Keeping Harlem's Storied Jazz Past Jamming

[Brad]

Keeping Harlem's Storied Jazz Past Jamming

By SHERRI DAY

Published: May 29, 2004

With the big-band era long gone and hip-hop music dominating radio charts and dance clubs, what's an old jazz master to do?

Jam.

On a recent Monday night in Harlem at the New Amsterdam Musical Association, which claims to be the oldest jazz organization for black musicians in the country, a 13-piece band sliced through the silence on a residential block with the sounds of "Satin Doll," "Pennies From Heaven" and "Take the 'A' Train."

William Pyatt, 75, a tenor saxophonist whose cheeks bulged as he leaned into the mike, took frequent solos. Albert Sheldon, 79, tidy in a three-piece suit, closed his eyes and swayed, his shoulders twitching as he extended his red and white accordion. Emmanuel Grier, 63, delighted the crowd with a one-handed solo on the conga drums. And W. Morris Mitchell, 76, who travels from his East New York home on a senior citizens' Access-a-Ride shuttle, kept the melody on the piano.

Most of the musicians at the jam session are longtime members of the music association, a blue-collar bedrock of jazz history in Harlem. Black musicians who were not welcome in the local musicians' union because of their race founded the organization in 1904, jazz historians said. These days, the old-timers - none of whom were alive when the organization began - are trying to rebuild NAMA as it celebrates its 100th anniversary. They also want to inspire new generations to play jazz.

"I like to keep the legend alive," said Fred Staton, an 89-year-old tenor saxophonist who has played with Billy Strayhorn, Art Blakely and Billy Eckstine. "If we don't, no one else will."

Since it began in a small apartment on West 53rd Street, the association has long been a gathering place for musicians.

In 1922, it bought the brownstone on 130th Street between Lenox Avenue and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard that still serves as its headquarters. Musicians like John Handy, Dicky Wells, Sonny Greer, Fletcher Henderson and James Van Der Zee, the legendary Harlem photographer and sometime saxophonist, could often be found in NAMA's basement playing cards or tuning up in rehearsal rooms. The legendary poet Langston Hughes was also a frequent visitor. "It stayed open 24 hours a day because musicians play all night," said Delilah Jackson, a Harlem historian.

Although, for a time, Jelly Roll Morton lived in a room on one of the upper floors, association members said, most members were not marquee names.

"Too many times the history of an art form is only told in terms of the Duke Ellingtons and Thelonious Monks, but throughout music's history, there have been the people who have been behind all those stars and who played a role in creating the atmosphere that has made Harlem a home for jazz for the last century," said Loren Schoenberg, executive director of the National Jazz Museum in Harlem. "Organizations like the New Amsterdam Musical Association have brought together all the unsung heroes of jazz music for decades."

The onset of racial integration in the 1960's began a slow deterioration in the viability of the association. Able to join the local union, musicians no longer needed NAMA to get jobs. At the same time, many members were losing work because black hotels and resorts in upstate New York closed after patrons began opting for vacations at white-run establishments. The rising popularity of rock 'n' roll and pop music also hurt NAMA's members because there were fewer requests for live jazz bands. By the 1980's, when drugs and violence plagued Harlem, the group's aging members found little reason to visit its headquarters.

But in 2000, a handful of members pledged to resurrect the organization. They paid about $8,000 in back taxes, replaced a leaky roof and spruced up the main performance space on the brownstone's garden level. They decorated the walls with mirrors, plastic treble clefs and pictures of entertainers who had performed there.

The association also started a membership drive - it now has 40 members - and began raising money to continue restoration of the four-story brownstone.

"I don't know how much time we're going to have,"' said John E. Johnson, 67, who became the group's president in January. "People are dying left and right around us. I said, 'Let's get rolling, regardless.' "

Mr. Johnson is also seeking donations of instruments and volunteers who are willing to teach music to neighborhood youths, since the association gives lessons to children on Saturdays.

Willie Mack, 72, is the group's premier instructor. While he wants his students to gain an appreciation for jazz, he is willing to settle for dedicated musicians.

"I try to teach them the fundamentals, and then from there, with a good background, they can go into whatever they desire," said Mr. Mack.

Members also want the association to regain its status as a neighborhood hot spot by holding regular performances. The signature event is the Monday night open-mike jam session, where members serve as the house band. Many of the singers and instrumentalists brave enough to step up to the microphone make the scene seem like "American Idol" on Geritol.

On a recent Monday night, when a singer who identified himself as Mr. Blue approached the stage, an audience member yelled, "Break out the Viagra." Mr. Blue appeased the crowd with a sultry rendition of "A Sunday Kind of Love." Several vocalists sang blues standards. There was also a spirited rendition of "Fly Me to the Moon."

And the band members, most of whom did not need sheet music to play the tunes, never missed a note.

Edited May 29, 2004 by Brad

[Dan Gould]

Keeping Harlem's Storied Jazz Past Jamming

By SHERRI DAY

Published: May 29, 2004

"I like to keep the legend alive," said Fred Staton, an 89-year-old tenor saxophonist who has played with Billy Strayhorn, Art Blakely and Billy Eckstine. "If we don't, no one else will."

Nice to see the Time's' crack staff of fact checkers got the spelling right.