Black and Tan Fantasy*: On Why Jazz Should Be Required Teaching
On April 29, 1969 President Richard Nixon and Duke Ellington stood together in the Easter Room in the White House. Nixon, along with an all-star cast of jazz legends including Dave Brubeck, Paul Desmond, Dizzy Gillespie, and Gerry Mulligan spent a night honoring Ellington for his 70th birthday.
At the event, President Nixon gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Ellington. In a short speech to the assembled guest President Nixon said:
For the first time during this administration, I have the honor of presenting the Presidential Medal of Freedom. I think it is most appropriate that that medal be presented to Duke Ellington.
When we think of freedom, we think of many things. But Duke Ellington is one who has carried the message of freedom to all the nations of the world through music, through understanding, understanding that reaches over all national boundaries and over all boundaries of prejudice and over all boundaries of language.
Because he has an unusual gift, a gift that he has shared with us, his own fellow citizens, and with the citizens of the world, we believe that this citation fits him particularly well. I will read it to you.
“The President of the United States of America awards this Presidential Medal of Freedom to Edward Kennedy Ellington. Edward Kennedy Ellington, pianist, composer, and orchestra leader, has long enhanced American music with his unique style, his intelligence, his impeccable taste. For more than 40 years he has helped to expand the frontiers of jazz, while at the same time retaining in his music the individuality and freedom of expression that are the soul of jazz. In the royalty of American music, no man swings more or stands higher than the Duke.”
After, Ellington provided some brief remarks, specifically referencing his long-time friend and co-composer, Billy Strayhorn’s “four major freedoms.” Though Ellington didn’t specify what they were (freedom from: hate, self-pity, fear, and the kind of pride “that would make a man feel he was better than his brother or neighbor”), the brief mention was a powerful reminder to many of the onlookers in the room of the discrimination they faced and continued to face.(1)
The official program closed with the President sitting at the piano leading the audience in a rendition of Happy Birthday, while Ellington looked on.
[Note to email reader: Link is a video the President Nixon Event]
In the midst of the turbulent times of the 1960s, it was a surreal scene — almost a fantasy — to have an Administration who exploited the culture wars and racial divides all the way to the White House host such an evening (even if Nixon was a music buff).
Nixon was right — Ellington was the ambassador of jazz — a cultural icon that extended beyond the music he made. He wasn’t considered a radical, like the boundary-pushing Archie Shepp (check out Fire Music); so to the Nixon Administration, it was likely considered safer waters.
Even so, the evening was an important milestone for progress.
Duke Ellington is the closest thing we have jazz royalty. My son’s middle name is Ellington, after Duke (my daughter, Ella, is named after another icon who could aptly be considered the Duchess of Jazz, Ella Fitzgerald). Ellington carried himself with honor, grace, and dignity— a man who was larger than life; who transformed music with a driving swing and unmistakable melodies. Claudia Roth Pierpont writing for The New Yorker said Ellington carried himself with an “unshakeable dignity.”
But that night only told some of Ellington’s — as well as most of the legendary Black musicians in the room — history.
Ellington’s iconic status did not make him immune from the relentless discrimination and racism in our society, be it the oppression of Jim Crow in the South or the segregation that permeated the North often with an equal ferocity. As Claudia Roth Pierpont pointed out, even at the iconic Cotton Club (a loaded name in-and-of-itself) in Harlem, “All the performers were black…and all the patrons white, if not by force of law then by force of the thugs at the door. Ellington had to ask permission for friends to see his show.”
Ellington, of course, wasn’t alone. Countless Black jazz musicians faced unrelenting racism, even as crowds listened to their music and bought their records. Another example was the Cotton Club barring W.C. Handy, the composer of one of the original staples of jazz, “St. Louis Blues” from a show of his own songs. Racism wasn’t just a Southern problem.
Then there was Ellington’s writing partner and kindred spirit— Billy Strayhorn — a legend in his own right (Ellington’s masterpiece, Take the A Train, was actually penned by Strayhorn). Strayhorn also faced unspeakable discrimination as an openly gay black man at a time when homosexuality was criminalized in much of the nation.
Fast-forward to our current state of polarization. Once again, the culture war machine has been fired up over race (in particular weaponizing of Critical Race Theory) and the outrage aimed at the perceived “indoctrination” of our children over learning of Black history — a perverse 1984-like twist of categorizing historical events by deeming it indoctrination. It has resulted in opportunistic politicians wielding the culture wars as a cudgel to great effect — creating a further wedge in an already divided nation.
