William Grant Still

[bluesForBartok]

I'm listening to an album I grabbed from e-music a while back:

Africa: Piano Music of William Grant Still

Really beautiful stuff in the 20th Century mold and I'm surprised I haven't heard more about him with regard to jazz players acknowledging his influence on them. Some of it reminds me of the stuff Herbie Hancock attempts in his more avant-garde explorations.

Anyone else aware of this composer? Any thoughts opinions?

[JSngry]

Anthony Braxton talked him up, so I bought a New World CD of some of his compositions. It IS interesting music.

[undergroundagent]

Well, he should be good seeing as he has my middle and last name!!!

Edited February 5, 2004 by undergroundagent

[maren]

I've heard his "Suite for Violin and Piano" (at a Juilliard violinist's senior recital, exciting) but no recordings. I've been aware of him as "the dean of African-American composers" -- he:

• studied, played with and arranged for W.C. Handy (1916-21)
  
• and then studied with Varese (1923)
  
• premier of his Symphony in G was conducted by Leopold Stokowski in 1937 (off-the-wall segue: I just recently saw that Bugs Bunny cartoon where he flings his ears back and stalks to the podium, with the audience murmuring "Leopold! Leopold!")
  
• did a lot of scoring/composing/orchestrating for radio, films (Stormy Weather, Pennies From Heaven, Lost Horizons) and TV (Perry Mason, Gunsmoke)
  

He also wrote theme music for the 1939 World's Fair (where this picture of Still and Handy is from):

The [World's Fair] selection committee, in searching for a composer, listened to recordings on file at CBS radio without knowing who the composer was. The judges narrowed their choices to two works, Lenox Avenue and A Deserted Plantation, which turned out to be by the same composer, William Grant Still. The theme song, Rising Tide, was played continually in the Perisphere, which was the central structure and principal symbol of the fair.

BUT

...because Still was an African American, he had to commute to fair each day from Harlem and was allowed into the fair grounds only during certain hours.

From: http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/sgo/start.html

[couw]

interesting stuff you dug up maren!

[maren]

interesting stuff you dug up maren!

Maybe it will help return me to the good graces of Deus62 !

A lot of the above I had already known, but not the World's Fair story, nor the extent of Still's apprenticeship with W.C. Handy. Kind of a mirror image of bluesForBartok's suggestion of Still's influence as an avant-gardist on Herbie Hancock et al. A bio I read somewhere said Still's mother was very upset when he went to work with Handy -- she had raised him to play violin, on a steady diet of 19th century European classical music.

[some parallels to another African-American 20th century "classical" composer, Ulysses Kay -- whose uncle strongly encouraged him to pursue that "legitimate" vein of music -- let's see, his uncle's name was, it's coming to me -- KING OLIVER!]

Edited February 5, 2004 by maren

[Alexander]

I heard a piece by William Grant Still on NPR a while back. It reminded me of Bud Powell in some very significant ways. I was interested to note that the piece dated from the twenties...

[Muskrat Ramble]

On a somewhat related note, you all may find Gottschalk and Anthony Davis (wrote an opera about Malcolm X) of interest.

[maren]

On a somewhat related note, you all may find Gottschalk and Anthony Davis (wrote an opera about Malcolm X) of interest.

Thanks for the Gottschalk reference, Muskrat Ramble! I actually played a number of his pieces as a piano student in college (and used them for "atmosphere" in a production of a play set in 1898 for which I was the musical director) but I never knew all this about his background.

[Muskrat Ramble]

No problem! Cool to see others here are interested in classical music. It's one of my great musical loves.

[ghost of miles]

I believe Still also wrote some arrangements for Paul Whiteman's band in the late 1920s.