Revisiting Ma and Fletcher

(I apologize in advance for the appearance/layout of this post. I tried to insert the photos in such a way that would look good on the screen, but found that I have very little control over how it may end up looking on any individual computer screen. On the plus side, you can click on any photo for a larger view.)


Yesterday I headed south again, armed with a camera this time, to revisit the Ma Rainey house and grave that I stumbled on by chance last month. (See my November 10 post.) The door of the Rainey house was locked when I tried it, but the woman working there had seen me walk up, so she let me in after determining that I was there to visit the museum, not for any nefarious purpose. She obviously had been trained in Rainey lore, but in some way she didn't seem to "get" it - a lot of the things she said were close to being right, not not quite. I would have preferred to be left alone to wander around by myself, but that didn't seem to be an option.




The house, as pictures attest, was in pretty bad shape a few years back, but it's been restored nicely. Much of Ma's original furniture is intact, including the piano, which has been stripped of the green paint that someone applied at some point. There are some Paramount records on display that made me drool. Otherwise, the displays were pretty generic, providing information about Rainey and the blues. But for me, the whole point was just being in Ma Rainey's house.

One of my assumption in my previous Rainey post was wrong, I think. Ma had such a large house built not so that she could take in boarders, but so that her parents (and sister, I think) could live with her. I was fascinated to see that she had her father's name inscribed in the concrete before the door.



I was also wrong in assuming that the Pridgetts buried on either side of Ma Rainey in Porterdale Cemetery were sisters. Edna, her mother, is on one side, and I think that (based on the dates) that Edna's sister is buried on the other side.


While in the cemetery I took also took pictures of an interesting-shaped tombstone, and the stone marking the grave of Jenny, Kizzie's baby, that I wrote about in that earlier post. Notice that Jenny's stone is marble, and professionally carved. Many, if not most, of the monuments in Porterdale cemetery are concrete, and are much rougher (and cheaper) in appearance. Who paid for the the stone over Jenny's grave? Was Kizzie the maid of a privileged daughter? Could Jenny's father have been the slavemaster?





After paying my respects at Porterdale, I headed 60 miles further south, to the little town of Cuthbert, Georgia. Cuthbert was the birthplace of the great Fletcher Henderson, who practically invented the big band swing style. Henderson spent most of his life in New York or on the road, but he's buried in his hometown. While Ma Rainey was buried in a segregated cemetery, Henderson's grave is in the town's main, mostly white, graveyard. I don't think this had anything to do with his fame as a musician; it was probably due to the respect in which his father was held. Fletcher Henderson, Sr. was principal of the African-American school in Cuthbert for decades.



I last visited Cuthbert and Fletcher's grave about 15 years ago. At that time, there was nothing at the gravesite to indicate that a brilliant and widely influential musician was buried there. Since that time, Chet Kruly, who played with Henderson's band in the late 1940's, sponsored a marker which at least mentions that Henderson had a band.


I'm glad I got to pay my respects to these two great Georgia musicians.

A Chance Encounter With Ma Rainey

I'll begin this post as so many bloggers have over the years: It's been a long time since my last post. I'll try not to let that happen again. Now, on to business:

Yesterday I drove the 90 miles or so from Atlanta to Columbus, Georgia to hunt for 78s and do some geocaching. Columbus in a nice little city; the downtown area is pretty healthy, mostly due to the large number of Columbus State University students spending their money, I imagine. After looking around downtown for awhile, I drove down 5th Avenue and was surprised to see a historical marker proclaiming "Ma Rainey Home."

Ma Rainey was one of the seminal blues performers and recording artists, although "seminal" seems like an odd adjective to apply to a woman. She was born Gertrude Pridgett in Columbus in 1886 - earlier, notice, than either Charley Patton or Blind Lemon Jefferson. She was singing the blues on tours throughout the South by the time she was 20, and was one of the first Southern blues singers to record - although Bessie Smith beat her to the studios by ten months. Rainey recorded 111 released sides (including alternate takes); unfortunately, her entire recording career was for Paramount Records, famous for the poor quality of their recordings and pressings. But enough of her voice comes through the lousy sound to make it clear that she was the real deal - a strong, earthy singer who sounds like she grew up with the blues.

