with big band that jazz feels “natural” to jazz. A trained drummer and him, which he attributes to percussionist, Uribe is espe- being raised around val- cially aware of vallenato’s gritty lenato. Though this follows rhythms and their multi-sited a different logic, he also Eugenio Ortega y Los Macondos, placement: “[I am] trying to believes that vallenato and Riverside Accordion Festival, 2009 showcase the innate “funkiness” jazz are somehow related. Courtesy of the Center for Traditional Music and Dance that many of these grooves Similar to jazz, vallenato have.” For example, he explains has a standard repertoire that provides melodic and that rhythms used in an original composition entitled structural form that enable individual interpretation and “Caribe Contigo” are “tambora-tambora and puya, also improvisation. Vallenato tradition, therefore, lies in the known as jalao or son corrido or berroche, depending preservation of improvisation, or what Zuleta considers [on] where in the costa you are [from].”14

American Music Review Vol. XLIII, No. 1: Fall 2013 11 The State of Vallenato in New York City (cont.) How then does Uribe achieve the modern “funki- Notes: ness” that he strives for? One method is by highlighting harmonic modes (lydian, mixolydian, dorian), which as 1 The title of this essay refers to Francois Truffaut’s nouvelle he notes, “are found on some traditional tunes.” In ad- vague gangster filmShoot the Piano Player (1960), described dition, Uribe’s arrangements generally borrow from big as part thriller, part comedy, part tragedy. The film relates the band jazz scoring methods—that is, with section writing adventures of mild-mannered piano player Charlie (Charles using intervals of fourths, widely spread harmonies, and Aznavour) as he stumbles into a criminal underworld and a orchestral tensions and releases created through careful- whirlwind love affair (http://www.criterion.com/films/764-shoot- ly applied timbres and dynamics. Charismatically front- the-piano-player, accessed 15 September 2013). This essay is ing his big band on both vocals and vallenato accordion, excerpted from a work in progress by the author. Uribe highlights bombastic big band arrangements of composi- 2 Vallenato can be grouped into tions based on earlier iterations three main stylistic categories, each of Colombian música costeña.15 associated with a distinct area: He recasts vallenato through vallenato-negroid (black vallenato, smooth pop vocals, swinging or Afro-), vallenato- modern big band scoring, jazz ribereiño (river valleys vallenato, or soloing, use of traditional and sabaneros/savannahs) and vallena- modern percussion instruments, to-vallenato (central vallenato) and the ever-present, ornamen- from the towns and valleys located tal accordion flourishes, which, near Valle de Upar (or Valledupar), in this case, link vallenato the so-called birthplace of the style. tradition with its experimental See Tomás Darío Gutierrez Hinojo- modern variants. sa, Cultura vallenata: Origen, teo- Alejandro Zuleta’s Vallenato Collective ría y pruebas (Santa Fé de Bogotá: performs at The Shrine, NYC, 2013 Over the past three de- Plaza & Janes, 1992), for data about Courtesy of Alejandro Zuleta cades vallenato has increas- the “origins” of vallenato, including ingly become woven into New York’s contemporary interviews of musicians and from important vallenato global soundscape. Along with Mexican corrido sing- families. ers, Chinese erhu fiddlers, West Indian steel-pan drum- mers, and Senegalese kora players, you might find 3 Former telenovela actor and musician Carlos Vives is often cred- yourself listening to the Tapiero brothers playing classic ited for vallenato’s popularization. Vives’ brand of vallenato, while vallenatos of Rafael Escalona, Alejo Duran, or the Zule- still popular, is generally aligned with rock and pop. More recently tas, as they busk their way through NYC subways. Or, it has been bypassed in favor of vallenato tropical, currently the in a Lower East Side club you might encounter Alejan- mainstream favorite associated with singers like Jorge Celedón. dro Zuleta’s most recent project, Gate 4, which presses the outer limits of vallenato experimentation even fur- 4 The object of Zuleta’s affection is Carmen Diaz from Villan- ther. Traditional genres provide new avenues for indi- ueva, a small costeño town near Valledupar. Emiliano Zuleta is vidual creativity. Vallenato’s varied pathways are evident renowned for writing vallenatos, including the classic “La gota in New York and highlight the genre’s pivoting gateway as fría,” “Carmen Díaz,” “El indio Manuel María,” “El regreso de artists enter and engage in transcultural and intercultural Carmen,” “Mis hijos,” “La enfermedad de Emiliano,” and “Vil- musical exchanges that continue the transformation of lanueva.” tradition and modern vallenato performance practice. 5 In the vallenato universe, the Zuletas are renowned for their songwriting, lyrical invention, powerful vocals, intensely emo- tional performances, and close adherence to vallenato’s stylis- tic musical features. In addition to the elder Emiliano Zuleta, Poncho, Ivan, and Emiro Zuleta (Alejandro’s father) perpetuate

