When Rahsaan Met Merv

[ghost of miles]

Stopping the white wash

Rahsaan Roland Kirk on TV

By DAVID HINCKLEY

Just about the time the cameras started to roll for the regularly scheduled nightly taping of Merv Griffin's show on Friday, Aug. 27, 1970, the phone rang in the television department of the Daily News.

An anonymous woman said that a group called Black Artists-Musicians of New York, of which no one had previously heard, was planning a nonviolent disruption of the Griffin taping to dramatize its demands that black artists get some of the television exposure given so copiously to derivative white artists.

Had someone made a similar call to Griffin, perhaps he would have been less startled when about 35 minutes into the taping at the Cort Theater on W. 48th St. a group of between 60 and 80 demonstrators sure enough did stand up and make it quite impossible for Griffin to continue.

The demonstrators, who included well-known jazz artists Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Lee Morgan and Andy Cyrrile, blew wooden whistles and played various sounds on flutes and other instruments they had smuggled in under their coats. Soon they moved forward to take over the stage, waving signs that read "Stop the Whitewash!" and "Tom Jones rose to fame singing black songs!"

Griffin, who had just introduced Larry Kert, star of the Broadway show "Company," shook his head and walked off.

The CBS cameras continued to roll as the studio audience sat fascinated, wondering what would happen next.

As it turned out, not much. When the protesters announced they would remain until they could talk with someone in authority, Griffin came back and announced that taping was done for the day. Since this Friday tape wouldn't air til Monday night, it had been decided to finish the last hour over the weekend.

By now a dozen police had entered the theater. As the only apparent damage was to the taping schedule, no arrests were made - and, even as the audience was starting to trickle out, producer Walter Kempley and associate producer Andy Smith were talking with Black Artists-Musicians of New York, who had suddenly changed their name and now told reporters just to call them Lovers of Music.

Their complaint, heard for neither the first nor last time in the music world, was that the "roots" artists of American music - jazz, blues, gospel and so on, a disproportionately black group - deserved mainstream media exposure on national shows like, say, Merv Griffin's.

While jazzmen played 200-seat clubs, they argued, white "jazz-rock" musicians who had clearly gone to school on those jazzmen's records were cleaning up from recordings and concerts in much larger places - abetted immeasurably by all that free media exposure and promotion.

The protesters also warned that paying all this attention to later-generation white artists distorted history because it crowded out the real, undiluted music.

These complaints echoed arguments made by respected musicians in many fields, though the Griffin demonstrators got something of a "fringe" tag largely because of the prominence of Kirk, a brilliant musician who distinctly marched to his own muse.

Blinded in a childhood accident, Kirk formed his first band at 14. In his early 20s, he began to experiment with his sound, at first by playing several horns at the same time, then by rediscovering forgotten instruments, like the stritch and the manzello, then by inventing others, such as the trumpophone, which was a trumpet with a saxophone mouthpiece. He was well respected for his skills, and his presence guaranteed that the Griffin protesters would be heard, not merely tossed out on their ears.

When they did leave, after talking with the producers, they said they expected a spot for jazzmen on a prime time CBS show. They also mentioned they might visit other shows on other networks.

Sure enough, on Oct. 13, now calling themselves the Jazz and People's Movement, they dropped in on Dick Cavett at ABC.

This time the disruption lasted about an hour, ending when the Cavett people agreed Cavett would have Movement spokespersons on his Oct. 22 program.

Meanwhile, they had also worked out a deal with CBS: Kirk would be a guest on "The Ed Sullivan Show."

A widely circulated story has it that Kirk was the last guest on the last Sullivan program, and that this final segment ended with Godfrey Cambridge sneaking up behind Sullivan and putting an Afro wig on his head, crowning him an "honorary Negro." Actually, Kirk played the show Jan. 28, 1971, two months before Sullivan stopped doing live shows.

Nonetheless, it was a memorable night. Kirk invited Charlie Mingus and Archie Shepp to play with him and announced they would play Stevie Wonder's "My Cherie Amour." In fact, they largely improvised for 5 minutes, weaving in and out of Mingus' "Haitian Fight Song." It was instantly controversial: fascinating to jazz fans and widely considered impenetrable to almost anyone else.

"The purpose of the Jazz and People's Movement was to make everyone aware there wasn't enough jazz on television," said critic Dan Morgenstern, "and now they clearly proved the reason why."

But many fans said that even though the Jazz and People's Movement soon drifted into history, it had at least made major TV networks aware of an important issue.

Still, there was a long way to go. Another widely circulated story has Kirk asking Sullivan backstage why the late John Coltrane had never played his show, and Sullivan replying, "Does John Coltrane have any records out?"

