The Jazz Ear: Conversations Over Music by Ben Ratliff

Author:Ben Ratliff [Ratliff, Ben]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Music, Genres & Styles, Jazz, Instruction & Study, Appreciation, Essays, Literary Collections, Interviews
ISBN: 9780805090864
Google: vXMEmQEACAAJ
Publisher: St.Martin's
Published: 2009-10-27T21:06:18+00:00

In the fall of 2006, Reeves turned fifty. Since 1991, she has lived on a well-tended stretch of an arterial parkway in the Park Hill neighborhood of Denver, five minutes from her mother—who lives in the house Reeves grew up in—and not too much farther from her sister. When I visited her, in early 2007, she was home only for a brief stop between tours, but as friends and relatives came in and out of the kitchen through the afternoon, she seemed rooted.

Born in Detroit, she moved to Denver with her mother and her sister at the age of two, after the death of her father. Her grandmother Denverada Howard was born in Denver in 1896. (She was named after the city.) Her grandmother’s father was a founding member of Denver’s oldest black church, Shorter Community A.M.E. church in East Denver. Reeves belonged to that church but also went to Roman Catholic school with daily mass and attended a Baptist church on Sunday. “For us as kids,” she said, “we had the feeling that there was nothing we couldn’t do or deal with, because we believed in God and we believed that God would make a way.

“In a lot of ways,” she elaborated, “music really saved my life. It really helped me to focus. The stage became a very sacred place, because that was where I had this amazing connection with something higher than myself, where I could create and be out on the edge and be totally comfortable with that edge, creating and feeling and hearing and not thinking, not being inhibited or intimidated.”

A test of her belief came during the first school busing experiments in Denver, when Reeves was sent far into South Denver to a white junior high school. It was a tense period; parents of the white children wanted the black children out, and there were racist editorials in the local paper. In retaliation the school’s black, Texan music teacher organized a revue that combined the poetry of Langston Hughes and songs like “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother,” and “Joy, Joy” by the Edwin Hawkins Singers.

“It was a powerful thing, and it served to bring people together,” she said. “It really changed my life. I really understood that I wanted to sing songs that meant something to me.”

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