{"id":155,"date":"2009-01-17T17:09:17","date_gmt":"2009-01-17T22:09:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/2009\/01\/civil_rights-jazz_document_196\/"},"modified":"2019-09-13T14:06:27","modified_gmt":"2019-09-13T18:06:27","slug":"civil_rights-jazz_document_196","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2009\/01\/civil_rights-jazz_document_196.html","title":{"rendered":"Civil Rights-Jazz document, 1963"},"content":{"rendered":"

Prior to tomorrow’s inauguration, the New York Times (and I suspect many other publications) has focused in many columns<\/a>, book reviews<\/a> and reports<\/a> on Barack Obama’s election as a turning point in the U.S.’s movement towards full civil rights for all people. The entertainment section makes the case for movies<\/a> having led the way to our first not-completely- “white”-identified President.<\/p>\n

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I maintain that the jazz community was in the forefront of the civil rights movement, and remains in the lead for demonstrating how all-inclusive meritocracies<\/a> look, sound and work. A historical document highlighting the conjunction of jazz and the Civil Rights movement has come to hand — programs from two nights in 1963 when major players performed and major jazz journalists emceed in benefit for CORE<\/a> (the Congress of Racial Equality) at New York City’s Five Spot Cafe, plus a letter of thanks to bassist Henry Grimes<\/a> for his participation.<\/div>\n

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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<\/a> with 1950’s sit-ins and 1960s’ Freedom Rides to combat segregationist policies in the United States. James Farmer<\/a> was a co-founder of CORE and its first national director. Click here<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0for the program of the benefits CORE held\u00c2\u00a0October 20 and October 27.<\/div>\n
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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<\/span> 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<\/span>. 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)\u00c2\u00a0and 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”.<\/div>\n

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The John Coltrane Quartet played<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0“Alabama” on Ralph J. Gleason<\/a>‘s tv program “Jazz Casual.<\/a>”<\/p>\n
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The Five Spot, site of legendary performances by Thelonious Monk (with Coltrane), Cecil Taylor, Charles Mingus and Ornette Coleman’s 1959 breakthrough band with Don Cherry, Charlie Haden and Billy Higgins, was on the southeast corner of Third Avenue and St. Marks Place (now a bagel and pizza joint). The CORE benefits’ emcees, besides Dr. Taylor<\/a> who has made his mark as a jazz televison and radio broadcaster, educator and activist as well as pianist-composer-bandleader, were<\/div>\n
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