Cedille 061 (2001)
Adolphus C. Hailstork (b. 1941) is featured at AfriClassical.com
Dominique-René de Lerma:
The
second week of Bill McGlaughlin's tribute to Black music was another
odd juxtaposition. When I read the advance notice of this second of
five-day events, I wondered how he would unite Adolphus Hailstork with
Lightnin' Hopkins. The answer: He didn't. The theme of the show, apart
from Hailstork and Howard, was the blues. For those unfamiliar with
this genre, he outlined and exemplified it, calling on Son House, Slide
Hampton, B.B. King to join others -- not eliminating W. C. Handy (on an
aside, I wish the DJs would learn that W. C. did not write Claire de lune!). Included was an interview with Handy, whose daughter offered a rather refined performance of the ballad-plus-blues St. Louis blues,
but also one by Louis Armstrong and His All-Stars that filled almost
nine minutes with excitement from almost a century ago, providing
justification for Satchmo's semi-deification.
With Hailstork's Epitaph for a man who dreamed,
the contrast could not have been greater. Here is a memorial to Dr.
King that is clearly within the masterwork range, whose orchestral
sonorities could well be heard at least annually by any orchestra whose
strings would hope to emulate the rich warmth of Paul Freeman's Chicago
Sinfonietta. This and other works appear in Anthony McDonald's A catalog of music written in honor of Martin Luther King, published in 2011 by Scarecrow Press (ISBN-10:081088 1965).
Following was an absolutely beautiful performance of Deep river
by the choristers of Howard University -- the setting and conducting
lacked identification. Again, we are pressed to survey those recordings
of our Black schools (although this is available on Smithsonian
Folkways 4007208) which contain gems too hidden from the general
music-loving public.
As before, I heard this broadcast on my computer from Chicago's WFMT at
7PM. It was a bit of a scare, because the signal had been lost earlier
in the day, only to return just before Taj Mahal initiated the
evening's high point. This is not really an NPR affiliate; It is a
commercial station which, like those of NPR, has obligatory funding
drives, but also airs commercials. If one can tolerate, ignore, or
respond to the latter, it is possible to hear performances of the New
York Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Metropolitan
Opera, and the Lyric Opera of Chicago without getting dressed up and
fighting traffic. (Is there a future for live music?) And of course,
there is Exploring Music.
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Dominique-René de Lerma
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