There I used to be within the highlight, alongside my daughter, Sonia, taking part in Blues harmonicas onstage in entrance of a energetic crowd. Was this some kind of a surreal dream? It definitely felt like one within the second. However this was, in reality, an precise occasion that occurred on a Friday morning earlier this month.
All of it started with a Chicago Solar-Occasions article by Neil Steinberg that I examine a Blues Camp for youngsters at Columbia School. I assumed absolutely that this was some kind of misprint. Why have been kids studying in regards to the Blues, and why would the music be of curiosity to them? After studying the column, I contacted Neil, who assured me that what he wrote was certainly not a piece of fiction. Fernando Jones, whom Sonia not too long ago met by coincidence on her morning walks, had created the worldwide music program, Blues Camp, in 1989, and it has since grown right into a acknowledged nonprofit.
This realization instantly introduced me again to the times of my youth. My love for the Blues started in Grade College. None of my associates may perceive why I might wish to hearken to individuals that they had by no means heard of like Muddy Waters, Albert King and Howlin’ Wolf. My curiosity had now peaked concerning what kind of children would attend a camp dedicated to Blues music. Fortunately, Sonia is at all times up for an journey like I’m, so I requested her to hitch me for the Blues Youngsters Basis’s camp recital at Columbia. What we discovered there entertained and delighted us.
The said mission of Fernando’s nonprofit is to protect, carry out and promote Blues amongst America’s youth, educators, dad and mom and group members. The group operated as a free Blues Camp for youngsters around the globe, specializing in offering cultural, social and emotional enrichment actions for its younger contributors. Although not all the budding musicians we noticed at Columbia are destined to be breakout performers, we loved how their participation in an ensemble taught them to collaborate and cooperate with one another. It additionally helped them to be much less self-conscious when performing in entrance of others. There have been not less than a pair standouts, notably a ten-year-old bass guitar participant named Ricky, whose mannerisms have been that of an older Blues man.
Watching exceptional children like Ricky brought on me to mirror on Chicago’s profoundly wealthy historical past of music. We’re residence to such greats because the Father of Gospel, Thomas Dorsey; the Queen of Gospel, Albertina Walker; Mom Willie Mae Ford; Mavis Staples and the Staple Singers; the Edwin Hawkin Singers; Tammy McCann; and the fantastic Mahalia Jackson. We even have Blues greats and different musicians who both have been from Chicago or grew to become well-known right here, from Buddy Man, Quincy Jones, Earth, Wind and Hearth, the Chi-Lites, Herbie Hancock, Nat King Cole, Lou Rawls and Bo Diddley to Esther Phillips, Dinah Washington, Sarah Vaughan, Jennifer Hudson, Etta James and Chaka Khan, to call a number of.
Home Music was invented right here in Chicago by the late Frankie Knuckles, amongst others, and 1000’s flocked to Jackson Park on July eleventh for the annual Chosen Few Picnic & Competition honoring him and the opposite visionaries behind that style. Extra not too long ago, Chicago was residence to Rappers and Hip-Hop artists like Widespread, Probability the Rapper, Ye (previously Kanye West) and Da Brat. What a wealthy tapestry.
Albertina Walker shall be honored posthumously by Calvin Bridges subsequent month on her birthday. Calvin was my classmate at John M. Smyth Elementary College, and not too long ago carried out on the inaugural FECK Awards in April. Nevertheless, his fame extends internationally, the place he has been everywhere in the world spreading the Gospel message. He shall be joined by singer Sasha Daltonn for Albertina’s birthday celebration. A good larger occasion is being deliberate in Walker’s honor for subsequent yr.
I additionally really feel overcome with immense gratitude for the newspaper article in Roger’s beloved Chicago Solar-Occasions that had knowledgeable me about this superb camp. Although in the present day’s newspapers should not what they was, I do consider that they’re nonetheless an vital and needed a part of our lives, particularly after they prioritize native reporting. The Chicago Tribune’s Robert “Colonel” McCormick and the Solar-Occasions’ Marshall Discipline III needs to be recommended for establishing Chicago as a number one newspaper city. Although most print media has melted away lately, maintaining updated on the every day information cycle is extra very important than ever. I doubt the Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan would’ve had one of the crucial profitable engagements within the historical past of Chicago’s Lyric Opera along with his sold-out present, A Evening of Mellon Collie and Infinite Disappointment, had it not acquired ample protection from town’s papers.
All of those ideas have been working by my thoughts as Sonia and I have been invited to hitch a jovial 94-year-old girl from the viewers onstage to be taught easy methods to play the blues on the camp recital. It was as surreal a second for me as any in latest reminiscence, to not point out indicative of the way you’re by no means too younger or too previous to be taught a brand new ability.
For extra info on Fernando’s Blues camp, go to his group’s official web site.
