10 tne ue

ARTS

Racism deprived us of Basie’s music ©

Imagine a high school auditorium in the 1970s.
The setting is the Brooklyn junior high school
popular music competition. Various groups, all
trained in budget-cut programs, take the stage. But
the crowd restlessly awaits the last group, one of
the few jazz bands in New York’s schools: the
Ditmas jazz band, the perennial winner of these
competitions. This coeducational band of Black,
white, Latino and Asian-American youth features
the music of Count Basie. At last, the band ap-
pears. The repertoire unfolds, saxes chant, horns
riff assertively in Basie’s style. The crowd shouts
and jumps. The band’s closer is Basie’s ‘‘Jumpin’
at the Woodside.’’ The theme is stated, and an
altoist barely taller than the sax stands up to solo.
Chorus follows chorus and now jazz is in full cry.
Ending in ovation, the music of Basie, now in the
hands of teenagers again drives an audience to a
frenzy.

This was not unusual. Whenever youth have had
the opportunity to play and listen to Basie’s
electrifying music, they have been inspired and
moved. Notwithstanding the prevailing musical
winds over the years, Basie’s blues-drenched art
managed to forge a cross-generational following.
That millions of all ages loved his music indicates
that the audience for Basie’s style of the 30s ex-
tended far beyond the limits of that decade.

Now that Count Basie is gone, the media may
bestow posthumous praise on someone it basically
ignored for 50 years. But at his death, the Eye-
witness News approach to Basie was typically
tongue-in-cheek, not serious. Had a figure like
Sinatra died, would the significance of his passing
have been overshadowed by the drug-related death
of a Kennedy heir?

_. What are we deprived of when media and
“‘music appreciation”’ courses, stained by racism
and elitism, omit Basie’s contributions?

Through a piano style that defied convention, he
helped change musical time. The bassist. and
drummer continued the usual four beats to a mea-

sure, but Basie played with time, soloing sparsely, -

making every note count, pausing in ‘‘mid-
sentence”’ as if reflecting on new ways to com-
municate without filling every measure with sound.
Basie introduced a more flexible role for drum-
mers: no longer to blast away on the bass drum or
snare, but to keep time on the cymbals, freeing the
other hand to accent other beats in a ‘‘poly-
rhythmic”’ spirit. Basie featured a soloist, Lester

Young, who revolutionized jazz by employing a ~

lighter tone of the tenor sax; defying the ‘‘tough”’
image of tenor players; and Young’s solos also
fooled time, lagging behind the beat of the rhythm
section.

So the Basie band was more than a lot of noise.
Basie felt: ‘The minute the brass gets out of hand
and blares and’screeches instead. of making every
note mean something, there’ll be some changes
made.’ Basie established the hegemony of the
tenor saxophone in jazz. His bands featured
tenors, pairing one with a light tone (Young, Frank
Foster) and one of the ‘‘tough’’ school (Herschel
Evans, Buddy Tate, Frank Wess).

Basie employed the simplest device — the riff —
to create the most exciting music. A simple theme
repeated by the band behind the soloists, the riff
evoked the powerful effect of call and response.
Basie developed this to an art.

Basie expressed the thinking of thousands of
musicians, particularly in the Southwest, and
helped contribute their ideas to the jazz treasure-
house. Their concepts freed up jazz, made it more
flexible and more powerful. On this foundation, a
brilliant new jazz form — bebop! — arose in the
1940s, at the heart of which were Basie disciples.
Bebop became the dominant jazz style.

Thus, Basie holds a central place in American
music,-for jazz represents the best in our culture
and is so recognized by millions here and abroad.
Jazz belongs on the concert stage, but is relegated
in its homeland to the “‘saloon’’. A great artist,
Count Basie spent 50 years ‘‘in the trenches,’’
riding buses 45 to 50 weeks a year, doing ‘‘one-
nighters.’? Basie practiced art in a system where
big business forces musicians to work themselves
to the bone while depriving them, especially Black
artists, of recognition. For “‘One O’clock Jump”’
and ‘‘Jumpin’ at the Woodside”’ Basie never re-
ceived royalties, nor the acclaim bestowed on var-
ious white ‘‘kings’’ of swing.

Paul Robeson observed: ‘‘Think of Handy, one
of the creators of the Blues; think of Count Basie,
playing to half-filled houses at the Apollo; colored

10 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JUNE 6, 1984

arrangers receiving a pitance while white bands
reap harvests. What heartbreak for every Negro
composer!”’ '
Basie remained consistent despite racist con-
strictions and the pressures applied to artists by big
business to turn to profitable fads, geared to divorc-
ing them from reality, from people. The modest
Basie continued to rely on the improvising collec-
tive, the band combining the skills of true artists.
Basie became famous during the 30s, a period of
great struggles. Black, trade union and progressive
activists, including Communists, fought tooth and
nail against racist segregation in the arts, which
giants like Basie met at every turn. Basie per-
formed at the two ‘‘Spirituals to Swing’’ concerts
(1938-39) in New York which broke down Jim
Crow barriers and provided exposure of jazz artis-
try ina decent setting, before integrated audiences.
Through such struggles today, Count Basie will
take his place in a pantheon of real artists, not 2
reflectors of monied decadence, but exponents of z
real beauty with popular roots. Basie’s music will 4
then be known and more widely loved for what it ©

is: timeless and beyond category. a

— Daniel Rosenberg Count Basie with Duke Ellington at the Newport Jazz Festival... Af
Daily World ca’s greatest cultural contribution forced to ride the rails.