As for the Merv Griffin incident, it wouldn't be many more years before TV producers realized disruption isn't a problem. Packaged properly, it's a commercial gold mine.

Originally published on April 13, 2004

[Michael Fitzgerald]

Hmmmm - "fascinating to jazz fans"? That Ed Sullivan segment is horrible. I guess it's fascinating like a car crash on the highway. It's sloppy in terms of performance and it doesn't show anyone in a very good light. I've watched it with Dan Morgenstern and his point was that if this is how jazz is going to present itself, no wonder no one programs it on TV and I wholeheartedly agree.

I found this to be a weak article with shallow thinking and bizarre conclusions (and btw it's Andrew Cyrille). I can't check now, but I suspect that plenty of it can be found in the even more dreadful Rahsaan bio. I recall there was additional material on the J&PM in - was it the Ortiz Walton book?

Where was this published (and why is it showing up here over a year later)?

Mike

[7/4]

and other instruments they had smuggled in under their coats.

In August?

[ghost of miles]

Hmmmm - "fascinating to jazz fans"? That Ed Sullivan segment is horrible. I guess it's fascinating like a car crash on the highway. It's sloppy in terms of performance and it doesn't show anyone in a very good light. I've watched it with Dan Morgenstern and his point was that if this is how jazz is going to present itself, no wonder no one programs it on TV and I wholeheartedly agree.

I found this to be a weak article with shallow thinking and bizarre conclusions (and btw it's Andrew Cyrille). I can't check now, but I suspect that plenty of it can be found in the even more dreadful Rahsaan bio. I recall there was additional material on the J&PM in - was it the Ortiz Walton book?

Where was this published (and why is it showing up here over a year later)?

Mike

←

Mike,

I found it online while looking for articles about the Merv Griffin incident, because Lee Morgan was a participant. It ran in the NY Daily News (hence, I imagine, the motivation for the article, since it was the Daily News that received the phone call back in 1970). I didn't post it here because of its dazzling scholarship, but merely to start a discussion about the strange confrontation between white middle-class TV and the world of jazz circa 1970. Why does it matter that the piece was published a year ago? The incident itself happened 35 years ago.

Edited July 20, 2005 by ghost of miles

[JSngry]

Hey Ghost - Have you read the (barely) posthumously-published Lee Morgan DB interview where he discusses the Jazz & Peoples Movement?

Also, IIRC correctly, Jazz & Pop magazine had a rather lengthy interview w/Rahsaan where that scene was also touched upon. It included a photo of the Sullivan performance. Unfortunately, that's one of the ones that' gotten away from me over the years.

[ghost of miles]

Hey Ghost - Have you read the (barely) posthumously-published Lee Morgan DB interview where he discusses the Jazz & Peoples Movement?

←

No, I haven't... early '72, I'm assuming? I'll bop over to the music library and check it out after I'm done taping The Big Bands. Thanks for the lead! Thanks also for the Rahsaan reference.

[JSngry]

April 27, 1972 to be exact. Red cover w/photos of George Russell & Lionel Hampton, LEE MORGAN'S LAST INTERVIEW across the top in big white print, and a 60-cent cover price.

[brownie]

Also, IIRC correctly, Jazz & Pop magazine had a rather lengthy interview w/Rahsaan where that scene was also touched upon. It included a photo of the Sullivan performance. Unfortunately, that's one of the ones that' gotten away from me over the years.

←

I may have that one somewhere. Could go and start searching for it if needed...

[Christiern]

The young lady who called the Daily News (and every news office she could think of) worked for Down Beat. The magazine had a very small office, headed by Dan Morgenstern, and (Jane was her name) was the secretary and only other NY employee. The "movement" had nothing to do with the magazine, but Jane was a tireless jazz groupie with avant garde leanings.

Edited July 20, 2005 by Christiern

[ghost of miles]

April 27, 1972 to be exact. Red cover w/photos of George Russell & Lionel Hampton, LEE MORGAN'S LAST INTERVIEW across the top in big white print, and a 60-cent cover price.

←

Found it at the Music School's library and copied it--thanks much again, Jim. Michael Bourne wrote the piece--right around the time he started as the daily jazz DJ here at WFIU.

[Christiern]

Here's the piece that went with the photo (above), and it's Andy again...

Edited July 20, 2005 by Christiern

[Christiern]

And here's the AP story that was given national play...

[brownie]

There is also a rather detailed account of the event in the so-so biography of Rahsaan 'Bright Moments' by John Kruth. The account includes recollections by Joe Texidor and Ron Burton.

[Bright Moments]

too bad this is not on youtube!

[clifford_thornton]

Too bad THAT is not on you tube!

[Harold_Z]

Too bad THAT is not on you tube!

WORD !