Positivity

Happy New Year

that’s my hope for us all

I don’t remember when I last wrote one of these year end missives. It’s really not my style, but this last year could have been a lollapaloser and I am happy to share the more positive lallapalooza outlook!

As this year ends, my three major projects are all on the verge of fruition:

I wrote “Here’s to Life,” a one man play with music, staring Keith David as Joe Williams, and now we have a completed script and score. John Gentry Tennyson is our amazing music director, and Richard Gant is our stage director. Next step is to prepare for backers’ auditions and to do that we need to raise $300,000. Check out our pitch deck and if you know anyone who might want to invest in a Broadway-bound show, or to make a tax-deductible donation, let me know. (Nothing like a little shameless self-promotion, and I am very proud of this.)

My memoir, “No Wrong Notes in Love or Jazz” is the story of an interracial May-December fling that quickly evolves into a love story against all odds. While searching for self and recognition, I fall irreversibly in love with a married man, and he with me.. ‘Age is just a number’ is a cliché we embrace as we focus more and more on life’s essentials in the here and now: our relationship to ourselves, our values, and each other. John and I were inseparable for 33 years, as business colleagues, lovers, best friends, and finally husband and wife. Ours was an adult relationship, nuanced, sophisticated, imperfect, and real. Manuscript and proposal are both complete and in search of an agent or publisher, but in this changing landscape of book publishing, I am also considering self-publishing.

“Seeking Harmony: The Life and Music of Luther Henderson” has been resurrected. After doing a tremendous amount of research with dozens of interviews, I had been struggling on-and-off for years trying to find the right approach that would be of interest to a general reading public. It is now shaping up as a look behind the curtain:

In a concert hall, after the organized cacophony of the orchestra tuning up, there is a moment of expectant quiet while awaiting the entrance of the conductor. 

In the theatre, the magic begins when the lights go down and the overture swells up from the pit creating the aural overview of the journey you are about to take. If you know the songs, you delight in recognizing the themes as one merges with the next…and then the curtain rises.

With heightened anticipation, the audiences are primed to enter a world of suspended disbelief where music communicates directly with the soul.

Musical communication is spiritual communication. The most essential communication happens one-to-one, mind-to-mind, spirit-to-spirit.  If the entire human race could learn this kind of give and take, this kind of spiritual communication between minds, then we wouldn’t be going around killing each other. – Luther Henderson

So as you can see, I’ve got three bases loaded and gearing up for a home run.

Amazing, considering that as 2024 was making its transition to 2025, I was looking at what could have been three strikes:

November 2024 I was recovering from a lumpectomy – excised with clean margins– and hopeful of avoiding a recurrence with 5 years of meds, no chemo. 

Then came December, I fell and fractured my sacrum and a lower vertebrae landing me in the hospital unable to move, followed by too many weeks in a rehab facility. 

That’s where I was, oblivious, still on pain meds when, on January 7th, the Eaton Canyon fire broke out two blocks away from my house.  Unbeknownst to me at the time, my wonderful neighborhood friends, Dana and Mark, went to my house to check on my mother.  The entire neighborhood was under mandatory evacuation orders. They helped another angel, my mother’s caregiver, Rosa, pack up essentials and Rosa took mom and Jamie to her house – that’s where they stayed for the next four weeks while I remained in rehab and the neighborhood was on lockdown, national guard patrolling.

Side note about surviving in rehab: the people are nice but woefully short-staffed and underpaid. The more you can do for yourself, the better. I couldn’t walk, but as soon as I could transfer to a wheel chair by myself I felt less trapped. And visits from friends, almost nightly FaceTime with Daisy and Stewart in NY, and in-person visits from Rucker and John M. helped immensely. The food is awful but I made liberal use of UberEats and my ‘brother’ Brian brought me protein shakes and mega-stuffed Oreos.

As for the fire, our neighborhood was miraculously spared, but I have friends just a few blocks north and others farther west who lost their homes…but not their lives. One such friend, the fabulous bassist John Clayton remains an inspiration. From the day of the fire onward, after both his family and his daughter’s family lost their respective homes, and years worth of music manuscripts, along with Ray Brown’s cherished bass, John remains positive, continuing to make exquisite music, supporting others, and mentoring up-and-coming musicians.