I had forgotten that this great woman was from Columbus. By the time my brain had processed what I had just seen, I had passed the house. I quickly backed up, pulled over and got out of the car. I read the marker several times, and stared at the house for awhile. It's a large house - I suspect Rainey rented out rooms - and it's painted yellow, as it apparently was when Rainey lived there between her retirement in 1935 and death in 1939. The house is now a museum, but I didn't know that - there was nothing to indicate that it was open to the public. So I just stared.

The marker indicated that Porterdale Cemetery, where Rainey is buried, was nearby. I found the cemetery about a half mile away. Three guys were digging a grave near the entrance, so I pulled over and asked where Ma Rainey's grave was, and one of them showed me. Rainey is buried between two of her Pridgett sisters; each has a concrete slab over her grave. Ma's just reads "Gertrude Rainey" and the date of her death, but she also has a nice new headstone proclaiming her status as "Mother of the Blues."

After visiting the grave, I had the urge to drive back by the house while playing some Ma Rainey music. This was all unplanned, so I didn't have any Rainey CDs with me, but I had brought Allen Lowe's idiosyncratic blues history box set Really the Blues? as road music, so I found "Don't Fish in My Sea" and cranked it up.

It was very cool to run across Rainey's house more or less by chance, and to be led to her gravesite by the plaque. I'm planning to go back before too long, actually visit the museum and take some pictures.

At the cemetery, I had a gut-wrenching moment not directly related to Ma Rainey. Porterdale Cemetery was a burying ground for the black residents of Columbus - for most of the South's history, segregation didn't end with death. Near Rainey's grave was the grave of an infant. The headstone was inscribed with the child's given name (which I don't remember), the date of her death (1858) and "Kizzie's Baby." No last names. I thought it was odd, until it hit me - Kizzie and her child didn't have last names. They were slaves. You can't live down here without frequently thinking about the terrible history of the region, but it was a powerful experience to unexpectedly come across the raw evidence of human slavery - not in a museum, not in a book, but while just wandering around.

New Orleans Bones

This morning, as I was driving around running errands and doing a little geocaching, I had the second (of three) albums by the great New Orleans band Bonerama in the CD player. Bonerama, as far as I can tell, grew out of the trombone section of Harry Connick, Jr.'s big band and is led by trombonist Mark Mullins. The band has a guitarist and a drummer, but that's as far as it goes in terms of convention. Instead of an electric or upright bass, the bottom is held down by Matt Perrine's incredible tuba, and the front line consists of four trombones.* They play funk originals and classic rock tunes - "Whippin' Post," "Crosstown Traffic," "War Pigs." In April, 2008, I was lucky enough to spend an evening with my pal Robo at the Maple Leaf in uptown New Orleans experiencing them from the first note of the night to the last.

Bonerama is just a blast - they're one of the most fun bands I've ever heard or seen. I'm not going to sit down with headphones and listen to a Bonerama album all the way through very often, but that's not the point. It's good-time New Orleans music. It's (usually) not profound, but it does have an edge, and the boys occasionally get into some pretty out-there collective improvisations.

Maybe Crescent City trombonists are on my mind these days - lots of the traditional jazz I've been listening to lately has featured Waldren "Frog" Joseph (1918-2004). Although now best known for his traditional "dixieland" work, Frog was an all-around musician; he played in big bands and was on lots of the classic NOLA R & B records of the 1950's. I was familiar with Frog's playing from records, and I got to hear him with the "indoor" segment of the Olympia Brass Band in 1996 at Preservation Hall. By that time his playing was pretty spare and somewhat limited, but in his prime his style was strong, individual, and tinged with humor; he often shifted from a typical "tailgate" style into staccato phrases that seemed to be making lighthearted fun of the music. Joseph is not well represented on CD, but one of the two albums he made as leader, Frog and Friends at Dixieland Hall, has been reissued on CD. Two of his sons are trombonists: Charles, who was a founding member of the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, and Gerald, who played for years with the Olympia BB. Another son, Kirk, is also a charter Dirty Dozen member and is one of the finest tuba players in New Orleans.

One Thursday in 2004, I was checking my email at work and opened up the weekly Offbeat Magazine newsletter to read that Frog and died and would be buried with a brass band funeral on Saturday. A few minutes later, I had made up my mind that I would be there. I left work early the next day and caught a plane to New Orleans. The rest of this entry is what I wrote about this experience at the time:

Frog’s funeral started at 10:00 the next morning at Corpus Christi Catholic Church on St. Bernard. The service was nice, with some great music. A band with electric bass played a version of “Amazing Grace” which featured a trombone trio (one of whom was Freddie Lonzo). The same trombone trio played another hymn which I didn’t recognize, but which sounded great – they took turns using plungers. When the band played “Over in the Gloryland” Kirk Joseph was overcome and rushed up to the coffin. Communion was accompanied by a vocal and organ version of “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.”

