All Proportions Kept

[poliphilo]

Al Sharpton was saying yesterday that Michael Jackson was the first black entertainer to appeal to black and white audiences alike- and my immediate response was, well if that's true it's a big achievement.  But then I thought about it and I saw that in fact it wasn't true-  and then I put myself to sleep listing people who had made that leap across the race divide before him. It turned out to be a pretty long list.

Paul Robeson
Josephine Baker
Duke Ellington
Louis Armstrong
Ella Fitzgerald
Miles Davis
Marian Anderson
Sammy Davis Jnr
Harry Bellanfonte
Nat King Cole
Eartha Kitt
Diana Ross
Lionel Ritchie
Chuck Berry
Jimi Hendrix

Well, you get the picture. And I'm sure I could go on adding to it. 

Also yesterday I found myself watching a documentary about Felix Mendelssohn- and how he managed himself as a converted Jew in mid-19th century Germany, and how the Nazis tried to expunge his music and how his family- as people of "mixed race"- struggled to survive under the Third Reich. Felix Mendelssohn was also a child prodigy; he handled fame with grace- and died at 32 having written much great music, revived the reputation of J.S. Bach, founded the Leipzig Convervatory and a whole lot else. There' s achievement and then there's achievement- and Billie Jean may be a pretty good song, but it's not the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto.



Felix Mendelssohn, aged 12. 

Comments

[mamadar.livejournal.com]

Don't forget Little Richard, with whom Jackson had much in common. And there's also Billy Eckstein, a wonderfully smooth singer from the big band era.

Pop music fans and critics both have a tendency to think that Nothing Happened in American music before rock'n'roll. And yes, I think Miles Davis and John Coltrane, let alone Felix Mendelssohn, have made more lasting contributions to music than Jackson, may he rest in peace.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That's it. I think one of the things I'm protesting against is the way our culture functions as if history began in in the late 1950s. I'm arguing for the long view.

Richard Thompson was once asked to supply a magazine with his list of the "greatest songs of all time". He (mischievously) took them at their word and included a medieval hymn, a 19th century music hall ditty and a bit of Gilbert and Sullivan. They refused to print it.

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

And then made an album and a tour of it.

I love the portrait of youg Felix.

Nine

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Of course- I was forgetting that. I'd like to hear the album.

It's a sweet portrait.

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

I find it amusing that in young Felix's eyes we see a "Do you mind? I'm busy" expression that is not at all typical of 12-year-olds. :)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I imagine he had scores to write. It's an attractive face, isn't it?

[internet-sampo.livejournal.com]

When Al Sharpton opens his mouth, hilarity ensues.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

He's not much more than a name to me....:)

[internet-sampo.livejournal.com]

Here is one of his more spectacular misadventures.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tawana_Brawley

and

“White folks was [sic] in caves while we was building empires.... We taught philosophy and astrology and mathematics before Socrates and them Greek homos ever got around to it.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Sharpton#Controversy

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'd sort of imagined that Sharpton- with his grey moustache and old-fashioned views- was older than me. Turns out he's three years younger.

Seems like he could do with reading up on his history.

[ex-redrain.livejournal.com]

Stevie Wonder, Oscar Micheaux, Bille Holliday, Ma Rainey, not to mention all the bluesmen who influenced the rock n rollers...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes indeed- the names keep coming...

[shullie.livejournal.com]

watched that documentary, was babysitting my grandson, and it came on purely by accident, as my daughter has problems with her sky dish.. so you never know what you gonna get ( I was going to read), was fascinating... and left me wanting to know more, about Mendelssohn and strangelyabout the 'mixed race' families

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It's made me want to listen to some Mendelssohn. I know I've got a disc of the Violin Concerto somewhere...

[pondhopper.livejournal.com]

That statement about Jackson being the first black entertainer to appeal to both black and white audiences is just pure ignorance...or an attempt at attention-getting. I imagine the rebuttals will pour in.

What an intriguing portrait. I've never seen it (or don't remember seeing it). It's absolutely lovely and expressive, isn't it?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

They showed the portrait on the documentray last night- and then I found it again on wikipedia.