Mom and I returned the house in mid February, and got back to work. She turned 90 in August and continues to teach and supervise psychotherapists via zoom, with many of her students residing in China. Power to her! 

As for me, you’ve now come full circle on my news.  I have more new projects on the back burner, and I continue to study the craft of storytelling and creative nonfiction. I have one online workshop, The Art of Story, coming up with Tom Jenks, cofounder and editor of Narrative Magazine, the world’s first and foremost digital literary periodical.

I hope this newsletter finds you well and happy. I can’t do much about the world at large, but I can find joy and fulfillment in my own daily routines and in keeping my friends close even if that means Zoom or FaceTime and email instead of in-person. I hope you feel the same 

I wish you joy and laughter and lots of good music

Epiphany!

Epiphany! You never known from where or when one might arise…if ever.

Yes, Christmas is around the corner, but I am not talking about the coming the Magi. Nor am I talking about a brilliant discovery of import to the world – think Einstein or Ben Franklin or Madame Curie.

For most of us, an epiphany is more likely just an A-HA! moment of small or large magnitude often triggered by a simple event. My epiphany was a sudden insight into the essential nature of something monumentally important to no one other than me, and last night I had a major 7-point-oh-my-god-why-didn’t-I-think-of-that-before mind-quake.

For months now, I have been actively writing and re-writing, structuring and re-structuring, a book about Luther Henderson. If you known me for a long time, you may remember that I first embarked on this project 20-some-odd years ago and it has ebbed and flowed in my life ever since. I started off with five or six solid chapters of a standard academic biography when a very good friend (and exceptional writer) told me the truth. He was clear that I would have only tiny audience, if that. Not only is Luther an unknown, but I had no story, no narrative arc. He was born…and he died does not qualify; where are the desires and the obstacles to be overcome…or not. What is at stake? My friend was spot on.

Periodically I would berate myself for my inability to bring the book to fruition, particularly as it would have made Luther’s widow happy to see his story finally told. I started to reframe it as a man facing death and wondering if he had a legacy. That is a more universal question that many might identify with, but not much at stake if you are about to die anyway, and again, the story still focused on a man who was unknown.

I felt like I was living Alan and Marilyn Bergman’s lyrics to “The Windmill’s Of Your Mind:”

Like a tunnel that you follow to a tunnel of it own

Down a hollow to a cavern where the un has never shone

Like a door that keeps revolving in a half forgotten dream

Or the ripples from a pebble someone tossed in a stream

Like a clock whose hand are sweeping past the minutes of its face

And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space

Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind

Some things unfold only when they are ready…and I think that Luther had a strong hand in this.

Now I realize what Luther always knew – “his story” lies not in the facts of his accomplishments but in the trials Luther endured to achieve, and the impact it all had on his life, the lives others, and the music itself. His ability to transform and extend music in ways that became his unique speciality, influenced his jazz, classical, and Broadway colleagues, but he paid a price.

My epiphany is NOT YET fully formed. It was triggered by the simple event of reading Susan Orlean’s memoir, in which she reminded me that she always writes about unknown people, but finding the key into the story is the hard part. I’m not there yet, but I think I am on a path forward.

It’s never clear cut

I read that the co-founder of Home Depot, Arthur M. Blank, is giving back in a huge way. He is donating $50 million to help HBCU students cross the finish line and earn their degrees. 

http://stayinspirednews.com/billionaire-donates-50…

That’s terrific, but how does one balance the fact that The Home Depot has been identified as a company that has supported Trump and Project 2025.

Not to take away the awesomeness of his gift.

I guess first one separates the for-profit Company from the philanthropic Foundation. Also possible that after founding Home Depot he was no longer in charge when they decided to support Trump’s plans…. Nothing is simple and I am still looking for ways to make my displeasure felt in some meaningful way.

I will continue to boycott Home Depot, and that has the added benefit of supporting my local hardware stores.

In communicating with friends lately, it seems that a lot of people are not anxious to sign petitions. I was hoping together tons of signatures and share our group discontent with the companies mentioned in my Saturday post.

We only have strength in numbers but I can understand if people do not want to go on record publicly. I do encourage people to use to use the power of their pocketbook, whether they make it known or not. Meanwhile I continue to look for ways to share information and rally the troops.

Pro Democracy! Take Action!