When we came out of the church the band was playing a very slow “In the Sweet Bye and Bye.” The band was the largest New Orleans brass band I have ever seen – there were around half a dozen of every instrument except clarinet (there were two or three). There were five tubas, for example. Based on the caps, there were musicians from the Treme, Mahogany, Funky 7, Tuxedo, Gentilly, Society, and Storyville Stompers Brass Bands. I recognized Lionel Batiste, Benny Jones, and Shannon Powell on drums, Chris Burke on clarinet, Fred Kemp on tenor sax, Greg Stafford, and Frog’s sons Charles on trombone and Kirk on tuba. Kirk seemed to call most of the tunes and be generally in charge. The procession to St. Louis Cemetery No. 3 lasted about an hour and 45 minutes. The old tradition of playing only slow hymns and dirges on the way to the cemetery seems to be gone; the band only played three slow hymns out of thirteen pieces. Even more surprising to me was the fact that they played “secular” music on the way and did not play in any organized way back to the church; the gig was over at the cemetery. The selections went down this way:

at the church:
In the Sweet Bye and Bye (slow)
on the march:
Bye and Bye
Lord, Lord, Lord
What a Friend We Have in Jesus (slow, then fast)
Whoopin’ Blues
Give Me My Money Back (short)
I’ll Fly Away
It Ain’t My Fault
I’m Walkin’
Paul Barbarin’s Second Line
at the cemetery gates:
We Shall Walk Through the Streets of the City
at the tomb:
Just a Closer Walk With Thee (slow)
leaving the tomb:
Over In the Gloryland

I think “Give Me My Money Back” was so short because some the musicians didn’t think it was appropriate; it couldn’t have lasted more than a couple of minutes, while most of the numbers went over five minutes. Just before the band played “Streets of the City” at the cemetery gates, I heard Kirk say something like, “Well, it’s time to send the old man home.” Toward the end of “Streets of the City” the trombonists started playing “Lassus Trombone,” presumably in tribute to Frog, who recorded it on his first album as leader. “Gloryland” ended with the band at the cemetery gate, spilling onto Esplanade. When it was over, most of the guys said their goodbyes, but some wanted to keep on playing. I thought about hanging around to see what would happen, but I decided to walk on back. I cut through a side street and found myself at Liuzza’s by the Track, a restaurant which my friend Josh had told me about. I sat down and ordered a catfish sandwich and an Abita. Before they came, one of the waiters said, “Here comes a second line!” and about seven or eight musicians, led by Charles Joseph, came in. Between them and the remaining second-liners, every inch of the small place was filled. They played “Go to the Mardi Gras,” then settled in for some beer and rest. After awhile they left, still playing. It was one of those moments that only happen in New Orleans.

The funeral was an amazing experience; very moving – even the faster hymns seemed very poignant. The sound of the huge band was magnificent. Because the band was so big, the musicians sometimes broke into little subgroups. Greg Stafford, Charles Joseph, and a great clarinetist (whom I have seen before, but can’t name) did some wonderful trio work at one point.

After the experience, I was exhausted. In addition, I didn’t want to put any more music into my head, so I passed up some great music choices Saturday night: Dr. John and Cyril Neville at Tip’s, the Rebirth at the Rock ‘n’ Bowl, and Kermit at the Blue Nile.


*Usually four trombones - but I saw them once with three trombones, and there are five on their first album. 'Bonists Rick Trolsen, Steve Suter, and Craig Klein are usually on board along with Mullins.

The Delta and Frank Frost

Speaking of Frank Frost (see last post)....

