|
|
Vol. LXIII, No. 16
|
|
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
|
|
|
|
Vol. LXIII, No. 16
|
|
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
|
Writer Amiri Baraka appeared at Labyrinth Books last week to celebrate the publication of his latest book, Digging: The Afro-American Soul of American Classical Music (University of California Press, $26.95). Prompted by questions from journalist Greg Tate, the 75-year old Baraka (formerly known as LeRoi Jones), reminisced about growing up in Newark, and focused on his many encounters with musicians. The event was cosponsored by Princeton University’s Center for African American Studies.
Labyrinth co-owner Dorothea von Moltke described the “tremendous honor” it was to host someone who “spoke up on race and injustice in America,” and, in his introduction, Mr. Tate pointed to Baraka’s earlier (1968) book, Black Music, as the book that inspired him to become a writer and jazz collector. Mr. Tate said that he “loves” Digging because “it’s written from within,” using Baraka’s knowledge of the musicians he talks about “as human beings.” He described these musicians as Baraka’s “intellectual, political, and spiritual comrades,” noting the poignance of the eulogies that appear in the volume.
Newark
Baraka’s Newark roots were formative; he currently lives there, and even when he didn’t, he kept a map of his hometown on his desk. It was there that he was exposed to the music of Wayne Shorter, Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, Nat Cole, Sarah Vaughan, Thelonious Monk, and Charlie Parker (“Those were the hip people.”) Baraka’s imitation of Monk, interrupting himself as he played the piano but still holding his hands in mid-air, walking over to a bar to ask for “a straight, no chaser,” drew appreciative laughter from the audience.
While his parents “dug swing,” his grandparents liked gospel, and being a block away from a Masonic temple that had “canteens” every weekend added to the mix. Inheriting a batch of pop records in 1949 made him “think of stuff” he “never thought of before.” His family’s passion for reading was influential too, however, and eventually Baraka’s love of language won out over potential careers as a musician or artist. “In the end, writing was more accessible,” he observed, admitting, though, that this solitary activity “actually is kind of a drag.”
Politics
The year 1965 was, by Baraka’s account, pivotal for him. The cumulative effects of the assassinations and riots of those years came to a head one day when he was browsing in the Eighth Street Bookstore in Greenwich Village and heard about the murder of Malcolm X. “I split,” he recalled, describing his transition from an observer of the cultural scene writing jazz criticism, and album liner notes to a political activist.
With Digging, however, Baraka has returned to his first love, and the belief that “the history of Afro-American people is in their music.” Ms. von Moltke noted that the copies of Digging available at Thursday’s event were there on special order; the book had not yet been officially published. When it is, it will be interesting to see what critics make (if anything) of claims like the one that critics “as early as Brahms” acknowledged the impact of New Orleans jazz on world culture.