12 American Music Review Vol. XLIII, No. 1: Fall 2013 The State of Vallenato in New York City (cont.) traditional vallenato song texts and poetics as well as the general forms and structures that define the genre. See Jorge Arévalo The H. Wiley Hitchcock Institute Mateus, “The Colombian Costeño Musicians of the New York for Studies in American Music Metropolitan Region: A Manifestation of Urban Vallenato” (M.A. Thesis, Hunter College, CUNY, 1998). Parrandas are informal Jeffrey Taylor, Director socio-musical gatherings where sung and improvised verses, in- Ray Allen, Senior Research Associate cluding coplas/couplets and décimas, are performed in a kind of Stephanie Jensen-Moulton, Research Associate duel or competition known as piquerías. Parrandas can also refer to the festive atmosphere of the gatherings. Whitney E. George, Graduate Fellow Evan Moskowitz, Administrative Assistant 6 Both Zuleta and Uribe are trained musicians from Bogotá, with Jennifer CHJ Wilson, Website Manager formal backgrounds. Uribe majored in percus- sion and jazz arranging at Berklee College of Music in Boston. Advisory Board: Zuleta holds an M.M. from New York Universtiy where he George Boziwick, Chief, Music Division, The New York Public Library for studied jazz with Ralph Alessi, composition with Gil Goldstein, the Performing Arts and film scoring with Mark Suozzo. He holds a B.A in music Susan Tiler Hitchcock composition from Universidad Javeriana. (http://www.alejandro- Richard Crawford, Distinguished Professor emeritus, University of zuletamusic.com/bio/, accessed 19 October 2013). Michigan George Cunningham, Chair, Department of Africana Studies, Brooklyn 7 The term “Colombia Nova” was coined by Sadys Rodrigo College Espitia, the host of WKCR’s Sonidos Colombianos weekly radio Samuel A. Floyd, Jr., Director emeritus, Center for Black Music Research, broadcast (89.9 FM, ) and an amateur val- Columbia College Chicago lenato acordeonista. Ellie M. Hisama, Professor of Music, Columbia University Tania León, Distinguished Professor of Music, Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center, CUNY 8 For more on Los Macondos and vallenato’s introduction to New Carol J. Oja, William Powell Mason Professor of Music, Harvard York in the late 1970s-early 1980s, see Arévalo Mateus (1998). University Ursula Oppens, Distinguished Professor of Music, Brooklyn College and 9 Sadys Espitia, Jr., interview with author, 13 October 2013. the Graduate Center, CUNY Katherine Preston, David N. & Margaret C. Bottoms Professor of Music, 10 Alejandro Zuleta, interview with author, 2 October 2013. The College of William and Mary Guthrie P. Ramsey, Jr., Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Term Professor of 11 In addition to yearly winners of the crown, every ten years a Music, University of Pennsylvania King of Kings is chosen from among the winners of the pre- Judith Tick, Matthews Distinguished University Professor, Northeastern University ceding decade. The selected artist is awarded with La Pilonera Mayor prize, the highest possible award for a vallenato musician (http://www.colombia.travel, accessed 26 October 2013). American Music Review ISSN 1943-9385 Volume XLIII, Number 1 Fall 2013 12 Quoted from Uribe’s Facebook events promotion page (https://www. Editors...... Ray Allen and Jeffrey Taylor facebook.com/events/653285164702434/, accessed 5 November 2013). Managing Editor...... Whitney E. George Contributing Editors...... Benjamin Bierman 13 Desi Arnaz’s television orchestra was in residence at the ficti- Ellie M. Hisama tious yet aptly named Tropicana Club of the I Love Lucy show. Stephanie Jensen-Moulton Carol J. Oja Production Assistant...... Evan Moskowitz 14 Gregorio Uribe, interview with author, 5 November 2013. AMR is published in the Fall and Spring. Copyright 2013 by the H. Wiley Hitchcock Institute for Studies in American Music, Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, 2900 Bedford Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11210. 15 Música costeña is also known as “música tropical.” See Peter Tel: 718-951-5655 Wade, Music, Race, and Nation, Música Tropical in Colombia. Email: [email protected] (University of Chicago Press, 2000). Website: www.hisam.org

