South African rising jazz star, Thabang Tabane. Lidudumalingani Mqombothi
When, a few weeks back, Johannesburg’s largest jazz venue, The Orbit, posted a crowd-funding appeal to stay afloat it prompted the usual flurry of concern that the genre might be on its deathbed.
That’s nothing new. Nearly half a century ago rock musician and musical maverick Frank Zappa’s “Be-Bop Tango” (1973) first asserted that jazz wasn’t dead, but just smelled funny. Zappa’s track alluded to debates about the impact of the then revolutionary jazz style of bebop after World War II.
But the question also threaded through commentary on “cool” jazz, on the demise of British “trad” jazz under the assault of pop groups such as the Beatles, on “smooth” jazz, on Wynton Marsalis’s jazz neoclassicism and much more. Now that hip-hop has become the unchallenged behemoth of the US music industry, it’s being heard again.
But the music industry now occupies a new, digital landscape, and the “Is jazz dead?” debate has several – not just one – aspects. The statistics tell us less than half of the story.
Health of a genre
First, the demise or rise of an individual venue tells us very little about the health of a genre. Even when The Orbit was flourishing in 2015, its owners were voluble about the difficulties of maintaining a big, double-decker space that needed to fill every night to cover its costs.
In a country such as South Africa only a tiny minority of a population far smaller than that of the US have disposable income to spend on high-priced clubs. Jazz is only one music niche among many (the biggest by far is gospel), so devising the right business plan is a conundrum many venues have failed to solve.
Second, assessments of the health of any genre depend on how you define that genre. Worldwide, what is defined as jazz by commercial analysts may not coincide with the definitions of consumers. A case in point is the landslide success of what the analysts may define as crossover artists, such as pianist Robert Glasper, or hip-hop artists such as the award-winning Kendrick Lamar, whose sound is shaped by the inputs of multiple jazz musicians, including saxophonist Kamasi Washington (and as of March 2018 veteran pianist Herbie Hancock) – but the jazz that fans hear in this music is not recorded in the statistics.
Rapper Kendrick Lamar got help from his jazz friends.
Third, international comparisons based on the fortunes of, say pop singer Ed Sheeran’s multimillion selling “÷” (pronounced “divide”) as compared to any jazz album fail to compare like with like. The business model for the music of pop artists such as Sheeran is based on fast, high-volume sales shortly after release. It was the fastest selling album ever by a solo male artist – 672,000 in its first week of release in March 2017. It sold 2.7 million in 2017.
John Coltrane’s “Both Directions at Once”, which was released earlier this year half a century after the saxophonist’s death, will sell far fewer copies immediately. But it will likely continue selling, in some format or on some platform or other, for a further 50 years or more.
Fourth, the technology and value chain of the music industry have transformed over the past decade. Intermediaries have been removed from the supply chain. Digital downloads and more recently streaming have sidelined the major record labels as sources of music. What they sell, and the official figures they provide, are a fraction of the music that is consumed.
It’s easier for smaller music niches to thrive. Compact, low-cost recording technology allows for self-publishing independent of labels, and those products can reach global buyers online. The detail of most of this activity, however – and of what’s happening in the growing arena of jazz vinyl – is far below the radar of those collecting data on industry trends. South Africa has been a fast follower in this movement, with the shift to streaming proceeding apace.
South African jazz artists are now self-publishing their music at an increasing and unprecedented rate. The music is original and often contemptuous of commercial genre marketing categories.
South African experimental composer, Gabi Motuba. Delwyn Verasamy/Mail & Guardian
Music writer
Over the past few months alone, my work as a music writer has brought me flurry of new releases. These have included a piano trio outing from Bokani Dyer, an Argentinian/South African collaboration from bassist Ariel Zamonsky, a vocal/string quartet song series from avant-garde composer Gabi Motuba, explorations of rhythm patterns from Norway-based Cape Town drummer Claude Cozens, the debut of young Thabang Tabane, who plays the indigenous South African malombo style of jazz, and the third album from Durban-based pianist Sibu Masiloane. That isn’t, by any means, everything that has been released during the period.