Recently, Florida banned Advanced Placement (AP) in Black Studies and has moved to greatly limit the free and open debate about ideas in the academy. Advanced Placement courses allow students to take college-level courses while still in high school, including earning college credit if students pass an AP exam at the end of the course.
While the debate rages on about emerging AP courses that examine race in America, there remains the ongoing issue of the unequal access to AP courses, especially in communities of color. A 2021 Center for American Progress report found that, “Even in high schools with similar levels of access to advanced coursework, Black, Latinx, and Indigenous students are less likely to be enrolled in advanced courses.”
Debating what should be included in a curriculum is a good thing (especially one that spurs honest debate and thought from various ideological points of view) — but that’s not really at issue here. It’s not as if there are intense public debates about AP in Art History. It’s about race and our uncomfortable history with it that then gets exploited by those wishing to move up the political food chain — all the while students of color continue to fall further behind (case in point access to AP courses). In many ways, we’re having the wrong fight.
I wonder how supporters of the recent ban on AP in Black Studies would receive Ellington’s three-suite masterpiece, Black, Brown, and Beige. Black, Brown, and Beige was Ellington’s take on race in America and it did push boundaries. At the time, it was advertised as “A Tone Parallel to the History of the Negro in America.” [For an excellent overview of Ellington’s masterpiece, I urge you to check out legendary bassist, Christian McBride’s interview on NPR where he discusses the piece in depth]
[Note to email reader: Link is to a video of Ellington’s Black, Brown, and Beige Suite]
When the piece was debuted in 1943 at Carnegie Hall it “was torn apart by the major critics,” resulting in Ellington playing it in its entirety only a handful more times before shelving the complete suite for good.(2) But it was an important piece that put the plight of Black Americans on full display through a masterful score and composition.
In this current environment, certain elected officials may be ok with teaching about Nixon bestowing Ellington with the Medal of Freedom, but likely uncomfortable about teaching the history of Black, Brown, and Beige — and herein lies the problem.
One solution to the latest line drawn in the sand over the educational culture wars could be to require every student learn about jazz — thereby requiring every school to make it required teaching. It is America’s music. It also represents the plight and struggle of minority communities, especially America’s complicated and uneasy relationship with the Black community — told through the power of music.
As musician Mos Def raps in his song Hip Hop, “We went from picking cotton, to chain gang line chopping, to be-bopping, to hip-hopping…” Jazz is as important a chapter of the American story as the Founders of this country.
[Note to email reader: Link is to Mos Def’s song “Hip Hop”]
Not only should Black, Brown, and Beige be required learning, so should other important pieces from the jazz cannon, such as Wynton Marsalis’ Blood on the Fields that tells a powerful story about slavery in America.
Unlike the still hummable t.v. show theme song from The Facts of Life, “You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have…The facts of life…” the cultural warriors only want to take the good in history and leave out the bad — especially when it comes to race in America.
[Note to email reader: Link is a video to the theme song from The Facts of Life]
Many people adorn their walls with posters of Miles Davis — a man who epitomizes cool and hip — and even the most casual listeners of jazz know Davis’ legendary Kind of Blue, which propelled jazz into innovative new directions. Yet, many don’t know that even THE Miles Davis was subject of a bloody racially-charged confrontation outside the iconic Birdland jazz club in New York City in 1959. It’s important that students learn the good and the bad.
Why? We shouldn’t sanitize unpleasant truths. In other words, it’s essential that when we teach history, we don’t teach fantasy. The only way to truly make progress is to fully understand our complicated and often contradictory history. It’s not to blame; it’s to understand and do better. It will be a disservice to future generations if we don’t.
***************
Notes
*Black and Tan Fantasy was a 1927 composition by Duke Ellington and Bubber Miley. It was based, in part, to the slower pace of racial integration, especially in jazz clubs.
[Note to email reader: Link is to a video of Ellington’s Black and Tan Fantasy]
(1) Strayhorn has died just a few years earlier. Ellington talked about Strayhorn’s four freedoms in his eulogy. See Duke Ellington, “Eulogy for Swee’ Pea,” Down Beat (July 13, 1967). You can find it at https://www.mesaartscenter.com/download.php/engagement/jazz-a-to-z/resources/archive/2013-2014/2014-january-jazz-educator-workshop/billy-strayhorns-four-freedoms.
(2) Claudia Roth Pierpont “Black, Brown, And Beige: Duke Ellington’s music and race in America” The New Yorker (May 10, 2010).