American Music Review Vol. XLIII, No. 1: Fall 2013 13 New York Improviser-Composers and the Politics of Multiplicity Amanda L. Scherbenske, Wesleyan University Lower Manhattan and more recently Brooklyn have The generation of improviser-composers active in hosted manifold artistic movements.1 They have New York since the early 2000s has taken up ranks in served as a stage for the literary Bohemians of the late this tradition of boundary erosion, with varying re- the nineteenth century; the Tin Pan Alley musicians of lationships to its original political motivations. They the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; the regularly traverse myriad art and cultural scenes and Dada artists of the 1910s and 1920s; the Abstract Ex- to engage complex entanglements of sounds in their pressionists of the 1940s; the Beat writers and bebop- musical practices.3 Mark Slobin suggests the term pers of the post-war period; the free jazz musicians, “musical multiplicity” to cope with, “the overwhelm- Fluxus artists and neo-Dadaists of the 1960s; the new ing interest in … multiple-source, multiple-leveled wave, punk, “Downtown,” and hip hop scenes of the music-making.”4 He observes that while today’s 1970s and 1980s; and the Radical Jewish Culture situation resembles that of the past, “the action is movement of the 1990s. A younger more ramified, multidimensional, and generation of improviser-composers volatile than ever.”5 In the case stud- began their careers in Lower East ies that follow, I use multiplicity to Side venues including Tonic and the encompass the musical, personal, and Knitting Factory around the early political investments of this genera- 2000s; nowadays, they perform tion of improviser-composers. throughout New York, its surround- ing areas, and beyond. It is this Throughout her life Judith Berk- generation of improviser-composers son has engaged musical multiplicity. with whom I am primarily con- At an early age, her father taught her cerned here. the intricacies of Jewish prayers and blessings, and she studied Western Contextualizing these young classical piano and . musicians and their music requires Later, her teacher Joe Maneri at the reflecting on artistic movements New England Conservatory of Mu- that unfolded inside and outside sic (NEC) encouraged her to pursue of New York half a century all that piqued her interest, Judith Berkson ago. Starting in the late 1950s Courtesy of Judith Berkson including jazz: “[Maneri] just said African-American collectives [that] you could do it all. I mean why and individuals active in experimental musics regu- can’t you be well versed in a variety of musics, if you larly contested musical essentialism according to race. wanted to; you should.”6 The principles she learned Midwestern and Western collectives such as the As- from Maneri guided her formative years in New York. sociation for the Advancement of Creative Musicians She developed an eclectic solo show at her neighbor- (AACM), Union of God’s Musicians and Artists As- hood Brooklyn haunt, Barbès. These performances cension (UGMAA) and Black Artists Group (BAG), culminated in the 2010 ECM release, Oylam. along with individuals including Sun Ra, Wadada Leo Smith, and Anthony Braxton, sought to move beyond Oylam gives expression to Berkson’s meticulous genre circumscription and challenge racial stereo- study of Jewish music, German Lieder, Second Vien- types. They did so, in part, by favoring an egalitarian nese School atonality, and jazz. She insists that while aesthetic that made use of varied musical resources. the album contents are eclectic, they are unified by Many members of these collectives and individuals a personal sensibility: “It’s not just like a variety eventually found their way to New York. Over the show… [it has] a certain avant-garde edge to it … [it’s next several decades musicians active in the M-Base an] economy of playing in kind of space and mood.”7 collective, the “Downtown” scene, the Vision Festival, She illustrates her aesthetic in the way she introduces and the Radical Jewish Culture movement, invested in and arranges material: she precedes the Yiddish song similar ideals of musical inclusion.2 with a brief microtonal improvisation and adapts

14 American Music Review Vol. XLIII, No. 1: Fall 2013 New York Improviser-Composers (cont.) Schubert’s classical standard “Der Leiermann” to an in- Berkson talks about music in general terms, but the strumentation more common to jazz or rhythm and . reality of her early experience was that she performed exclusively Jewish-identified and Western classical Berkson’s compositions “Ahavas Oylam” and music. Her studies at NEC marked the first time in her “Inside Good Times” give voice to a range of tech- life that she explored music on her own terms, a direc- niques, styles and contexts. Whereas “Ahavas Oylam” tion she would continue to pursue in New York. is largely tonal and sung in Hebrew, “Inside Good Times” is largely pantonal and sung in English. They Berkson initially began to develop a solo show differ in performance practice, too: Berkson performs in part because she struggled to run her own band. “Ahavas Oylam” with lots of vibrato and ornamenta- Shortly after moving to New York she formed a quar- tion, while she sings “Inside Good Times” without tet to perform her compositions. She later dissolved vibrato. She sings with melisma and largely moves the ensemble because, “I think I was trying to recon- stepwise in “Ahavas Oylam”; in contrast, she fre- cile this idea of being a jazz musician, and wanting to quently employs great leaps in pitch in “Inside Good be that, but really not being that.”11 Although she had Times.” Her rare combination of skills and blend of training in jazz at NEC, she had more practice-based esoteric materials make her one-of-a-kind even within experience in Western classical and Jewish music. the vast expanse of New York art worlds. Slobin proposes that belonging is a “complex act” dependent upon degree of commitment to a particular If we assess multiplicity based on the performance of expressive cultural affiliation and, “a choice to follow eclectic styles, we may say facilely that Berkson per- up an affinity.”12 Berkson’s pursuit of her solo project forms Jewish music, Western classical music, and jazz. Oylam was initially motivated by a sense of disbelong- If, however, we resituate the discussion vis-à-vis her rela- ing among jazz communities. I speak of disbelonging tionship to those styles, the conversation conjures person- because although Berkson made inroads into the jazz al and political implications. Berkson relayed to me that community, she ultimately felt that she did not fit in upon moving to New York she did not tell people that she with her jazz peers. performed Jewish music because she did not want to be relegated exclusively to it.8 Her desire to be understood It is out of just such a discussion of belonging, and on her own terms resembles the political ambitions of the disbelonging, that I turn to the practices of drummer- AACM, UGMAA and BAG, among others. The motiva- composer Tyshawn Sorey. Sorey was born and raised tions espoused by elder African American improviser- in Newark, New Jersey. As a toddler he and his father composers, however, differ considerably from that of a fashioned toy drum sets out of pots, pans and dis- white Jewish woman from Boston. carded boxes. When he was around four years old he plunked out church hymns on a keyboard in four-part On one hand, Berkson’s experience mirrors the harmony by ear. He learned trombone, and later, drum AACM’s desire to, “move beyond ethnic particular- set through his public school music program. As a ism toward the recognition of a multicultural, multi- high school student Sorey delved into recordings of ethnic base, with a variety of perspectives, histories, Charles Mingus, Cecil Taylor, Anthony Braxton, and traditions, and methods.”9 On the other, she seems Wayne Shorter and soon began to write music in the motivated more by her upbringing and leadership ex- style of these composers. He studied classical trom- perience than by greater social and political currents. bone and jazz drum performance at William Paterson Music was a compulsory part of her formative years: University from 1999 to 2004. While a college stu- dent he started a professional career as a drummer, [Music] was just something that I did … performing throughout New York and Europe. He I could never quit piano: that conversa- immersed himself in compositions by Anton Webern, tion would never exist. I couldn’t quit my Karlheinz Stockhausen, Christian Wolff, and Milton family band: that doesn’t exist. I can’t not Babbitt. At Anthony Braxton’s encouragement he be- sing in the temple: that choice doesn’t ex- gan to write music inclusive of all his interests. ist. It was just something that we did.10

