There is the germ of an answer to one of life's important questions just forming ...

and I'm not sure that it's ready to be expressed, but maybe ...  (but then there's that running-out-of-time thing to consider now.)

It seems to me that it's an important insight -- one of those things that occurs as original thought -- one of those things that seems so obvious that surely some wiser person has already thought of it, right?  And one day I'll read it in a book written by some genius and "aha!" will rise to the sound of trumpets, but I'll never own it, just accept it as confirmation of some universal something that I've known all along down deep, but that others have as well, and that I should have realized ... .

It's this:

It's that Jazz is a black genetic attribute.  It is born with blackness and colors everything we do, think, act upon, how we interpret life as we live it as a people.  It's something that can be learned, copied, and  expropriated, but that cannot be fully understood by others as a basic element in everything we (black folks)  think, touch, feel, or express.

It begins with a fundamental difference between white and black cultures.  I seem to have always known that white culture rewards all that has gone before and sets its standards by what are assumed to be expressions of past perfection.  Therefore great musicians (Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, et al)  provide the standards by which all of today's classical artists are measured by and against -- to assess their level of "greatness".

It is so with the genius balletmasters, the musicians, choreographers,  visual artists -- all measured by what has gone before.

With black culture it's just the opposite.  In our world greatness is measured by novelty, newness, originality, innovation, spontaneity, improvisation, so we're always leading in the creation of language, dance, music, the arts in all its forms, and they're (whites) always following.  We've always been out there at the edge of change.  As soon as others catch up, we've moved on and are busily creating the next art forms!

We have little to value in our past -- a past that includes slavery, Reconstruction, rejection on a world scale, scarcity and poverty, Jim Crow, struggles against social injustices, environmental degradation of our communities, the deconstruction of families, etc., so we have little to be nostalgic about, and little to look forward to, except for hope.

Has it occurred to anyone that there is very little in world history for non-Europeans to want to recall?  That history in any of its forms bears unbelievable pain and shame for millions, and so much to regret over which we were powerless for generations?  That the struggle has still not been won?

White culture is constantly busy researching, studying the past, writing the new rule books (there are always rule books), and codifying and adapting what others have created.  While black culture is trying painfully to avoid anything connected to a heart-wrenching past.  We're in a constant process of dropping the old and "doin' it!"; creating the new.

When the nation's public schools still had music departments with student bands and orchestras and instruments to lend, our legendary Jazz players were finding their way into the theaters, clubs and cafe's, "Houses of ill repute," and creating Jazz; "America's greatest art form", that bled out across our borders and out into the world.  Their art was being expropriated by white sidemen, singers, rock&roll artists, who covered our songs and arrangements for huge profits while young black musicians went begging and with scant recognition.  Their creations ever used as "raw material" with which to create the nation's "newest and greatest art form."

As public education began to suffer crippling budget cuts, our young were left with nothing more than their mouths and bodies with which to produce their sounds and beats.  And despite all, with few instruments at hand, they made their music with their body parts, and later with scratching on turntables!  Those young created the irrepressible rap and formed the Hip Hop world, which has become a universal culture  that now dominates the arts in all its forms, and where it only recently emerged fully mature to re-energize the Broadway stage with "Hamilton", and to redefine greatness!


One cannot look at these historic photographs of the painted masks of "primitive" African warriors and not see in them the inspiration provided to 20th Century visual artists, Pablo Picasso and/or Modigliani, and a myriad of other European modernists who plundered black culture without credit, and for great profit.  The African influences in European modern art are inescapable.

For me, it's all Jazz!

(How am I expressing it in my life and late-blooming career?  More tomorrow.)

Note on photos:  These are taken from a book published in 1976 of the works of the famous and infamous photographer/filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl (1902-2003) of Berlin.  These are the People of Kau from the book of the same name.

In the 21st Century, in an era of body piercings and tattoos of every description, would one consider these "primitives" behind or a full century ahead in the development of the arts?  The fact that their remote African village was in the middle of a rain forest would surely make their use of mud as a decorative profoundly important, environmentally practical, and purely and sacredly natural.  

     

Another icon gone  ... .

Producer Melvin Reid with young Aretha

Sadness abounds!

I remember Aretha as a 16 year-old young woman who was visiting the Bay Area with her father, the celebrated Reverend C.L. Franklin.

My husband, Mel Reid, was a promoter of gospel artists at that time, and was bringing all of the greats to perform at the Oakland Auditorium along the shores of scenic Lake Merritt -- before the huge audiences of African Americans who'd so recently migrated from the southern states of Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, to produce the ships for Henry J. Kaiser,  and armaments of WWII.  They brought the richness of black culture with them, and our lives would be forever redirected.

Rev. Franklin was of one many who were presented before the roughly 6000 attendees who gathered for amazing and exuberant gospel concerts on those memorable Sunday afternoons.  Among those were Rev. James Cleveland, Shirley Caesar and the Caravans, the Five Blind Boys, Soul Stirrers (with Sam Cooke), Mighty Clouds of Joy,  the  Clark Sisters, Mahalia Jackson, Lou Rawls, Rance Allen, and later the legendary Hawkins Family and the other local legends of the black gospel world.  So many who would form the bedrock of the world of black gospel, taking all of us with them, and catapulting Mel into prominence in that world.  It would be Mel and his young uncle, Paul Reid who would bring black gospel to the West Coast.  It would be Mel who would bring that huge crossover hit, "Oh happy Day!" to the world with the Love Center Choir.

On that particular day when Aretha and her father were here (pictured above), I was off on some child-centric activity, while Mel took Aretha to lunch at  some signature Bay Area restaurant, probably one of the new ones on the Berkeley marina ... .

Our lives were already showing signs of separation, but we wouldn't be aware of it until much later.

As I recall, Aretha was 3 years older than our eldest son, Rick.  And it was her father, Rev. Cleveland, who was the big star.  Aretha was just on the cusp of the greatness she achieved over an illustrious lifetime career as a world renown entertainer, political activist, great Mom, leaving her mark on all who were ever fortunate enough to be in her audiences.  She provided the soundtrack for several decades of my life, but that was still in my future -- the dynamic and life-altering Sixties when the Civil Rights Revolutions moved into front and center -- and moved me, body and soul, into an era of soul-searing growth that still resonates whenever I hear that arresting powerful voice singing the "Songs in the Key of Life", that have been filling my head and heart all day as the nation mourns ... .


It is now many decades later.  I'm approaching my 97th birthday in a month, and today the great Queen of Soul passed into eternity.

Thinking of just how many of us touched lives in that innocent past, before either we or the world would have any idea of where destiny would take us ... .

How on earth does today's elder Betty explain this to young, naive, unknowing young Betty of long ago?

(click to enlarge)

She, of course, still shares this old bod with its current occupant, and rises to take over when events demand it.

This beautiful quilt appeared in my life only two days ago when -- without warning -- it popped up on the screen of my computer from an unknown Facebook friend.

The tears of humility, pride, and gratefulness streamed uncontrollably as all of the pieces slowly fell into place:

The decision of benevolent strangers to include my image in this incredible art piece; the long hours spent in bringing it to life; the casual talk that must have included whatever considerations that go into such choices; and all without solicitation or consultation.

Such tributes ordinarily happen only after death, and seldom before, at a time when the assessments that go into the creation of an obituary ... .

No, not this time.

Quilters Pat Sigler and Johyne Gerar

Apparently, this amazing work of art was installed in the permanent collection at the California State Museum in Sacramento on August 12, 2018.

It is the work of the SQC (Sisters Quilting Collective), and I'm hoping to visit sometime soon, just to see if it's real and not something dreamed of just before deep sleep ... .