I feel there is so little that me, myself, and I can do in the face of this erosion of our democracy. In my youth I attended many protests and marches in New York’s Central Park, and Jim and I marched on Washington together. Now, at age 70, I have to admit to some fear of crowds, particularly with the advent of gun-wielding individuals, deliberate agitators inciting violence, and federalized enforcers literally taking aim at peaceful protesters. So what to do?

Speaking out is great, rallying together is energizing, but where’s the impact?

Follow the money.

I am bombarded with requests for donations to organizing groups and politicians, but I have only so much to give. One of our real super powers is withholding our money – targeting those companies and institutions that cave in and kowtow to our current government. Whenever I identify one of those companies, I boycott their goods or services. If it’s a college or university I make it clear to them that I will not (or no longer) donate and if by chance I had set up or considered a legacy donation, that too is gone until they stand up against censorship and intimidation. Big scholastic names have been mentioned (think Harvard) but lots of other schools are cracking down on students’ rights to free speech and freedom of the academic press (see what’s happening at the Media School at  Indiana University Bloomington).

So I am on the lookout for bad actors. In addition to Facebook, Disney, and Tesla, below is my first list of companies and products I will boycott. (I may continue to use Facebook, but only for the purpose of Protest and spreading the word.

I have also used change.org to post a petition with this list. We need a lot of signatures to make it impactful, so PLEASE SIGN! Even if you do not use these products, you can still make your displeasure known.

Procter & Gamble
Tide: A popular laundry detergent.
Pampers: Disposable diapers.
Gillette: Shaving products.
Head & Shoulders: Anti-dandruff shampoo.
Bounty: Paper towels.
Procter & Gamble is among the companies that have supported Trump’s initiatives, including Project 2025.

Stanley Black & Decker
DeWalt: Power tools and hand tools.
Craftsman: Tools and storage solutions.
Stanley: Hand tools, storage, and security products.
Stanley Black & Decker is listed among companies that have supported Trump and Project 2025.

Hoover
Hoover Vacuum Cleaners: A range of vacuum cleaners for home cleaning.
Hoover is a brand under Stanley Black & Decker, which has supported Trump’s initiatives. 

Ashley Furniture
Furniture: A variety of home furniture including sofas, beds, and dining sets.
Ashley Furniture has been identified as a company that has supported Trump and Project 2025.
Sign this petition today and commit to holding corporations accountable for their partnerships and actions.

Ace Hardware
Hardware Products: Tools, paint, lawn and garden supplies, and home improvement products.
Ace Hardware is among the companies that have supported Trump and Project 2025. 

Farberware
Cookware: Pots, pans, and kitchen utensils.
Small Appliances: Coffee makers, toasters, and blenders.
Farberware is a brand under Stanley Black & Decker, which has supported Trump’s initiatives.

My Pillow
Bedding Products: Pillows, mattresses, and bedding accessories.
My Pillow has been identified as a company that has supported Trump and Project 2025. 

General Motors (GM)
Chevrolet: A range of vehicles including cars, trucks, and SUVs.
GMC: Trucks and SUVs.
GM has been identified as a company that has supported Trump and Project 2025. 

Publix
Grocery Stores: A supermarket chain offering a variety of food and household products.
Publix has been identified as a company that has supported Trump and Project 2025. 

The Home Depot
Home Improvement Products: Tools, building materials, and services.
The Home Depot has been identified as a company that has supported Trump and Project 2025. 

Oreck
Vacuum Cleaners: Lightweight and upright vacuum cleaners.
Oreck is a brand under Stanley Black & Decker, which has supported Trump’s initiatives.

Slumberland
Furniture: A variety of home furniture including sofas, beds, and dining sets.
Slumberland has been identified as a company that has supported Trump and Project 2025.

Oscar Peterson Centennial Celebration

TONIGHT! At Chicago’s Symphony Center!

An all-star performance of Oscar Peterson’s Africa Suite featuring original arrangements by John Clayton! With stellar musicians Benny Green, Christian McBride, Dan Wilson, Lewis Nash, and the Chicago Jazz Orchestra under the direction of John Clayton, this promises to be an evening you won’t soon forget. 

Along with celebrating OP’s Centennial, the evening is dedicated to the loving memory of the great guitarist, Russell Malone, who was originally scheduled to participate.

