Rhapsodies In Black: Music and Words From The Harlem Renaissance
(Rhino)
As the song says, you take the “A” train to find the quickest way to Harlem. Yet long before a young Billy Strayhorn penned that fateful anthem while on a subway ride uptown to Sugar Hill to visit Duke Ellington, Harlem was the epicenter of an extraordinary blossoming of African-American literary, artistic, poetic, theatrical, and musical creativity that has remained virtually unparalleled in our country’s cultural history. Known as the Harlem Renaissance, a period that extended roughly from 1915-1937, this explosion of creative fervor left an indelible mark on America as both an assertion of the “New Negro” and a cementing of black music as a dominant force in American culture. Rhapsodies in Black is an ambitious project by the intrepid folks at Rhino Records to capture the sounds, and perhaps more importantly, a semblance of the spirit of the Harlem Renaissance in this colorful and enlightening 4-CD box set. The latter is accomplished, in part, by including excerpts from important literary texts and poems of the period by the likes of Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Claude McKay and others. These excerpts are read by noted contemporary black figures from jazzman Branford Marsalis to actress Angela Bassett to rapper Chuck D. The readings help put the era in context, especially in light of the fact that the written word was arguably the most integral component of the movement, and enhance the musical selections that surround them. As well, the 98-page booklet that comes with the box contains not only the written texts, but also informative essays, facts, photos, and discography info. And let’s not forget the music. All the big names are represented here — Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith, and Cab Calloway. We could have done without another reissue of the latter’s “Minnie the Moocher” or Smith’s “St. Louis Blues,” both readily available elsewhere. Nonetheless, it’s the masterful but somewhat lesser known artists who make up the bulk of this set that really solidifies its pertinence. Sidney Bechet, Fletcher Henderson, James P. Johnson, Fats Waller, Chick Webb, Alberta Hunter, and Austinite Teddy Wilson, among many others, all contributed substantively to the legacy of jazz in general and to the Harlem Renaissance in particular. Folk/blues legends Lonnie Johnson, Leadbelly, and Josh White provide a flavorful icing on the cake. The inclusion of white performers like the ironically named bandleader Paul Whiteman and the influential saxophonist Frankie Trumbauer only underscores how these musicians put their own creative stamp on the black music they emulated. This set is somewhat reminiscent of the far less encompassing Columbia reissues, Stars of the Apollo Theater, from back in the early Seventies, and the more recent box set, A Tribute to Black Entertainers. To its credit, Rhapsodies in Black assumes a more sophisticated and cultured appreciation from its listeners, an assumption for which we can be grateful. If that weren’t enough, it can also be seen as a complement to the upcoming Ken Burns PBS series, Jazz, scheduled to air in early January, which will concentrate heavily on the Twenties and Thirties. Rhapsodies in Black succeeds in evoking a truly golden era in our cultural history, and although those days have long since gone, it might just suffice as the next best thing to a subway ride uptown.
This article appears in December 15 • 2000.