Most days for the past two weeks I keep staring and wondering about your rendition of Louis Armstrong you designed. It is compelling. What I hear in my head is the sound of trumpet, his trumpet.
As a kid, he was one of the very few Blacks who showed up on TV. There was a lot of fervor over this. Colored folks here in the States bristled with excitement that 'one of us' was on TV. Race pride. Everyone knew and everyone young and old secretly hoped and knew he'd show them white folks how to play and he'd represent 'us'. That was important in those days: dignity against the tide of white people's assumptions about us, and their sadistic cruelty to others not like them.
I remember all this and more in part because as he played grown ups had a way of telling their stories deep in truths in voices low enough to become a narrative to the music on the television. TV then was kind of like the fire in the outdoors when we were Indians free away from encroaching whites on the plains in the 1800's, or in the early 1900's around a belly stove listening to the radio when Jack Johnson was fighting another Great White Hope, or later when Jackie Robinson was playing ball at Yankee Stadium, or somewhere. It was the radio. The radio was the fire place. The TV took over the radio and eventually the Internet took the circles of listening away and people now retreat into unnatural ways of seeing the world in isolation surrounded by people listening to their devices unaware of their connection to what is around them.
I see how he was much more than a brilliant musician to his people. I have the same feeling every time someone talks about Nobel Prize winners. There were so many Hungarians amongst them. :) It's just uplifting to be so proud of someone.
Most days for the past two weeks I keep staring and wondering about your rendition of Louis Armstrong you designed. It is compelling. What I hear in my head is the sound of trumpet, his trumpet.
ReplyDeleteAs a kid, he was one of the very few Blacks who showed up on TV. There was a lot of fervor over this. Colored folks here in the States bristled with excitement that 'one of us' was on TV. Race pride. Everyone knew and everyone young and old secretly hoped and knew he'd show them white folks how to play and he'd represent 'us'. That was important in those days: dignity against the tide of white people's assumptions about us, and their sadistic cruelty to others not like them.
I remember all this and more in part because as he played grown ups had a way of telling their stories deep in truths in voices low enough to become a narrative to the music on the television. TV then was kind of like the fire in the outdoors when we were Indians free away from encroaching whites on the plains in the 1800's, or in the early 1900's around a belly stove listening to the radio when Jack Johnson was fighting another Great White Hope, or later when Jackie Robinson was playing ball at Yankee Stadium, or somewhere. It was the radio. The radio was the fire place. The TV took over the radio and eventually the Internet took the circles of listening away and people now retreat into unnatural ways of seeing the world in isolation surrounded by people listening to their devices unaware of their connection to what is around them.
Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories
I see how he was much more than a brilliant musician to his people. I have the same feeling every time someone talks about Nobel Prize winners. There were so many Hungarians amongst them. :) It's just uplifting to be so proud of someone.
DeleteYou guy really cool.I appreciate your Stuff..Thanks
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