For a few hours on Friday afternoon, Jefferson High School clocks regressed to an era of outdated glamour, as the twentieth century in its energetic teenage years, and blacks in the Deep South fled Jim Crow through tens of thousands to the promised land of California.
These arrivals helped turn a multi-block stretch of Central Avenue in South Los Angeles into a community where jazz giants like Dexter and Duke and Etta and Ella walked the streets not only as idols but also as friends and regulars. His music celebrated and debated each and every night in the living room of the Dunbar Hotel and promulgated as a sacred rite at the Alabam Club, the bird in the basket and this secular temple of the Lincoln Theatre.
Thus, on Friday afternoon, singer and actor Sy Smith, wearing a long gold and silver dress, informed an audience of curious and astonished teenagers that they had entered a compromised space. It came as part of a collaboration between Jefferson, which perhaps has more outstanding black alumni than any school west of Mississippi, and Muse/ique, the Pasadena nonprofit, pledged to make “radically engaging live music reports” available to everyone. The goal was to highlight the links between the starry afterlife of Central Avenue and Jefferson’s illustrious legacy. .
“While I’m here and playing for you, I feel like I’m on sacred ground,” Smith told his audience, which included Jefferson’s historic black principal, los Angeles Unified School District superintendents and other musicians who have worked with Whitney Houston, Stevie Wonder, Sheila E. , Tupac Shakur, the Jacksons and Earth, Wind.
“And it’s a legacy of Jefferson High School,” Smith continued, “and that legacy is something they can’t take away from you, okay?”
It’s an elegant transition to their next issue, “They Can’t Take That Away from Me,” the Gershwins’ popular 1937 immortalized through Array. . . well, all of them, adding several artists who opened and closed exhibits on Central Avenue in their heyday from 1920 to 1950. Smith was part of a musical ensemble that included earth music director and pianist Wind
Moderated by Rachael Worthrough, artistic director, host and founder of Muse/ique, the musicians toured an hour-plus program of classics by Fats Waller, Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington and Hoagy Carmichael that served as access to an online encyclopedia. Central Avenue . Efflorescence and a Tribute to Outstanding Jefferson Alumni: Ralph Bunche, Alvin Ailey, Dexter Gordon, Carmen de Lavallade, Stanley Crouch, Juanita Moore, Roy Ayers, Etta James, Dorothy Dandridge, Barry White, Rickey Minor, and Kerry James Marshall, just to start with.
Music jumped and jumped, rose and allied through the auditorium, named after Samuel Rodney Browne, who broke the high school color barrier when he was Jefferson’s music teacher in 1936.
“This is the Hogwarts of music,” McKinley told academics of the advent of “Sweet Georgia Brown. “”So take your wand and start doing all that, because the other people who came out of here replaced the music industry. “
Among those who nod Dr. Tamai Johnson, the first black principal in the history of the school, founded in 1916. Growing up near Lynwood, Johnson knew virtually nothing about the past Central Avenue scene. But he learned a lot.
“Nearly a full semester of history in one concert, it rarely is,” he said. “I think I have a legal responsibility to outreach scholars to associations like this that will spark an interest in the arts and outdoor learning. ” classroom. “
While the members of the 2023 elegance are likely to be from Zacatecas, San Salvador, Tegucigalpa or Guatemala City, as they are from Louisiana or Texarkana, Johnson predicted that Friday’s program would translate easily, as “culture is more than a race. “
McKinley, the music director and pianist, who grew up in 64th Street and Cimarron, said he also knew “very little” about Central Avenue’s brilliant history and its alliance with Jefferson High. Then, 3 months ago, he contacted Worby from Muse/ique, who started telling him.
“It couldn’t, it was such an influential position that we would never know in our generation,” McKinley said. invested to be a component of it. “
Worthrough, a protégé of Leonard Bernstein, designed and arranged the concert as part of “A Season of Streets,” the series of performances at the Muse/ique venue fostered through L. A. such as Sunset Boulevard, Laurel Canyon, Whittier Boulevard and Hollywood and Vine, music to weave a fragmented metropolis.
She reached out to her friend Austin Beutner, the well-connected former investment banker, deputy mayor, Los Angeles Times editor and lausd superintendent, who put her in touch with Johnson. Beutner talked about Friday’s functionality and put a cap on Proposition 28, in this fall’s survey, which would provide new investment for arts and music teaching in K-12 public schools.
The same was true of current Superintendent Alberto M. Carvalho, who spent the week dealing with a system-wide hacking incident and new verification scores surfaced that 72 percent of LAUSD math students and 58 percent of English learners do not meet general state standards.
“In my world, democracy and America are one, jazz and America are one, and jazz is a form of democracy,” Carvalho told the students.
Another multi-instrumentalist and guest composer, Dexter Story, whose father went to Jefferson and named his son after Dexter Gordon.
“He was an. I thought, ‘Why are you talking about Central Avenue?’as a form of cellular ‘social justice’. “
After the concert, the academics exchanged their impressions.
“It was pretty magical,” Rafael said Rosas. No you see this kind of thing in genuine life. It’s on TV.
“It taught me a lot,” Daniela said Medina. No had no idea that so many other people had gone to this school and graduated and had those amazing careers. “
The students wondered if such occasions could take place more frequently. They also hoped that more young people would enroll in the school orchestra or flag guard. It will be a challenge: Hector Artero, who plays in the band, said he owns the solo high saxophone player at school.
“Most of the appliances we have are old and in disrepair,” he said.
With so many issues beseting LAUSD students (poverty, declining check scores, COVID aftershocks, beleaguered parents), music and art would seem like a luxury. The glory of Central Avenue might seem like a dream.
It makes Worby need to cry in frustration and fury that much of Los Angeles’ cultural heritage has been razed and buried, a symptom of what he sees as a society recklessly destroying its ultimate sacrosanct assets. But he promises to return to Jefferson soon.
“I’m not in school behind the wheel, so we’re going to be back next year and next year. We’re not going to make going to Jefferson a big cry from the center that doesn’t resonate in the future. “It just doesn’t work.
“Something about those walls and corridors can just breathe the possibility,” he added.
As the final notes of “When the Saints Go Marching In” faded, the monstrous heat wave that had gripped the city for days began to crack. Scattered raindrops fell on the students as they emptied their school haunted by fame.
This story gave the impression in the Los Angeles Times.
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