American Music Review Vol. XLIII, No. 1: Fall 2013 15 New York Improviser-Composers (cont.) Sorey currently works across art worlds and per- measures. In addition, he provides an alternate way to feel the forms multiple idioms, particularly when viewed time—in this case as triple meter—by activating a high hat diachronically. As a teenager he played organ jazz jingle every five beats. nearly every Tuesday at the Peppermint Lounge near his hometown of Newark. Throughout his twenties he New York/Copenhagen embraces multiplicity. Yet toured the European jazz festival circuit with Steve for Sorey, an African American man, the “putative jazz Coleman, Dave Douglas, Butch Morris, and Michele label” lingers.15 From 2009-2011 he attended graduate Rosewoman. He has recently added klezmer to his school in composition at Wesleyan University. He sub- performance palette. He plays the traditional klezmer sequently applied to doctoral programs in composition drumming iterations he learned from canonical re- at two prestigious American universities. He was ac- cordings and from improvising cepted and matriculated to Columbia extended percussive passages University; the other school rejected with Frank London’s Shekhi- him. A tenured professor at the latter nah Big Band. Sorey has never institution wrote in a personal email performed at any of the Jazz at to Sorey that he had expected him to Lincoln Center events, but his submit more “jazz” compositions, association with the International and that had he done so he would Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) as have been a stronger candidate. The an ICElab “collaborator” has led pieces that Sorey submitted, how- him to the stage of this midtown ever, were ones he had written for concert bastion. In the summer of the ensembles Fieldwork, Paradoxi- 2013 he performed his composi- cal Frog, Sorey-Neufeld-Morgan and tion, New York/Copenhagen, with ICE; all but ICE have had greater ICE for Lincoln Center’s Mostly visibility within the jazz worlds than Mozart Festival. classical or new music ones. The works he selected all demonstrated Sorey brings together a host his diverse, boundary-crossing musi- of interests and ideas in New cal interests that include improvisa- York/Copenhagen.13 He repeat- tion as well as concepts of time that edly listened to recordings of explore rhythmic cognition, tuplets, the Ethiopian saxophonist Gé- layered cycles, and rhythmic syn- tatchèw Mèkurya and cantors Tyshawn Sorey chronicity.16 Courtesy of Amanda Scherbenske Josef (Yossele) Rosenblatt (1882–1933) and Leib Glantz Today Sorey faces obstacles simi- (1898–1964) as compositional preparation, taking har- lar to those encountered by the founders of AACM monic inspiration from the Ethiopian mode anchihoy forty-eight years ago. Although he crosses genres and the Jewish modes mi sheberakh and freygish, and and traverses new music and jazz art worlds, he was rhythmic inspiration from the performers’ distinctive quite literally rejected by one of America’s preemi- styles.14 J.S. Bach’s Violin Sonatas and Partitas (BWV nent institutions of higher education for not meeting 1001-1006) are brought to bear in the violin bowings racially essentialist expectations. I am reminded here and phrasing. Finally, Sorey demonstrates his long- of Appadurai’s “certain fundamental disjunctures time fascination with rhythmic perception. He loosely between economy, culture and politics.”17 A discus- bases the meter of the third movement on a terkisher sion of boundary erosion and multiplicity is not about (a klezmer genre in duple meter), reconceiving it as artistic and cultural flows for Sorey; it is, rather, about 15/16 (realized as 7 + 8/16). This gives the feeling of artistic and cultural networks disjointed by personal a duple meter with a slight hiccup effect. By emphasiz- prejudice at the micro level, and, disciplined structures ing beat eight of each measure he produces a modified back of inequality at the macro level. beat (common to jazz and related styles) over every two