‘We Will Be Home’ by Tumi Mogorosi and Gabi Motuba.
All these artists find audiences when they play, and those audiences are overwhelmingly young. As well as at comfortable metropolitan jazz clubs, there are now events at more informal, less expensive venues. In addition, audiences are growing for events around the discourses of jazz, such as the current series of Johannesburg discussions on jazz photography themed around the exhibition of photographer Siphiwe Mhlambi.
For a musician anywhere, surviving and prospering within the genre called jazz has never been easy, and it still isn’t. But the story is not summed up by the figures cited in international media commentaries.
Jazz author Stuart Nicholson’s 2005 book on the US scene posed the question differently: Is jazz dead? Or has it moved to a new address? To which the answers are: no, yes – and one of those addresses is definitely South Africa.
Nelson Mandela’s widow challenged world leaders celebrating his life on Monday to put their egos and partisan politics aside and honor his legacy by ending the “senseless violence” plaguing too much of the world.
“History will judge you should you stagnate too long in inaction,” Graca Machel told a U.N. “peace summit” commemorating the 100th anniversary of Mandela’s birth. “Humankind will hold you accountable should you allow suffering to continue on your watch.”
With peace a scarce commodity, Machel’s challenge was echoed by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and other leaders who acknowledged the world is far from achieving Mandela’s ideals which also include human rights and global cooperation.
“Today, with human rights under growing pressure around the world, we would be well served by reflecting on the example of this outstanding man,” Guterres said. “We need to face the forces that threaten us with the wisdom, courage and fortitude that Nelson Mandela embodied.”
The tributes to Mandela began with a rare U.N. honor — the unveiling of a $1.8 million statue of the South African anti-apartheid campaigner who became the world’s most famous political prisoner, played a key role in ending white-minority rule, and became president in the country’s first democratic election. The statue is a gift to the United Nations from South Africa.
His arms are outstretched in the statue, as if to embrace people everywhere. But after the cover was pulled off, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, with help from Guterres, placed a small South African flag in his lapel.
The day-long summit, with nearly 160 scheduled speakers, set the stage for Tuesday’s opening of the General Assembly’s annual meeting of world leaders, where conflicts from Syria to South Sudan, rising unilateralism, and tackling a warming planet and growing inequality are among issues expected to be in the spotlight.
With a bang of the gavel by General Assembly President Maria Fernanda Espinosa Garces, the leaders on Monday adopted a political declaration resolving “to move beyond words” to promote peace and prevent, contain and end conflicts. “Dialogue is key, and courage is needed to take the first steps to build trust and gain momentum,” it said.
Garces said Mandela “represents a light of hope for a world still torn apart by conflicts and suffering.”
Like others, she warned of the rise of populism and unilateralism and its threat to the 193-member United Nations.
“Drifting away from multilateralism means jeopardizing the future of our species and our planet,” Garces said. “The world needs a social contract based on shared responsibility, and the only forum that we have to achieve this global compact is the United Nations.”
The appeal for collective action to tackle the world’s many conflicts, hotspots and challenges is being tested by the “America First” agenda of U.S. President Donald Trump and populist governments in Italy, Hungary, Austria and elsewhere as well as Britain’s impending divorce from the European Union.
Addressing the Mandela event, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani never mentioned the United States — which has accused Tehran of promoting international terrorism, a charge it vehemently denies.
But Rouhani appeared to be taking aim at Trump and his pledge to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexican border when he said Mandela was a model for the “historical reality that great statesmen tend to build bridges instead of walls.”
Alluding to the Trump administration, Cuba’s President Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez said recent announcements about military expenditures are “alarming” and are pushing the world into a new arms race “to the detriment of the enormous resources that are needed to build a world of peace.”
South Africa’s Ramaphosa said his country’s “deepest hope” is that the summit, “in the name of one of our greatest exemplars of humanity, serves as a new dawn for the United Nations.”
“We hope we will rediscover the strength of will to save successive generations from war, and to overcome the hatred of our past and the narrow interests that blind us to the vision of a common future that is peaceful and prosperous,” he said. “We hope we will prove ourselves worthy as the bearers of the legacy of Nelson Mandela.”
