 
|
|||||||||
              
|
Black History Month: Students get historical musical lesson
Wednesday, February 14, 2001 By Jonathan Barnes
Filing into the gym of Mars Area Middle School on Friday afternoon, most pupils' faces wore the blase looks of those attending yet another boring assembly.
They chatted, filling the gym with a noisy din. They expected, at best, to learn a little bit about jazz.
But as Etta Cox belted out, a capella, the refrain to "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child," the chatter died away, and the students found themselves getting a musical lesson in black history.
"We are all vocally unique," Cox told the pupils, explaining that they were about to embark on "a vocal journey of African American music."
The song is reflective of the mournful wails of the African slave, she said, but they were more than just songs to the people who originally sang them. As she spoke, the drummer of the Al Dowe Quartet, Cox's band, began a slow, steady beat on the bass drum. Cox launched into "Deep River," a "hoot and holler" song with the refrain: "I want to cross over into camp-ground."
"Hoot and holler" songs, which evolved into Negro spirituals, were a way for slaves to secretly communicate with each other, Cox said. "Wade in the Water," her next song, was a message to runaway slaves to wade in the river to throw off those tracking them, she explained.
Through a seamless narrative of story and song, Cox and the band moved through several types of African American music, with snippets of spirituals, blues, scat, soul, rock 'n' roll, Motown and rap.
Organized by the Performing Arts/Assembly Committee of the school's student government, the performance chronicled the influence of African American music over the last 200 years. The program was provided through Gateway to the Arts, a nonprofit arts organization.
Cox, a fixture in the Pittsburgh jazz scene and the Post-Gazette's 1999 Performer of the Year, has been bringing her program to schools in the region for 10 years.
The brief journey highlighted the tapestry of interweaving musical traditions of Africans in America.
The assembly committee, a group of 25 pupils, had to decide on its own to have the band play for the school, said Jon Elm, a sixth-grader and committee member.
"We had to pick something that would interest both boys and girls," he said. "We thought [the band] would be interesting because no one knew a lot about jazz."
The performance taught them a little more about African American history, some of the pupils said.
"It wasn't just songs that they were singing as slaves, they were telling each other things," said eighth-grader Greg Holland.
Through her commanding presence and charm, Cox encouraged the pupils to participate in the musical trip. Having them repeat after her as she sang, she helped the reluctant pupils experience the melodies and words of the songs.
Cox made the pupils laugh when she had them sing scat with her. "She-doobadooba-dwee!"
The students enthusiastically followed her lead. "Ba bop a doo!"
The band finished off with rap's seminal tune, "Rapper's Delight," by the Sugar Hill Gang.
Cox donned sunglasses and guitarist Jeff Grey wore a baseball cap with the visor pointing to the side. As the band played the tune, Cox invited the youths to come up and dance.
The exploration of African American culture in February, which is Black History Month, was fitting though unexpected to some.
"I don't think they were expecting something like this," Elm said. "This was kind of a surprise for them."
Jonathan Barnes is a free-lance writer.
|
||||||||