16 American Music Review Vol. XLIII, No. 1: Fall 2013 New York Improviser-Composers (cont.) Multiplicity, then, is expressed through diversity tion, University of California, San Diego, 2003) and George of musical materials, as well as undergirded by indi- Lewis, A Power Stronger than Itself: The AACM and American vidual histories, markers of identity, and expressions Experimental Music ( Press, 2008), for a of belonging. In spite of Berkson’s ostensible Jewish critique of “Downtown.” lineage, heritage alone explains neither musical ex- pression nor motivation. Instead, multiplicity evolves 3 See my forthcoming “Multiplicity and Belonging among New over a lifetime’s worth of experiences and aesthetics. York City Improviser-Composers, 2000-2011” (Ph.D. disserta- Affinity groups, too, do not fully speak to multiplicity; tion, Wesleyan University, 2014) for a thorough discussion of this among improviser-composers’ networks, genre is more generation of improviser-composers. significant for its residual presence within institutional structures than in ground-level music-making and cre- 4 Mark Slobin, “Musical Multiplicity: Emerging Thoughts,” Year- ative exploration. Sorey’s performance of jazz, new mu- book for Traditional Music 39 (2007): 108. sic, and klezmer, and his appearance at venues connected to both jazz and new music, however, do not erase broader 5 Ibid., 113. distinctions upheld by America’s bifurcated and, ultimate- ly, racialized depiction of its musics and musicians. 6 Judith Berkson, interview with author, 14 December 2012.

Still, Slobin’s work provides a starting point for the 7 Judith Berkson, interview with author, 7 November 2009. sort of willed affiliations present among improviser- composers’ networks. His recognition that “[a] choice 8 Field notes, 29 March 2009. to follow up an affinity leads to belonging,” involves a “complex act” dependent upon the level of commit- 9 George Lewis, “Experimental Music in Black and White: The ment to a particular expressive cultural affiliation.18 AACM in New York, 1970-1985,” in Uptown Conversation: The New This generation of improviser-composers forges Jazz Studies, edited by Robert G. O’Meally, Brent Hayes Edwards, unique relationships to an African American musical and Farah Jasmine Griffin (Columbia University Press, 2004), 52. history that embraces musical inclusion. Their per- formance of multiplicity is ultimately shaped by their 10 Berkson, interview, 7 November 2009. relationship and sense of connectedness to the music cultures and histories from which their varied resourc- 11 Berkson, interview, 14 December 2012. es stem. Multiplicity among New York improviser- composers, then, forces us to reevaluate any proffers 12 Mark Slobin, Subcultural Sounds: Micromusics of the West that it is, in fact, benign. Rather, when we speak of (Wesleyan University Press, 1993), 56. multiplicity, we must really speak of a politics of mul- tiplicity that takes into account America’s racialized 13 See http://iceorg.org/digitice/detail/tyshawn-sorey-new-york- and gendered history of musics and musicians. copenhagen-2013#.Um2bY7S9VUQ

14 Tyshawn Sorey, personal communication with author, 28 October 2013. Notes: 15 Lewis, “Experimental Music in Black and White,” 67. 1 For my purposes Lower Manhattan is defined as below 28th Street. The majority of improviser-composers with whom I have 16 Tyshawn Sorey, personal communication with author, 23 Sep- worked live in Brooklyn, which now represents an important site tember 2013. for the performance of experimental musics. 17 Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of 2 This version of the “Downtown” scene largely centered on the Globalization (University of Minnesota Press, 1996), 221. Knitting Factory’s 47 East Houston Street and 74 Leonard Street locations. See Michael Dessen, “Decolonizing : Scenes 18 Slobin, Subcultural Sounds, 56. from the Late Twentieth Century United States.” (PhD disserta-

