Fall 2002 Volume XXXII, No. 1

Alan Lomax: Citizen Activist by Ron Cohen Afro-Asian Crosscurrents in Contemporary Hip Hop by Ellie M. Hisama Musical Topics in Hale Smith's Evocation by Horace J. Maxile, Jr. Eileen Jackson Southern: A Tribute and a Mandate by Guthrie P. Ramsey, Jr. ISAM Matters Reviews Country and Gospel Notes by Charles Wolfe Gendering Jazz Narratives by Susan C. Cook Rorem on Everything by Eleonora M. Beck ISAM Home

ISAM Matters Ron Cohen’s lead article in this issue serves as a prelude to a festival ISAM is currently organizing in honor of Alan Lomax, who passed away on 19 July 2002 at the age of eighty-seven. Folklorists, ethnomusicologists, social historians, and journalists will gather to assess Lomax’s esteemed career as a folk music collector, promoter, and scholar. Emphasis will be on Lomax’s efforts to foster public awareness and appreciation of American and world folk music, placing him in the broader discussion of the role of traditional arts in 20th-century American life. The festival, scheduled for 9, 11-12 April 2003, will also include a special panel on folk music as poetry, produced in conjunction with Citylore’s People’s Poetry Gathering, and a tribute concert featuring Arlo Guthrie, Pete Seeger, and the New Lost City Ramblers. A book-launching party will mark the release of Alan Lomax: Selected Writings 1934-1997 (Routledge), edited by Ron Cohen. See the preliminary festival schedule on the adjoining page. ISAM’s colloquium series continued this fall with a lecture/demonstration on Latin Jazz by Brooklyn College alumnus Arturo O’Farrill, who was recently named director of the Lincoln Center Afro-Latin Jazz Ensemble. The son of renowned Latin jazz composer Chico O’Farrill, Arturo led the Lincoln Center ensemble in a premiere performance at Brooklyn College this past October. Also featured in our series were ethnomusicologist Mark Slobin (Wesleyan University), who spoke on the latest transnational trends in klezmer music, and ISAM’s own Jeff Taylor, who presented his recent research on early jazz pianists Lil Hardin Armstrong and Lovie Austin. Taylor also delivered a version of the same at the Society for Music Theory meeting in Columbus, Ohio. ISAM director Ellie Hisama, currently on leave and working on a volume of popular music essays, presented a paper on Afro-Asian hip hop to the faculty and students of Columbia University in early December. A version of her paper is included in this issue of the Newsletter. Acting director Ray Allen read a paper on Porgy and Bess as “folk opera” at the fall meeting of the American Folklore Society. Over winter break, Salim Washington will be touring France and returning to New York for an engagement at the Jazz Gallery. ISAM , in co-sponsorship with the Mannes College of Music, organized a symposium entitled Music and New York’s Gilded Age on 5 October at the New School. Presentations included “Beach and the Brownings” by Adrienne Fried Block, “Dialogues in Sculpture and Architecture at the Turn of the Century” by Mark Mennin and Hilary Lewis, “Opera in New York’s Gilded Age” by John Graziano, and “I Have a Dream: The Story of James Reese Europe” by Wayne Alpern. An evening concert included selections by Beach, Griffes, Ives, Mahler, Dvorák, and Joplin. We thank those readers who have generously contributed to our Mark Tucker Behind the Beat Fund, and ask those who have yet to give to consider a donation. With your support we hope to have a volume of Mark’s jazz columns, drawn from his writing for our Newsletter (1982-2000), in print by late 2003. —R.A.