During the 1990's (and a couple of times since), I would periodically visit the Mississippi Delta to chase down the blues and visit some of the holy sites of the music. I’m not talking about the mouth of the Mississippi in Louisiana, but the narrow triangle of land between the Mississippi and Yazoo Rivers that Mississippians call the Delta. This region is indeed an inland delta, and flooded every year until the system of flood control levees was built. The Delta was pretty much wilderness until after the Civil War, when a few intrepid settlers discovered that it had the best topsoil for growing cotton in the country. The planters cleared tracts for huge plantations, and since cotton was, before mechanization, a highly labor-intensive crop, the black Americans who were now nominally citizens flocked to the area to find work and a living. Many of them, or their descendants, would come to regret this move. For about a hundred years, the Delta had a black majority, but the white minority ruled with a pretty brutal iron fist. The sharecropping system kept the laborers subjugated, in debt and unable to leave the plantations. It’s no wonder that, around the turn of the twentieth century, the blues first developed there.*

Even to a native Southerner, the Delta seems strange and a little foreign. In the winter, when I first visited, the sky is low and oppressive; in the summer, it seems infinite – since the land is almost completely flat and there aren’t many trees, it seems as if you can see forever. Even though the vegetation is lush in the summer, the Delta has a strangely desolate feel, not helped by the fact that most of the small towns in the region have been largely deserted by businesses. By the time I first visited, the Delta had left behind its past as the most racist place in America to the extent that the white and black citizens had realized that they have to live together. And they do, for the most part, in a kind of polite, uneasy truce. Except for the urban homelessness I see in Atlanta, I have never seen the kind of shocking poverty I’ve seen in the Delta anywhere else in America. In the nineties, and I imagine still, there were/are people living without electricity and running water.

The blues are still in the air in the Delta; the blues are still played on AM radio as popular music, and the music is still played for dancers in juke joints, along with later styles of African-American popular music. And for a blues lover like me, holy sites abound. I have visited the graves of Charley Patton, Robert Johnson (all three of them!)**, and Sonny Boy Williamson. I have visited Dockery Plantation (ground zero for the blues if anywhere is) and stood in the remains of Muddy Waters cabin on Stovall Plantation.*** I've stood where the Southern crosses the Dog**** and stood on the platform at the depot in Tutwiler, where W.C. Handy first heard the blues. And I've heard some great Mississippi bluesmen, many of whom are now gone, like Lonnie Pitchford, Jack Owens, Eugene Powell (who recorded in the 1930’s as Sonny Boy Nelson), Wade Walton, Othar Turner, and on one amazing evening, Frank Frost.

Although he appeared briefly in the movie Crossroads, Frank Frost (1936-1999) was never famous, except to hard-core blues aficionados and Delta juke joint patrons. An accomplished blues singer, guitarist, keyboard and harp player, he never left the Delta for any length of time. Along with guitarist/bassist Big Jack Johnson and drummer Sam Carr, he was a member of the long-lived juke joint trio The Jelly Roll Kings, who were originally Frank Frost and the Nighthawks. During 25 years of barnstorming the Mississippi and Arkansas Delta areas, they managed to record three albums; the last one, from which the lyrics in my last post were taken, was recorded shortly before Frost’s death.

In the late 1990’s, I was at a Sunflower River Blues Festival performance by Greenville, Mississippi harmonica player Willie Foster; in the backing band were Sam Carr and Frank Frost. Frost seemed old and tired; he hunched over his organ and pecked out chords in a somewhat detached manner. Foster started urging him to come up and sing a feature number; he refused at first, but finally was persuaded. He pulled a harmonica out of his pocket as he shuffled***** to the front of the stage, counted off a tempo, and was instantly transformed as he sang and played one of his signature songs, “Midnight Prowler.” For five minutes, he WAS the Midnight Prowler - he stalked around the stage as he played and sang like a man possessed. Then the song ended, and he became Frank Frost again - old, tired, and damaged by alcohol. He took his place behind the keyboard and spent the rest of the set hunched over and uninvolved. It was an amazing and moving moment.


*A case can be made for the blues originating in Texas and spreading first to Mississippi, instead of vice versa. It's six of one/half a dozen of another: both places were brutally racist.

**He was a black man with a common name who died in Mississippi in the thirties; it's no wonder that we don't know exactly where he was buried. Three cemeteries have claims to his "official" final resting place.

***One of the delicious ironies of the Delta blues is that Howard Stovall III, the grandson of Muddy's employer, plays keyboard with Arthneice Jones' Stone Gas Band, an otherwise all-black blues band. The irony is not lost on Howard III, as he has made clear.

****The Southern Railroad once crossed the Yazoo Delta (Yellow Dog) line in Moorhead, Mississippi, as celebrated in "Yellow Dog Blues."

*****I'm aware of the racist implications of this verb, but there is no other way to describe Frost's gait.