Cadiz, Ohio, USA- July 5, 2016: The Harrison County Courthouse standing in the background with a period Civil War canon displayed in the foreground.
Southwest Virginia has casually forgotten the racial violence at its heart, as if this ugly history never happened. Instead, the Confederacy is memorialized, new stores are built on top of unique historical landmarks, and community leaders too often simply ignore the few known artifacts that tie the region to the exploitation of the slaves on which much of Appalachian society was built.
Elizabeth Catte, public historian and author of What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia, might call this “the myth of whiteness.” It manifests through willful neglect of public memorialization of the actual history of the racial violence, economic exploitation and inequality that in reality built the region.
But publicly recognizing the history of race-based violence would dispel the myth that slavery was unimportant here in Appalachia, and in Southwest Virginia in particular, as conversations about racial inequality and injustice take place across Virginia, Appalachia, and the country.
Elected representatives and ordinary folks, large institutions and small town community associations all can shine light on their shameful shared history, and shift the tone of the conversation toward recognition and memorialization.
Just last year, the Virginia General Assembly unanimously passed two bills (HB 1547, HB 2296) into law that give equal status to African American cemeteries and their preservation by the state.
But before those official measures, a shift was already apparent in the small town of Quicksburg in the Shenandoah Valley, where the local government publicly dedicated a slave cemetery in the spring of 2016 with a plaque, trails and benches.
The Rev. Bill Haley played a major role in the memorialization process. He is the executive director of Corhaven, a nonprofit “retreat farm” in the town.
A few years ago, Haley learned of the long forgotten slave cemetery after he purchased adjacent land to expand the retreat. Since then, he has worked alongside his family and some residents to recognize and memorialize the racial injustice that built his corner of Virginia.
Arnold remembers going with her family to decorate slave graves near her church cemetery in West Tennessee, where her ancestors were once enslaved. Arnold writes in The New York Times that the memorialization project is significant because it shines a light on “overlooked lives (that) are an inextricable part of the historical narrative of our country.” The cemeteries and slave stories “offer our contemporary society examples of resilience and humanity,” Arnold said, and preserving them “contributes to our own humanity.”
Public memorialization efforts like this are evidence that a shift is afoot in local legislation, as well as in the national and regional conversations about racial inequality and injustice. They mark a tonal change beyond the more obvious and visible nationwide conversation raised by Black Lives Matter on police violence against Black bodies, disagreements over Civil War memorials, and neo-Nazi-white supremacist/anarchist street clashes.
A History of Race-Based Violence
Census records show that slavery has been a violent and unjust part of Southwest Virginia’s basic moral framework and political economy since the 18th century.
Gordon Aronhime examined census records from Washington County in his article “Slavery on the Upper Holston” in 1980, which also included census records for surrounding counties. The records show that in 1786, the north fork of the Holston River Valley in Southwest Virginia had a population of over 5,693 people, including 383 slaves, or 6.73 percent of the population. In 1830, 16.45 percent of the people living in Washington County were slaves. The number of slaves peaked in 1850 and declined in Southwest Virginia until the end of the Civil War and Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.
Southwest Virginia had relatively few slaves compared to counties in the Piedmont and Tidewater regions of Virginia, which enslaved between 40 and 60 percent or more of the population. The Piedmont region of Virginia was similar to the coastal areas in South Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana and Florida.
The town of Abingdon, the seat of Washington County, had a thriving slave economy and was a market stop along the “Slave Trail of Tears” that stretched from Alexandria, Virginia, to New Orleans, Louisiana. Edward Ball writes that this trail was a three-month-long forced coffle from slave markets in cities like Richmond and Alexandria to market destinations in the Lower South. Armed white men forced groups of bound slaves to walk for 10 hours per day. Between 1810 and 1860, nearly 450,000 slaves were forcibly marched through Virginia along the Great Wagon Road, or what people today call U.S. Route 11. Ball points out that in the Upper South, Virginia was the top source of Black slaves for the Lower South. Abingdon and Southwest Virginia were mountain markets along the way to the great plantations of the antebellum South.