American Music Review Vol. XLIII, No. 1: Fall 2013 17 Reading Jazz Recordings Matthew K. Carter, CUNY Graduate Center The series Oxford Studies in Recorded Jazz currently idealization of live recordings was especially common consists of four volumes: Keith Jarrett’s The Köln within the cultural milieu in which The Köln Con- Concert by Peter Elsdon, The Studio Recordings of cert was widely consumed and acclaimed. The ECM the Miles Davis Quintet, 1965-68 by Keith Waters, label—and producer Manfred Eicher in particular— Benny Goodman’s Famous 1938 Jazz aimed to capitalize on this idealization, and to “imbue Concert by Catherine Tackley, and Louis Armstrong’s [the record] with qualities of liveness” (Elsdon, 10). Hot Five and Hot Seven Recordings by Brian Harker.* In the preface to the series, editor Jeremy Barham Jarrett’s seemingly mystical improvisational aes- writes that the collection “offers fresh perspectives thetic was a selling point to his fans in the 1970s, and on both well-known and neglected jazz repertoire,” garnered him crossover fandom from other genres. To and aims to “develop the subtle critical languages and further create a sense of immediacy and liveness on vocabularies necessary to do full justice to the com- the album, mediating factors including the album cov- plex expressive, structural, and cultural dimensions of er (a photograph of Jarrett seated contemplatively at recorded jazz performance.” the piano bench, head down into his chest, seemingly in prayer), track listing (organized into two “Parts” One of the central issues permeating jazz scholar- rather than song titles), and Jarrett’s ubiquitous vocal- ship, and indeed this series, is how to properly scruti- izations throughout the performance are all contribut- nize recordings of a music that is prized for its ephem- ing factors to the listener’s ability to engage with the eral, spontaneous performance aesthetic, especially recording on a personal, immediate level. It is in this those recordings that are widely recognized as canoni- way, Elsdon proposes, that the recorded product func- cal texts. Moreover, the efficacy of transcriptions and tions as artifice, somewhat disguising the fact that it the merit of their analyses is a hotly debated topic. has been subjected to these mediated processes. The authors in this series are sensitive to these issues, and all provide a nuanced close reading of transcribed Elsdon’s analyses illustrate the ways in which jazz performances within the larger social and histori- Jarrett’s solo piano style evolved in the years preced- cal contexts in which these recordings were created, ing the Cologne recording, and highlight underlying mediated, and received. formal structures that ground much of Jarrett’s perfor- mative decisions, as well as his proclivity for diatonic In Keith Jarrett’s The Köln Concert (Oxford, harmony and his extensive use of “groove” passages 2013), Peter Elsdon explores the mediation of Jar- to navigate in and out of improvisatory sections. It is rett’s live performance in his discussions of Jarrett’s groove passages that Els- through the lens of the don’s analyses really shine. He critically traces the path personal listening expe- of groove through its general musical qualities, its use in rience. He notes that a boogie-woogie piano styles, and Jarrett’s earlier adaptions recording of a live jazz of the technique. Finally, he demonstrates how Jarrett performance often car- employs groove in The Köln Concert, for which he offers ries with it the cachet a number of possible expressive interpretations. of being an authentic, immediate representa- In terms of analytical artistry, Keith Waters’s The tion of the moment-to- Studio Recordings of the Miles Davis Quintet, 1965- moment improvisational 68 (Oxford, 2011) is the most exhaustive, instructive, process, unencumbered and impressive in the series, and a new seminal work by the revisions and edi- in Davis scholarship. Considering the complexity tions of record producers of this group’s compositions, improvisations, group and engineers. Elsdon interactions, treatments of form, meter (and hyperme- rightly points out that recordings of live performances ter), and harmony, Waters’s analytical prose is surpris- are subject to the same studio processes, but that this ingly cogent. He abstains from a single analytical

18 American Music Review Vol. XLIII, No. 1: Fall 2013 Reading Jazz Recordings (cont.) methodology, and instead adopts a malleable ap- and 1999 CD releases. In doing so, she excavates an proach that draws on both familiar and novel analyti- intricate reception history of the music, considering cal models, all tethered to the equally pliable musical the inter-generational audiences at whom the concert aesthetic of the band. and its subsequent releases on record were aimed, as well as the shifting historiographic modalities within Waters is also well-versed in the relevant literature which critics were writing. Her literature review is on the band and its individual members. He eschews coupled with an examination of the recording’s media- the uninformed histori- tion through production design, cover/sleeve packag- cal narrative that presup- ing, original and modified program notes, inclusion poses Davis’s autonomy and exclusion of audience noise and responses. All are in forging musical direc- succinctly summarized in provocative but easily digest- tion, and clears up the ible prose. misconception that this band worked similarly to Tackley’s musical analysis in “Part II” (which Davis’s previous quintet, accounts for the bulk of the book), however, is a which privileged first takes lackluster component in her study. Every track on in the studio. The avail- the recording is studied to some degree, and much of ability of alternate takes, these analyses draw from Tackley’s personal tran- in-studio dialogue, and scriptions—an assiduous undertaking on her part to be first-hand accounts by the sure. Yet much of what the reader evinces from these musicians themselves offer conclusions is disproportionate to the time, work, and valuable insight into the space devoted to their presentation. At times, Tack- quintet’s experimental studio processes. By revising ley misses opportunities to tease out a more fruitful and rearranging , feels, harmonic progressions, analysis that would be germane to, and thus enrich, rhythms, and melodic statements, this quintet treated the wonderfully astute work she offers in Parts I and the studio space and the recording process as dynamic III of her study. Her comparison of Benny Goodman’s supplements to compositional, formal, and improvisa- and Harry James’s respective solos on “Life Goes to tional processes. a Party” seems to miss the mark completely, making interpretive claims that are unsubstantiated by the Catherine Tackley’s Benny Goodman’s Famous music’s auditory import. 1938 Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert (Oxford, 2012) offers an insightful un- Underwhelming musical analysis aside, Tackley’s packing of the historical historical realizations here are fresh and elucidating. events and people behind Her findings from investigating the critical receptions the organization, record- of the performance and its different disseminations ing, performance, and on record are well-nuanced and effectively deployed dissemination of one of throughout her study. Benny Goodman’s land- mark recordings. Tackley In Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five and Hot Seven arduously parses through Recordings (Oxford, 2011), Brian Harker highlights all of the contemporane- Armstrong’s evolving trumpet style during the years ous literature—newspa- of these beloved recordings. Chapters are laid out per reviews and articles, chronologically, each chapter devoted to one of program notes, first-hand Armstrong’s celebrated pieces: “Cornet Chop Suey,” accounts of musicians “Big Butter and Egg Man,” “Potato Head Blues,” and audience members— “S.O.L. Blues/Gully Low Blues,” “Savoy Blues,” and pertaining to the 1938 Carnegie performance, as well “West End Blues.” The analyses of these recordings as the subsequent literature concerning the 1950 LP are made especially instructive by Harker’s situating