To commemorate OP’s Centennial in my own way, here is the brief report I posted following the Oscar Peterson Memorial Concert in 2008:

[a brief report filed January 13, 2008]

A free-admission memorial concert for Oscar Peterson was held at Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto yesterday, Saturday, January 12, 2008. People began queuing up before dawn, and when the show began shortly after 4pm, all 2,630 seats were full and hundreds of fans had been turned away. John and I were among the privileged.

The presentation, titled “Oscar Peterson – “Simply the Best,” was broadcast on Canadian Radio. Canadian television host and journalist Valerie Pringle was mistress of ceremonies and she set the stage, so to speak, for listeners at home. First she described the huge video-projected picture of smiling Oscar looking down from center stage — his smile was remarked upon by almost everyone who spoke. Then she identified the lonely piano set off to the side, stage right, as Oscar’s Bösendorfer, and next to it a huge poster of Oscar waving to an audience with one hand, while his other hand held tight to the hand of his then five-year-old daughter Celine.

While many jazz fans maybe aware of Oscar’s humanitarian interests and fierce beliefs in justice and equality, many might be surprised at how many political friends he had. These people were not just fans, they were actually break-bread friends of long-standing. Oscar was a Companion of the Order of Canada and a member of the Order of Ontario, the most prestigious official honour in the province given in recognition of the highest level of individual excellence and achievement. Two friends, who were also fellow members of The Order, on hand to speak eloquently in memory of Oscar were The Hon. Bob Rae, former Premier of Ontario, and Phil Nimmons, Canadian jazz clarinetist, composer, bandleader, and Director Emeritus of Jazz Studies at University of Toronto.

I’m not well-versed in Canadian protocol, but I’m pretty sure that the highest-ranking official on stage was Haiti-born Her Excellency the Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean, Governor General and Commander-in-Chief of Canada, flanked by a uniformed attendant who escorted her on stage, placed her papers on the podium and stood behind her at attention until she concluded her remarks which were lengthy and alternated between English and French, then he gathered her papers and followed her off stage.

Quincy Jones reminisced lovingly of his early days and antics with Oscar, and the audio taped message from Stevie Wonder was sweet, but perhaps the most touching verbal tribute was given by Oscar’s youngest daughter Celine, now a poised young lady of 16. She spoke of her dad as only a daughter can, remembering the giggles he could evoke from her by donning her high-heeled shoes and an item or two of her apparel, and reliving her myriad travels abroad as she joined Oscar on tour, eating the best foreign foods and hanging with dad and his friends after concerts, long past-bedtime and into the wee hours of the morning.

The first music to be heard on the program was from Oscar himself — a video clip of the Oscar Peterson Trio with Niels Henning Oersted Pedersen on bass and Ulf Wakenius on guitar. Surely a tough act to follow, but the quartet with Monty Alexander (piano), Ulf Wakenius, Dave Young (bass) and Jeff Hamilton (drums) truly rocked the house.

Other musicians paying tribute include Hilary Kole (singer billed as Oscar’s protege), Audrey Morris, a jazz balladeer from Chicago, and Montreal entertainer Gregory Charles. Herbie Hancock wished Oscar well on his next voyage and serenaded him on his way with a solo meditation on “Maiden Voyage.” Nancy Wilson, accompanied by Monty Alexander, sang “Goodbye” (Gordon Jenkins):

I’ll never forget you
I’ll never forget you
I’ll never forget how we promised one day
To love one another forever that way
We said we’d never say
Good-bye

Nobody who I have ever loved has left,” Nancy said. “They are always here.”

The tribute ended with a Oscar’s “Hymn to Freedom” featuring renowned soprano Measha Brueggergosman with the combined forces of the Faith Chorale, the Nathanial Dett Chorale and the University of Toronto Gospel choir all under the direction of pianist and CBC Radio host Andrew Craig.

Although I never felt that I knew Oscar well, I did have slightly more than a passing acquaintance and I was especially honored when he asked me to write the liner notes for the recording of his commission “Trail of Dreams: A Canadian Suite.”

There is an identifiable Oscar Peterson sound, recognizable but not categorizable. His original style does not fall easily into any specific idiom and he likes it that way. “I just do what I do and I don’t categorize myself in one category or another.” He is even reluctant to accept the title of composer. “Well I don’t pretend to be Berlioz or Haydn or Ellington,” he demurred…

I was not on hand when the suite premiered on April 11, 2000 in Roy Thompson Hall, but it felt fitting that I was there, in that very same concert hall, to pay my respects.

