William Grant Still / Ulysses Kay-Split Release (Vox Turnabout) 1974

Today is the 117th birthday of William Grant Still.He died in December, 1978, aged 83.

Notes excerpted From the back cover (enclosed):

There are certain prominent figures who, over the years, acquire a label, and William Grant Still is such a man. The mere mention of his name brings the label after it almost the same breath- The Dean of Afro-American Composers.
It is an accurate title, and it was acquired the hard way, at a time when it was anything but easy for a Negro to make his mark in a white man's world. Still's career as a composer is studded with firsts- the first black composer to have a symphonic work performed by a major American orchestra (the Afro-American Symphony by the Rochester Philharmonic under the direction of Howard Hanson in 1931)...the first to have an opera produced by a major company (Troubled Island by the New York City Opera in 1949), the first to use jazz and blues elements in a symphonic work, the first to conduct a major, all-white orchestra  (the Los Angeles Philharmonic, in a concert of his own works in the Hollywood Bowl in 1936), and probably the first to win a Guggenheim Fellowship which was twice renewed.(...)
 Still's musical roots in the American Negro tradition came naturally, almost inevitably (...) He founded a string quartet in which he played violin, he learned oboe, clarinet, piccolo and saxophone and played in the college band. The experience gave him the skill in instrumentation which served him well soon afterwards, when he worked as an arranger for another musician with a label- W.C.Handy; Father of the Blues.

Still managed to pick up musical experience from an astonishing number of sources. He played in Handy's band, He studied composition during two periods at Oberlin, he played oboe in Eubie Blake's orchestra for the show Shuffle Along, during which time he was able to slip in four months compositional training with George W. Chadwick, then head of the New England Conservatory in Boston. In 1923 Edgard Varese, the great sonic experimenter, decided to seek out a Negro composer interested in studying his own advanced methods of composition and he chose William Grant Still. The latter worked with Varese for two years, in an association which was valuable but ultimately did little to turn the young black man from his natural path- the musical idiom indigenous to his own people.(...)

Still has transmitted the spirit of Negro music into large-scaled formats, relying not so much on direct quotation as on conveying style and mood- "I prefer music that suggests a program to either pure or program music in the strict sense", he has said.

From The Black Belt was composed in 1926, originally scored for small orchestra and later published for full orchestra. It is a suite in
seven (?) sections "written frankly to amuse and to please those who listen to them".

Darker America, a symphonic poem for chamber orchestra, was written in 1924 and won a publication prize from the Eastman School. It depicts the triumphs of a people over their sorrows through prayer. Four musical themes come into play- The American Negro (strings), Sorrow (English horn), Hope (muted Brass) and Prayer (oboe).


When Ulysses Kay was a boy in Tucson, Arizona (he was born there in 1917), the high points of his childhood were trips with his mother to Chicago to visit his famous uncle, the great jazz trumpeter King Oliver. Naturally enough, the subject of trumpet lessons came up. Ulysses' mother asked her brother's advice. "No Lizzie", said the King, "Give that boy piano lessons so he can learn the rudiments, and then he'll find what he wants to do in music."
Ulysses Kay has made no special musical point of his Negro heritage, and prefers to work in what one might call a broad European tradition.
He has followed the Classic guidelines, composing  chamber music, concertos, cantatas, symphonies, and two one-act operas (...)

His Six Dances, composed in 1954, reveal his affinity for tradition infused with a robust and unmistakeably American spirit.


Side One:

William Grant Still

a1-6:From The Black Belt (1926)
1-Honeysuckle
2-Dance
3-Li'l Scamp
4-Blue
5-Brown Girl
6-Clap Yo' Han's

a2: Darker America (1924)

Side Two:

Ulysses Kay

b1: Six Dances for String Orchestra (1954)
1-Schottische
2-Waltz
3-Round Dance
4-Polka
5-Promenade
6-Galop
 
























Please note- I have altered the track listing from that indicated on the cover (enclosed) as there seems to be an error: The suite "From The Black Belt" lists "Li'l Scamp" as the first track, but it's description in the notes is not matched by the music heard as track one.
I count only SIX sections in the Suite and am not sure if "Mah Bones Is Creakin'" appears at all, or if it is, in fact, the piece I have here designated as "Li'l Scamp" (track number 3).
Any clarification anyone might offer is welcome.
-DrI

(1)