American Music Review Vol. XLIII, No. 1: Fall 2013 19 Reading Jazz Recordings (cont.) Armstrong’s performative choices within an overarch- Despite the challenges recorded jazz performances ing narrative that traces Armstrong’s ambivalent view present to critical study, the volumes in the Oxford of his own socio-cultural status. Studies in Recorded Jazz series prove these mediated artifacts are worthy of close examination. Recordings This ambivalence was culturally informed by his “offer data points that can be charted in retrospect, own personal history, relationships, and views on and compared with relevant contemporaneous events, the ideas espoused by writers like W.E.B. Du Bois, to perceive historical patterns of which [the perform- Booker T. Washington, and Dave Peyton. Musically, er] might have been unaware” (171). Brian Harker’s Harker demonstrates this ambivalence through Arm- words concerning Louis Armstrong speak on behalf strong’s coupling of novelty and polish in his perfor- of all of those for whom analysis of jazz recordings is mances. His affinity for vaudeville, classical trumpet an ambivalent undertaking: “If we are chastened by a etudes, the novelty and precision implicit in a trumpet recognition of all that records leave out, we may neverthe- replicating the jagged arpeggiated figures of a clarinet, less appreciate the powerful reflection they give of Arm- and the echoing of popular dance rhythms contem- strong’s waking world in the 1920s.” (171) porary with these records’ release, were all cultural codes that are subsumed in Armstrong’s trumpet work *Editor’s Note: As of the printing of this review, a fifth volume, in these recordings. Gabriel Solis’s The Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall (Oxford, 2013), has appeared. Armstrong’s stop-time solo on “Potato Head Blues” is representative of this reading. This solo is widely considered a turning point toward a more vertical, harmonically- based approach to im- provisation—a marked shift in the paradigm of jazz solo improvisation. While this realization is not altogether inaccurate, it does not tell the whole story. Harker enriches and expands our conception of this performance’s histori- cal import by consider- ing it not as a necessary, artistic expression of a new aesthetic of jazz “improvisation”—a term Harker also problematizes provocatively—but rather as a calculated, polished solo on which Armstrong had clearly been working for some time. Armstrong had no aspirations of re- writing the lexicon of jazz soloing style with “Potato Head Blues,” but instead aimed to imbue the perfor- mance with certain cultural codes. His analysis presents an enlightening examination of Armstrong’s famous 1928 recording of “West End Blues.” Here, Harker points to numerous instances where Armstrong draws on “hot,” “sweet,” “classical,” and “gutbucket” styles within this single performance.