| Around the arts |

Canadians return from Moscow conference

Meet on status of the artist :

MOSCOW — The status of the
artist brought together over 100 of
the world’s top preformers here
May 14 to 18 in a meeting of the
International Federation of

Actors.

Representing Canada were
Bruce MacLeod, ACTRA presi-
dent, vice-president Lyn Jackson
and director Stephen Waddell.
EQUITY, the union of per-
forming artists, also sent a high
level delegation including presi-
dent Sandy Webster, vice presi-
dent Daphne Goldrick and direc-
tor Graham Spicer. Andre Cham-
pagna, head of the Quebec artists’
union also attended. ~

The conference, hosted by the
Soviet Cultural Workers Union,
reviewed progress on the imple-
mentation of the UNESCO
declaration of ‘The Status of the
Artist’.

There are many issues under
this heading, said MacLeod, who
is an IFA executive member, ‘‘the
actors’ well-being, the ability to
work in their field, in their coun-
try, the protection of their rights
in the creation of the product or
the performance. Freedom of ex-
pression, the ability to perform
the type of work you believe in —
all this is very important — and
survival ... survival of the artist
in the world as it presently is.

“T believe’, said MacLeod,
‘that artists should be on the
boards: of decision-making not
only in their chosen fields but in
the political and business parts of
our society. They must be lis-
tened to because they have im-
portant things to say.”

The conference adopted three
resolutions calling upon the
governments of all states to
implement the provisions of the
UNESCO recommendation and
appealed to national trade unions
to work for better living and busi-
ness conditions for cultural work-
ers. One of the resolutions ex-
pressed concerned for the current
international situation which pro-

duces a negative effect on the ac-
tivity of cultural workers.

‘*An artist’’, noted MacLeod,”’
gives us the ability to show to the
rest of the world the culture of the

country from which he comes. I~ a
think the more we know about
each other around the world the

less we would fear each other and

the safer we would be. — Novosti

Soviet-Canadian exchanges

“It’s my first experience with
Soviet artists’’, Canadian impre-
sario Antranik Khachikjan told
us. ‘‘I want the tour of the Soviet
Armenia Company to become a
real cultural event in Canada’’.

On May 24 the Armenian Song
and Dance Company left for
Montreal. They will also perform
in Ottawa, Sherbrook, Toronto
and Quebec. The repertoire of the
company, which was founded in
1938, inéludes folk and modern

songs and dances of Armenians”

and other peoples of the USSR.
There are over 90 singers, dan-
cers and musicians in the com-
pany, who are popular both in the
Soviet Union and in many Euro-
pean, Asian, African and Central
American cities.

The performance tour of the
Armenian company is not the

only Soviet-Canadian — cultural
event this year. In June Soviet ar-
tists will attend Montreal’s Inter-
national Festival of Performances
for Children.
Young Soviet musicians will -
take part in the International
Montreal Competition. Students
of the Moscow and Yerevan Con-
servatories will give piano con-
certs; Professor Alexei Nasedkin
of the Moscow Conservatory will
be in the jury.
In return, Canadian artists will
perform in the Soviet Union. Be-
ginning May 15 the Herz Musical
Trio will tour the Soviet Union
where it has already won great
popularity. The Frazer and
Friends Jazz Quartet will perform
in Tashkent, Frunze, Tbilisi,
Baku, Yerevan, Moscow and
Tselinograd. — Novosti

Mandela record tops charts:

A pop record about Nelson
Mandela’s imprisonment is
rocketing up the British hit parade
and providing the country’s anti-
apartheid movement with a very
effective means of getting its mes-
sage across. 2

The record ‘‘Nelson Mandela’’
by a group called the Special
AKA is being pushed hard, parti-

_cularly in a number of major

urban centres, especially those
areas where Labor Party-con-
trolled councils have taken action
featuring Mandela, the jailed
African National Congress
leader.

Often the playing of the record
is accompanied by a short talk on

Mandela and the situation in
South Africa. In a number of
areas the broadcast has been
coupled with an interview of a
representative of Anti-Apartheid

‘- Movement. The record sleeve

tells of the AAM’s campaign to
have Mandela released and in- ©
vites people to write for further

-information. An AAM spokes-

person said the movement has re-
ceived thousands of responses
from young people as a result.

The idea for the record was
born last July when members of
the group attended an AAM cele-
bration in London to mark Man- ~
dela’s birthday. They felt they
should make a contribution and
out came this record.

_