Special June 2018 Issue
Black Music Month The mission of DC Legendary Musicians, Inc. (DCLM) is to preserve, protect, and promote the artistic legacy, contributions, and well being of performers, and to educate students and the community as a whole on the careers and contributions of Washington, DC’s professional musicians.
CONTENTS From the Director’s Desk
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Meet the Humanities Scholar
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“All the Music Is God’s Music.”
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Around Town with DCLM
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‘Tis the Season for DC Jazzfest !
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Great News! DC Legendary Musicians, Inc. was awarded a Humanities DC grant for “Washington DC Jazz: The Music of the Metropolis and Beyond.” The funding will support 2018-2019 community programming related to the Washington, DC, Jazz book (Forthcoming 2018, Arcadia Publishing). For more information on the program series, please see the “From the Director’s Desk” message on page 2. To have your name added to our mailing list, contact the Rev. Dr. Sandra Butler Truesdale at (202) 246-6300. The book cover features Michael Wilderman’s photo of saxophonists Ron Holloway (left) and Buck Hill performing at Blues Alley. (*The above image is a pre-publication mock-up, and the appearance of the actual cover may be slightly different.)
DC Legendary Musicians, Inc.
Photo by Regennia N. Williams.
Rev. Dr. Sandra Butler-Truesdale
Black Music Month 2018
Shirley Horn, through April 2019, Jazz Appreciation Month. I will serve as the Project Director, and Dr. Regennia N. Williams will serve as the humanities scholar. Dr. Williams and I have completed the research for Washington, D.C. Jazz. The book features nearly 200 photographs, many of which were contributed by Michael Wilderman, Dr. John E. Hasse, and the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra. The book is based, in part, on oral histories that we collected in 2017-2018—with support from area musicians and Gibson Guitar, Inc. DC Public Library is our major program partner for 2018-2019, and DCLM will continue to collaborate with other organizations and businesses to secure in-kind services, including gallery spaces, lecture halls, advertising, and staff time. All grant-supported events will be free and open to the public, so please join us in celebrating jazz and jazz musicians. --SBT
From the Director’s Desk . . . As the founder and director of DC Legendary Musicians, Inc., I was honored to accept the 2018 grant award from Humanities DC. We will use the funds to support our year-long series of community programs related to the Washington, D.C. Jazz book and a related oral history project involving established and emerging musical artists. We are planning panel presentations, book talks, discussions, and signings; and a traveling library exhibition. An estimated 5,000+ people (including students and library patrons) are likely to be the project's direct beneficiaries, and thousands of readers will also benefit indirectly from related publications and the availability of the oral history interviews. The program year will run from May 1, 2018, the birthday of DC-born jazz pianist 2
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Black Music Month 2018 DCLM, 2017
DC Legendary Musicians, Inc.
Black Music Month 2018
Meet the Humanities Scholar . . . Dr. Regennia N. Williams is the humanities scholar for “Washington, D.C. Jazz: The Music of the Metropolis and Beyond.” Dr. Williams holds a BA in Urban Studies, a BA in Liberal Studies, an MPA in Public Administration, and an MNAL in Nonprofit Administration and Leadership from Cleveland State University, and she received her PhD in Social History and Policy from Case Western Reserve University. In 2010, she was a Visiting Fulbright Scholar in Nigeria. In 2017, she was approved for the Fulbright Specialist Roster and has been invited to teach an oral history seminar in South Africa. Other research-related travels have taken her to Canada, Austria, China, and France. Dr. Williams has conceived, organized, and directed numerous public programs and academic conferences. For 23 years, she served as a faculty member in the Department of History at Cleveland State University, where she earned tenure and was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor. She now serves as a Part-Time Faculty Associate and a Part-Time Instructor at Maryland’s Montgomery College, and she teaches online courses for CSU’s Levin College of Urban Affairs. Her published works include books, book chapters, and articles in scholarly journals, newspapers, and magazines. Dr. Williams is the founder and director of The RASHAD Center, Inc., a Maryland-based nonprofit organization, and the editor of The Journal of Traditions & Beliefs and the Traditions & Beliefs newsletter. In May 2018, she was named the Inaugural Scholar for the Edward E. Parker Museum of Art. While serving in this capacity, she will conduct research on the history of community-based arts programs since 1965 (the year in which Congress created the National Endowment for the arts), with an emphasis on the evolving role of African Americans as arts educators and producers and consumers of art. DC Legendary Musicians, Inc.
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Photo by Nathaniel Rhodes.
Dr. Regennia N. Williams
DC Legendary Musicians, Inc. gratefully acknowledges the receipt of program support from Humanities DC.
Black Music Month 2018
DC Legendary Musicians, Inc.
Black Music Month 2018
All the Music Is God’s Music The Rev. William H. Lamar, IV is no stranger to church leaders and congregants in the nation’s capital. As the pastor of the historic Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, he is heir to the rich oratorical and written traditions that have long been associated with the AME denomination. Less is known, however, about his life-long association with music. DC Legendary Musicians, Inc. is pleased, therefore, to share his biographical sketch (below) and excerpts from “All the Music Is God’s Music” on page 5. Pastor Lamar discussed this topic during a WPFW radio interview with the Rev. Dr. Sandra ButlerTruesdale on May 2, 2018. William H. Lamar IV is the pastor of Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church in Washington, DC. Formerly, he was Photo courtesy of the Rev. William H. Lamar, IV. managing director of Leadership Education at Duke University Divinity School in Durham, Rev. William Lamar, IV, Then . . . North Carolina. Lamar has served congregations in Hyattsville, Maryland; Monticello, Florida; Orlando, Florida; and Jacksonville, Florida. Through his association with Duke, Lamar convened and resourced executive pastors of large churches, denominational finance executives, young denominational leaders, Methodist bishops, and the constituency of Lilly Endowment’s Sustaining Pastoral Excellence Program. William H. Lamar IV was ordained an itinerant elder in 2000 at the Florida Annual Conference of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. He is a magna cum laude graduate of Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University having earned a degree in public management with a minor in philosophy and religion and a certificate in human resource management. Lamar earned the master of divinity degree from Duke University Divinity School in Durham, North Carolina, in 1999. He has published articles in the Washington Post, Christian Century, The Anvil, The Christian Recorder, The Afro-American Newspaper, Divinity Magazine, and the Huffington Post. He has been featured on “The Takeaway” and the “Huffington Post Live.” Lamar is honored to serve and to extend the ancestral legacy of worship, liberation, and service that has animated Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church for nearly two centuries. (Source: Website for the Andrew Rankin Memorial Chapel, Howard University.)