Our history in Southwest Virginia is built on race-based violence and labor exploitation. The forced labor of Black slaves was central to the early development, growth, expansion, and affluence enjoyed especially by the more prosperous white, land and business owning families. That brute fact is nowhere recognized today in Southwest Virginia.
The political problem today is that all those stories seem to be forgotten, and the political and economic establishment acts as if this history did not happen. The violence and exploitation is not publicly recognized or memorialized, which perhaps would go some way to healing our collective wounds. Instead, we have numerous publicly recognized monuments dedicated to the white, mostly wealthy, and mostly male heroes of the Civil and Revolutionary Wars.
Casually Forgetting the Past in the Present
The Resting Tree slave cemetery near the Washington County and Bristol City border on the Jeb Stuart Highway holds an estimated 100 unmarked and largely unmaintained slave graves. The ancient White Oak served as a shade tree for slaves forced to work the vast fields of Robert Preston’s plantation, according to local historian V. N. “Bud” Philips. Philips lobbied Bristol City, Washington County and civic organizations to mark the site nearly two decades ago, but to no avail. Philips has since died and the cemetery remains largely ignored.
The Meadows development project in Abingdon is the most publicized example of this pattern of disregard for history. The farm was once a slave-run plantation. In 2015, the Abingdon Town Council learned that slave graves were likely located on the property and possibly also Native American graves. The Bristol Herald Courier reported that the Abingdon Town Council, lead by the Mayor and Vice Mayor, repeatedlydenied motions to allow the farm property to be searched for free by knowledgeable town and county residents like local historians, the Washington County Cemetery Association, or the Friends of Abingdon. Friends of Abingdon have also filed lawsuits in federal court to stop the development project, but to no avail.
Instead, with legal authorization, Abingdon has already broken ground on an outdoor sports complex for youth and league play on one part of The Meadows. Food City has broken ground on another bigger grocery store on another part of the property. Reportedly, all of the outbuildings and barns are going to be destroyed, but the house preserved.
Conspicuously absent are any official markers that recognize the historical facts of the legal system of slavery and exploited labor that accompanied the Confederate government in Southwest Virginia. Thousands of legally owned slaves in Washington County were registered as property at the Abingdon courthouse. Today, the Common Confederate Soldier statue and the memorial to the five Confederate generals from Washington County stand on its lawn. The courthouse and the Confederate memorials are all located on U.S. Route 11, once the “Slave Trail of Tears,” and Abingdon’s Main Street.
All of this violence, exploitation and stark inequality are nowhere to be found in public memory, denied by elected representatives and civic organizations, bulldozed over, and developed into entertainment and consumer venues, the embodied myth of whiteness in its mundane form.
Resisting the Myth
Casually forgetting the past is not an acceptable response because to borrow from Sandra Arnold, our humanity is at stake. Repeating the consensus myth that race never mattered and that chattel slavery didn’t exist in the mountains fails to ring true, in light of the evidence. One way to resist this myth of whiteness would be to publicly memorialize the racial violence at the heart of Southwest Virginia.
Jacob L. Stump is an author, professor and small business owner from Konnarock in Southwest Virginia. This article originally appeared on 100 Days in Appalachia.
Davion Taylor might have been great in high school, if he had played in games, rather than just practiced with his team.
Hard to really know.
The hints of the hybrid linebacker’s talent, however, may just be presenting themselves at Colorado this season.
As a Seventh-day Adventist, Taylor observed the Sabbath from sundown on Fridays to sundown on Saturdays during his high school days by resting and worshipping. Meaning, he didn’t play in Friday night games. So he didn’t star at South Pike High in Mississippi and instead helped fill water bottles before games, then headed home for prayer.
He didn’t give up on his dream, though.
Taylor adjusted his religious observances once he turned 18, attended Coahoma Community College, caught the eye of Colorado, and now everyone’s seeing what South Pike High’s best practice player looks like in the big time .
“I sometimes doubt myself since I didn’t play high school ball. But I know I’m good enough,” said the 6-foot-2, 220-pound Taylor, who had a fumble recovery in a win at Nebraska on Saturday as the Buffaloes moved to 2-0. “I know I made it here for a reason.”