[mamarose.livejournal.com]

Al Sharpton is at least consistent in his idiocy. There is much good (and not so good) to say about Michael Jackson. No need to make things up. This statement, frankly, demeans Sharpton's own race. As you said, many black entertainers have entertained both black and white audiences. We are in an era where one needn't be a first in order to be extraordinary. But I assume that I am preaching to the choir here.

I have to say, I envy your television options. One of the reasons I canceled television services is that there is so little worth watching. If I had programs like this one about Mendelssohn, I'd keep watching. He has such a comely face.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

There are many nights when there's nothing on TV I want to watch. I lucked out with the Mendelssohn documentary. I was hopping channels and there it was....

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Not musicians either of them, but you did leave off Bill Cosby and Sidney Poitier, who were on our list of precursors to Michael Jackson on the multiracial appeal front.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Oh, and Muddy Waters, without whom the Beatles, the Stones, and Eric Clapton would have been a whole lot poorer.

[solar-diablo.livejournal.com]

I kept waiting for someone to mention Waters, and even more so Robert Johnson.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Arguably, the thing about Johnson is that he wasn't really appreciated by whites until after he was dead. Hell, he wasn't appreciated by most people until after he was dead.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

And Leadbelly- one of the pillars of the folk revival.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I thought I'd stick with people in the same general field as Jackson, but, yes, the list could have included actors and comedians. And, then, of course, there are the sportsmen and women...

[qatsi.livejournal.com]

Yesterday on the Today programme, some commentator was comparing Jackson to Mozart and Beethoven. Even Evan Davis found this difficult to take seriously.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Now that's plain silly.

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

Any American who was a teenager in the early and late 1950's can remember a bevy of black entertainers, along with parental criticism pertaining thereto: "Why are you listening to that ______ music? Arent there any white guys making records any more?"
Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers (Frankie was still a little kid whose voice had not broken, like early MJ). Later, Harry Belafonte, and others too numerous to mention.
I think the reason for all this "fractured history" is that those Americans who were teens in the sixties and seventies were not as aware of recent history as we were. If that is an egotistical statement, so be it. I do know for a fact that my oldest daughter at age 13 asked me if London was anywhere near Boston, MA. Boston's schools had de-emphasized history/geography in favor of "social" studies, that is, basic lessons on tolerance and inclusiveness. I agreed that the new studies were very valuable and needed at the time, but that the old ones should not have been cast out.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

How can we know who we are if we don't know our history?

I guess Sharpton belongs to the generation you're talking about. I'd imagined he was older, but when I looked him up just now I found that he's actually three years younger than me.

[brttvns.livejournal.com]

Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, you're right, the names keep coming (Shrapton is an ignorant ass) Ray Charles, Otis Redding, Smokey Robinson, Nina Simone, Sam Cooke, Howlin' Wolf, Sarah Vaughan, B.B. King...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I could kick myself for forgetting some of these names...

Mendelssohn

[ideealisme.livejournal.com]

I am currently sight-reading a piece by Mendelssohn for Grade 7 ABRSM, one of his Songs without Words. It's got a lovely rolling left hand and a lyrical right hand melody.

When I learned he died at 32 I felt really humbled. Christ, I have wasted my life :)

Re: Mendelssohn

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It's odd, people don't talk about Mendelssohn as a tragic, short-lived, romantic genius, But he died at an even younger age than Mozart.

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

My uncle, who first heard Mendelssohn over the public tannoy in a Japanese POW camp, declared to me that his music was a very rare thing - great music born out of ease and happiness rather than suffering and penury. I don't know whether that was true, but the first movement of his Italian Symphony has been in my head ever since my uncle played it for me from a Deutsche Grammophon recording.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I love it how great art can cut through the crap.

I don't know much about Mendelssohn's life and personality- but his music certainly sounds happy.

[wokenbyart.livejournal.com]

I didn't know Mendelssohn was converted to Judaism? I thought he was born Jewish!