Click here to read the liner notes.

Ron Carter: The Smithsonian Interview

If you are not hip to this already, you must discover Ron Carter: The Smithsonian Interview .

This fascinating book is described on Maestro’s web site as a “Coffee table art book based on the full transcript of the historic 2011 interview for the Smithsonian Oral History Project.” If you’ll allow me a moment of self-promotion, this historic 2011 interview was conducted by yours truly and I was astounded to learn (and more than a little pleased) that the interview was used in its entirety without any editing. 

But what makes this book so great are the alternating pages. He enlisted the help of Simone Banos and Penny Kjellberg (he calls them his Necessary Others) to create an immersive experience that include full page photos, QR codes to music and video examples, and a timeline that provides context for the what was happening at the time. I am so proud to have been a catalyst for this amazing project.

Happy Birthday, Darling..

Today would have been John’s 113th birthday. I miss him fiercely each and every day, so he is still with me.

Five years ago today I wrote a post the second paragraph of which is oh so similar…. I can barely imagine what he would make of today’s world. Before he died he predicted people would take to the streets in protest — just didn’t think it would take this long.

“The Jazz Omnibus:

21st-Century Photos and Writings” by members of the Jazz Journalist Association is aptly titled. Omnibus is a word I usually associate with politics, as in the omnibus bill. That would be an adjective signifying the inclusion of many items. While that does apply, here it is a noun. Merriam-Webster defines it as a book containing reprints of a number of works (as of a single author or on a single subject); yes, Jazz, the modifier of the noun.

I’m glad those who chose the title did not call it a compendium, that would sound heavy and dour. Now at 572 pages, this book is physically heavy, showcasing the work of 19 photographers and 67 writers (full disclosure, I am one of them and very proud to be included).

It being an omnibus allows me to play with the second definition; a public vehicle designed to carry a large number of passengers; a bus. (Writers love to play with words.) Whether the bus is carrying the writers and photographers themselves, or their actual works, I like the image of traveling to share these stories and images with the public. Or I might imagine the riders of the bus to be our collective readers — if I were a graphic artist I’d have great fun depicting a bus filled with all sorts of people each with the book in hand, sharing their favorite chapters with one another. Reading this book is a trip; whatever your preferred method of travel (I’d be prone to a magic easy chair with a snifter of brandy in hand), the destination is a world of elucidation and enjoyment for those who already love jazz music and musicians, along with those who would like to learn about it.

Kudos to those who worked tirelessly on curating and editing this extraordinary collection…The Jazz Omnibus.

Celebrating Luther Henderson

Today is the anniversary of his death.

Luther Henderson (born March 14, 1919 – died July 29, 2003) was a composer, arranger, conductor, musical director, orchestrator, and pianist. He was a proud black man who graduated from the Julliard School of Music in 1942, and in 1956, married a white woman, his second wife. He was Duke Ellington’s “classical arm,” orchestrating music for Beggar’s Holiday, Three Black Kings, and other symphonic works. Duke spoke highly of Luther, but seldom gave him the credit he was due. Luther was Lena Horne’s pianist and musical director. During his sixty-year career in music, he worked his magic on some of Broadway’s greatest musical hits, including Flower Drum Song, Funny Girl, No No Nanette, Purlie, Ain’t Misbehavin’, and Jelly’s Last Jam, starring such performers as Barbra Streisand, Laine Kazan, Robert Guillaume, Savion Glover, Andre Deshields, Tonya Pinkins, and Gregory Hines. His music was heard on television programs such as The Ed Sullivan Show, The Bell Telephone Hour, and specials for the pop stars of the day including Dean Martin, Carol Burnett, Andy Williams, Victor Borge, and Polly Bergen. In later years his Broadway credits included Ain’t Misbehavin, Jelly’s Last Jam, and Play On, but the project perhaps dearest to his heart was Classic Ellington a concert of Ellington songs arranged and orchestrated by Luther Henderson and performed by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra conducted by Simon Rattle.

Just before he died he was named a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master. When his wife, Billie Allen Henderson, gave him the news he had a one-word response: “Recognition!” You can see the NEA’s brief video bio here.