Summer 2009, I met my very own Breakfast Club. Instead of 5 semi strangers, we were 8; instead of detention, we were working, and we were all female.
My Breakfast Club worked for the Mount Holyoke Admission office!
We were a mix match of people, all from different walks of life, and we all had our little quirks. Mine being my inability to make a box cake! Somehow these 8 different people came together not only in Mount Holyoke’s Admission office, but we became friends outside too.
We laughed, argued, and watched me cry at MJ’s funeral service together. We had dinners, potluck Mondays, and many a birthday celebrations. We shared our interests in books, music and the Office. We even became college celebrities of sorts, starring in a Why Mount Holyoke Video.
One of the the things I learnt about during that summer was Jazz.
Breakfast Cluber Nicky Nox Chambers is an avid Jazz enthuse. She listens to, reads and studies a whole lot of Jazz, I’m surprised she wasn’t a Jazz major! I learnt a bit from her, and I’m gratefully a jazz novice.
Prior to the summer with my Breakfast Club, I barely listened to Jazz, and could not differentiate between Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis. As I expand my musical tastes, I like to not only listen to them, but read about them too.
So this past August, while at a quirky home book store in Portland, Oregon, I came across LeRoi Jones’ Blues People.
Blues People: The Negro Experience in White America and the Music that Developed From It (1963)
LeRoi Jones
William Marrow and Company
I clearly was not ready to read this book. As I said I am a Jazz (and Blues) novice at best. I should be reading the Paul and Jane versions of Blues books; instead, I began with the Plato’s The Republic.
Nonetheless it was a fascinating read. Thanks to my Liberal Arts education I understood the framework of the book and really valued the explanations given. Even though I got bogged down by terminology and names of musicians, the book speaks about the transformation of the Black American psyche from slavery to then’s present day, and the story is told through Blues and Jazz.
LeRoi Jones isolated the musical transformation of Black America, but his discourse is applicable throughout the lives of Black America. I felt as if I could extend his argument until present day america, and none of the sentiments would be lost. A question that I would pose is, can we apply the same critic of White American’s adaptation and great success in a musical culture they don’t truly belong to or understand, to the ascendance of so called commercialized hip hop of today?
This is a book I will definitely have to reread to try and grapple with its nuances. Until then I will continue to develop my understanding of Jazz and the Blues by LISTENING to it!
