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The Virtuous Black XX: Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Monk, born Thelonious Sphere Monk, on October 10 1917, in Rocky Mount, N.C., U.S.A., is the pianist and composer who was among the first creators of modern jazz. As the pianist in the band at Minton’s Playhouse, a nightclub in New York City, in the early 1940s, Monk had great influence on the other…
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The Virtuous Black XIX: Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday, born Elinore Harris on April 7 1915, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., was one the greatest jazz singers from the 1930s to the ’50s. Eleanora (her preferred spelling) Harris was the daughter of Clarence Holiday, a professional musician who for a time played guitar with the Fletcher Henderson band. She and her mother used…
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Going to Corsica
the first two decades of my life I had a considerable understanding of what happens before the process of brewing coffee but a minimal impression of what coffee is to the mouth. The last four decades have been different. The daily taste of coffee is routine — a conscientious routine but routine nevertheless; and one…
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Opera in Black — The Soul is Unbound
The soul is unbound. This has been my observation for decades, and has become a motivation for my analytical thoughts on a number of levels. Two examples leading to my observation are found in film. An unlikely friendship develops in prison between a white right wing extremist and a black, in “American History X”. In…
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