DC Legendary Musicians, Inc.
Black Music Month 2018
All the Music Is God’s Music “I think that music is the handmaiden of God!” The Rev. William Lamar, IV “Don’t Forget the Blues” with the The Rev. Sandra Butler-Truesdale May 2, 2018, WPFW Radio growing up in Macon, Georgia) the Holiness Churches, was their channeling of an African Spirituality [that] went everywhere. It went viral. There are few churches where you go today where there are not drums, where there is not a bass. We recently got a Hammond B-3 [organ] at Metropolitan to help us center ourselves spiritually, so that we can hear a message, be transformed, and be agents of transformation. I think that music is the handmaiden of God. My contention is that, in an African understanding, there is no sacred – secular split. That [split] is profoundly a Western innovation, and it is problematic. . . All music comes from God, who is the original creator. Now, where music becomes damaging, and where it promotes dehumanization, that is where we have taken what God has made as good and warped it in ways that suit us . . .
Photo courtesy of the Rev. William H. Lamar, IV.
Rev. William Lamar, IV, Now! . . . Essentially, within the African Methodist tradition and, I think, writ large in the Black religious tradition, there has been a tension between, in our denominational context, the Henry McNeal Turner brand— which was, “We are Africans. Let us move in the direction of an African expression of faith.”, and the Daniel Alexander Payne tradition, which was more circumspect and European. I think that it really gets to notions of Black respectability, meaning that in order to survive in this place, we need to adapt more of the emotive intellectual proclivities of white folks, versus, “Let us be who we are ancestrally.” What happened in places like Elder [Lightfoot Solomon Michaux’s Church] and places like what we would call (in my
For more on this topic, visit the WPFW archives at: http://www.wpfwfm.org/radio/programming/archiv ed-shows, (May 2, 2018, 12 p.m. program) Recommended Reading (Per Pastor Lamar): The Spirituals and the Blues by the Rev. Dr. James H. Cone 5
DC Legendary Musicians, Inc.
Black Music Month 2018
Around Town with DCLM
Since 2016, the year in which we signed the contract to coauthor Washington, DC, Jazz, DCLM members and friends have participated in a whirlwind of activities. From the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage to the Funk Parade, and from the Howard Theatre to Ben’s Chili Bowl and the sanctuary of the Metropolitan AME Church, you have been right there with us, supporting the musicians and the organizations and institutions that help to make their performances possible. Please know that we appreciate you, and we look forward to working with you in the future. --SBT and RNW Photos: (Clockwise from the lower left) Trombonist Moshe Snowden, pianist and Metropolitan AME Church Minister of Music Marty Lamar, the Rev. Dr. Sandra Butler-Truesdale (foreground) and Ida Campbell and Co. onstage at the Howard Theatre, Thurston “TK” King, blues guitarist and NBC newscaster Derrick Ward, and Martha High (left) and Sandra Bears of the Jewels.
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Black Music Month 2018
DC Legendary Musicians, Inc.
Black Music Month 2018
Around Town with DCLM
During interviews for the 2017 “Washington, D.C. Jazz Oral History Project,” our narrators let us know that, “Jazz is class . . . Jazz is sacred, spiritual, and secular . . . Jazz is ‘Oxygen for the Ears’. . . Jazz is Great Black Music . . . and many musicians are multi-talented, multiinstrumentalists, multi-genre artists, or genre-less.” To borrow a line from Duke Ellington, D.C.’s musicians and their music are “beyond category!” Photos: (Counterclockwise from lower right) Dr. Regennia N. Williams, guitarist Jackie Lee (left) and Sir Joe Quarterman (center) during a television interview with Ferman Patterson; a 2018 Funk Parade panel presentation, vocalist Lady Mary and the IndaHouse Band, vocalist Jimi Smooth (left in group photo) with “Guitar Greg” Gaskins, author Dr. Blair Ruble, and moderator Dave Tevelin; and author and educator Dr. Maurice Jackson. Photos on pages 6 and 7 courtesy of the Rev. Dr. Sandra Butler-Truesdale.
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Black Music Month 2018
DC Legendary Musicians, Inc.
Black Music Month 2018
You can also read more about our work online, support our organization, and join our mailing list!
Visit our website at: http://dclmusicians.org. Trumpeter and DCLM member Donald Tillery.
Dr. Regennia N. Williams, Newsletter Editor
DC Legendary Musicians, Inc. c/o The Rev. Dr. Sandra Butler – Truesdale 225 O Street, SW #14 Washington, DC 20924 Phone Number: 202-246-6300
‘Tis the season! Check out the 2018 DC Jazzfest schedule at: https://dcjazzfest.org/2018-dc-jazzfest-schedule
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Black Music Month 2018