Civil Rights-Jazz document, 1963

CORE has been one of the most powerful organizations driving the Civil Rights movement from the late 1940s to this day, employing Gandhi's principles of nonviolent civil disobedience with 1950's sit-ins and 1960s' Freedom Rides to combat segregationist policies in the United States. James Farmer was a co-founder of CORE and its first national director. Click here for the program of the benefits CORE held October 20 and October 27.

The extraordinary gatherings on October 20 and October 27 of musicians now regarded as jazz giants -- among the most recognizable saxophonists Ben Webster (playing tuba? or not the tenor saxophonist Ben Webster?), Al Cohn, Zoot Sims, Booker Ervin, Eric Dolphy, guitarist Kenny Burrell, brassman and composer-arranger Thad Jones, pianists Bill Evans, Paul Bley, Sal Mosca, Horace Parlan, Billy Taylor (now Dr. Billy . .. ), Don Friedman, Dick Katz, drummers Roy Haynes, Ben Riley (mispelled "Reilly" -- and other misspellings abound), Paul Motian, Joe Chambers, bassists Gary Peacock, Ronnie Boykins (of Sun Ra'sArkestra), Ron Carter and vibist Bobby Hutcherson, singers Helen Merrill and Sheila Jordan -- were likely prompted by the Civil Rights rally at the Lincoln Memorial on August 28 (occasion of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's "I Have A Dream" speech) and the September 15 bombings by the Klu Klux Klan of Birmingham, Alabama's 16th St. Baptist Church, which targeted church-going children and killed four little girls. That bombing caused enormous outrage, is cited as a turning point against the KKK and in favor of Americans' consititutional Civil Rights over those rights' suppression through murder (i.e., American-born terrorism), and, among other effects, inspired John Coltrane's beautiful, heart-rending composition "Alabama".

The John Coltrane Quartet played "Alabama" on Ralph J. Gleason's tv program "Jazz Casual."

"Dear Mr. Grimes, All of us at CORE are deeply grateful for your help in making the benefit performances at the Five Spot a resounding success.

In the extremity of the Civil Rights battle that now confronts us, this kind of tangible and practical support is essential.

Thanking you again, I remain yours in freedom, James Farmer.

 

This photo by Lee Tanner (thanks, Lee!) is of Grimes in the early '60s, when he was a first call bassist for everyone from Benny Goodman to Cecil Taylor. After his relocation to the West Coast at the end of that decade, Grimes fell into a 30 year period of musical inactivity, but since his 2003 return to New York has made an extraordinary comeback to performing and recording, poetry writing and other forms of expression.

He and his wife, jazz advocate Margaret Davis Grimes, are proud to see the election of Barack Obama. At a dinner party in Berlin the day following Obama's election, Grimes said, "We are rejoicing in getting used to this great new feeling. We have had all the years of wondering when things would ever come right, and now it's all coming together as we have always known things have the power to do." His wife added, "In one brilliant moment, the American people have risen to a higher level of consciousness, elevated and purified by the great light and grace of Barack Obama." 

For all the hope and trust of the majority of the jazz community, that community has never been naive, and acknowledges that the struggle continues.