Taylor hails from Magnolia, Mississippi. He’s the son of Stephanie Taylor, who was drawn to the Seventh-day Adventist Church in her early 20s and raised Davion and his older brother Ladarris on the teachings of the religion. Friday nights were for tranquility of mind in keeping the Sabbath. The family prayed, studied the bible and watched Christian programming.
And Saturdays were reserved for church.
“This was a way to keep us spiritually fed,” his mother said.
As a kid, Taylor frequently attended the youth practices of his friends — just to watch and study the game.
He eventually went out for the middle school football team. His coach, John Culpepper, can still recall the first time he spotted Taylor, who was all of 120 pounds at the time.
“A little bitty fella,” said Culpepper, who would later be his varsity coach his senior year at South Pike. “You sometimes overlooked them when they’re that small. But not him. You could see he had all the talent in the world.”
At South Pike High, he prepared like he was a starter and went through all the drills, even if he wasn’t going to see the field. He was like another coach out there.
For Friday night home games, the routine was pretty much the same: Prepare the Gatorade, help line the field and set up the equipment. He would have the pregame meal with the team, wish them luck and head home before sundown.
His friends texted updates. When he had a chance, he’d watch the game film.
“I know,” he said, “that I could’ve helped get us a win or make plays.”
In his senior season, Taylor suited up in one game, since it was an early kickoff and well before sunset. From his safety position, he remembers having an interception and 10 tackles.
Mostly, though, it was just the grind of drills.
“As I was practicing, I just kept thinking, ‘This will just make my story even better,'” said Taylor, a state champion sprinter and triple jumper in high school who missed the state meet his junior year because it was held on a Saturday. “I was like, ‘I’m going to try out somewhere.'”
When he turned 18, his mom left his path up to him — his decisions were his to make, she said. He wanted to play football on the next level even if that meant playing on a Friday or Saturday.
“You have to give them rope,” his mom said. “I always wanted to see him strive to be the best.”
Taylor wants this to be clear: He wasn’t choosing football over his faith. His religion remains of utmost importance to him. He was trying to make both fit harmoniously into his life.
“If I’m doing this good and making it this far, I felt like God is on my side when it comes to this,” Taylor said. “He wouldn’t bring me this far just to let me fail and not be on my side.”
The dilemma: Getting recruiters to take notice with basically no game film. Culpepper put in a good word for him at Coahoma, a school that was featured in an episode of the football documentary “Last Chance U” for a losing streak.
“I told coaches, ‘He’s an athlete. Teach him to play, he’ll be great,'” Culpepper said.
As a walk-on at Coahoma, Taylor was nearly cut. He said he earned one of the last spots.
His freshman season he started the final three games as he moved to linebacker. His sprinter’s speed and raw ability attracted the attention of the Buffaloes, who told him they were interested.
Taylor turned in a monster sophomore season with 87 tackles. He was rated the top junior college outside linebacker in the country.
More schools expressed interest: Ole Miss, Arkansas, Baylor and Vanderbilt, to name a few. He honored his commitment to the Buffaloes after they showed early faith in him.
Taylor enrolled last January and went through spring practice while also competing in track. He finished sixth at the Pac-12 championships in the 100 meters.
To improve on the track, he studies the technique of Jamaican standout Usain Bolt, the world-record holder in the 100 and 200.
To improve on the field, the junior watches the moves of Broncos great Von Miller. Taylor is a hybrid linebacker in Colorado’s scheme and came up with a fumble recovery in the 33-28 win over Nebraska.
“He’s really catching on,” Colorado coach Mike MacIntyre said. “Every day you see the light bulb go off a little more.”
Especially in practice, where he’s long excelled.
“I just see myself getting better and better,” Taylor said. “It just gives me more and more belief that I can make it.”
The CBC Foundation panel explored the strategies that African American women are using to mobilize their communities and how their work is changing the face of government and our overall political landscape. In 2017, 98% of black women who voted in Alabama’s special election for the U.S. Senate made history by electing Alabama’s first Democratic senator in 20 years.