20 American Music Review Vol. XLIII, No. 1: Fall 2013 “Strike Up the Band”: First-Ever Critical Edition of the Works of George and Ira Gershwin Announced Mark Clague, University of Michigan Editor-In-Chief, George and Ira Gershwin Critical Edition Serving as Executive Editor of the series Music of however, reveals that written in pencil above the second the United States of America from 1997 to 2003, I to last bar in George’s hand is the notation “3 Times.” It was charged with the task of exploring the feasibility seems clear then that at some point between the overture’s of a critical edition of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody 1932 premiere and the 1933 publication of the piano score, in Blue. Among the signature works that define the Gershwin revised the ending, extending the cadential soundscape of American music, the Rhapsody was gesture to add drama, intensity, and impact to the percus- deserving of more scholarly attention. Nevertheless, sive close. He wrote this change by hand into his personal and despite repeated efforts, a decade later the edition copy of the score and transferred it to the publication of remained just a dream. You can imagine my aston- the piano version. Presumably the composer would have ishment then, when I received word from our dean’s done the same when he oversaw the publication of the full office that a Todd Gershwin had phoned the University score—but tragically he never had the chance. George died of Michigan’s School of Music, precipitously of an untreatable brain Theatre & Dance to inquire if we tumor on 11 July 1937. He was only might be interested in facilitat- thirty-eight years old. ing a critical edition of Gershwin works. It turned out that Todd George Gershwin’s early death was a 1997 graduate of the Uni- is one reason that current publica- versity of Michigan and that his tions of his music are checkered family had become interested in with mistakes and omissions. making certain that George and Performance parts for his iconic Ira’s legacy of musical imprints Rhapsody in Blue offer a charac- received a depth of scholarly at- teristic example in which multiple tention that matched its impact on sets of parts, each with different American culture. They had been editorial cuts, create a situation in hearing repeated complaints from which no authoritative version exists. musicians that the performance parts Emblematic works of the American in circulation, even for a masterwork soundscape—the Second Rhapsody, such as Porgy and Bess, were in dire the Variations on “I Got Rhythm,” need of editorial attention. An American in Paris—articulate George and Ira Gershwin, New York, 1928 sonic crossroads of styles and cul- For example, the only edi- Courtesy of the Ira and Leonore tures forged in Gershwin’s musical tion of George Gershwin’s Gershwin Trusts imagination but are distorted by Cuban Overture published errors. Lines of dialogue written by during his lifetime is a version for piano four hands. Ira for the folk opera Porgy and Bess are missing from the It differs from the later published orchestral score and its performance materials and full score, much of which is parts in one especially important detail—the end- in such poor physical condition as to be all but a cipher for ing. The piano version has two extra bars, such that the conductor. the penultimate measure is heard three times before a climactic sonic shout brings the piece to a close. The George and Ira Gershwin Critical Edition The orchestral score and parts—those currently avail- promises to resolve these editorial discrepancies and able to ensembles for performance—lack the repeat- provide freshly engraved performance materials for all ing bars. Why the discrepancy? A review of George of the brothers’ works. The edition will save rehearsal Gershwin’s personal copy of the manuscript score, one time and frustration, improve the quality of perfor- from which he himself conducted the work, matches mances, and lead to a deeper understanding of these the commercially available imprint. Closer inspection, works by scholars, musicians, students, and audiences American Music Review Vol. XLIII, No. 1: Fall 2013 21 “Strike Up the Band” (cont.) alike. The editorial challenge results from the Gersh- of America (MUSA), a series of scholarly editions wins’ pioneering aesthetic, a creative approach that of American music, administered by the American transgressed boundaries of style, genre, and especially Musicological Society and published by A-R Editions cultures. Ira’s offered keen insight into the under the editorial aegis of Richard Crawford, a Hitch- changes of modern life, while George’s ear embraced cock student. The new Edition is modeled on MUSA sounds from the street and the club to the stage and the and will be published through European American Music in New York.

Expected to be a three- or four-decade effort, the George and Ira Gershwin Critical Edition will be part of a larger educational initiative to include courses, performances, and symposia on the University of Michigan campus. The new edition of Porgy and Bess, edited by former Library of Congress music division staff member Wayne D. Shirley, is already in draft. The editorial board includes Ryan Bañagale, James Kendrick, Michael Owen, Loras Schissel, Karen Schnackenberg, and Wayne Shirley. Project advisors include members of the Gershwin family, plus William Bolcom, Richard Crawford, Michael Feinstein, Walter Ira and George Gershwin, Beverly Hills, 1937 Frisch, Thomas Hampson, Joseph Horowitz, Laura Courtesy of the Ira and Leonore Gershwin Trusts Jackson, Andrew Litton, Alan Menken, Joan Morris, Robert Nederlander, Sr., Jessye Norman, and Michael concert hall. Such aesthetic diversity presents unusual Tilson Thomas. Further details about the project can editorial demands, including the recognition of African be found at http://www.music.umich.edu/ami/gersh- American idioms and Broadway scoring shorthand. A win/. prevailing goal of the Edition will be to celebrate this broad aesthetic range, presenting not a single Rhap- sody in Blue, for example, but multiple versions that capture the life of the Gershwins’ music on different stages. For Rhapsody in Blue this will include at minimum the 1924 jazz version, the 1926 orchestral version, and George’s own two-piano score for the work. The Edition will also include first-ever publications of the Gershwins’ film music, including scores for Delicious (1931) and Shall We Dance (1936), in full score.

The families of George and Ira Gershwin, especial- ly their nephews Marc George Gershwin and Michael Draft of Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin Strunksy, inspired the project, working with the Uni- Courtesy of the Library of Congress versity of Michigan and drawing upon the expertise of its American Music Institute. The project likewise has deep connections to the Hitchock Institute. Once a Michigan faculty member, H. Wiley Hitchcock served as a founding board member of the AMS Committee on the Publication of American Music. This group continues to oversee Michigan’s NEH-funded collab- orative publishing project—Music of the United States

22 American Music Review Vol. XLIII, No. 1: Fall 2013