Jazz in the Mountains?: One Town's Amazing Story

people: working, creating Jazz in the Mountains? One Town's Amazing Story William Archer When the topic of Appalachian music is brought up, most people think of banjos , dulcimers, guitars, harmonicas, and even wash tub basses. But for many others , the concept of Appalachian music includes pianos, saxophones, muted cornets , trumpets, trombones, and drums— because, while the world has been enjoying the musical creations of the so-called hill folk, a decidedly different form of music also came from these mountains. During the past century, the black folk of the region have been making their own particular impact on the international music world. For American Negroes, the opening of the mountain coalfields in the late nineteenth century meant opportunity. While the pioneer settlers passed up the chance to work under the almost brutal conditions in the mines, blacks—primarily from Virginia and North and South Carolina —took this chance for jobs, housing, food, and clothing. They came by the thousands, along with thousands of eastern Europeans, to take advantage of those opportunities. In those days, the company provided everything. The men worked for the company. They lived in company houses. They shopped in a company store. They were paid in company money called "scrip." All around those early miners was a company world. The only thing they could truly call their own was their heritage and traditions, and for African Americans, that heritage included the rich and rhythmic musical traditions that were spawned in Africa and provided solace and comfort when the Eeople were ripped from their homes, ound like animals, and stacked like potato sacks in ships headed for the New World, and slavery. The music lived as they toiled for their earthly masters in the cotton and tobacco fields of America. The blues was born not on Bourbon Street but in the heart of some nameless black man or woman, in some nameless field, toiling for some nameless slave driver. The same could be said for gospel music. Gospel represents the fervent search for a better place . . . a place were people are free. But iazz is music that comes straight from the heart. It is joy. It is freedom, pure and simple. It is honesty. It is controlled mayhem. It is individuals working as individuals, and people work44 A Bluefield jazzman since the 1920s, Willor English today serves as organist at the United Methodist Church on Jones Street ing together all at the same time ... all seeking perfection. Jazz is something else. It's America's gift to the world of music, and it is one of the blacks' greatest gifts to America. Perhaps it's odd to think of the Appalachians as being a place where jazz music would develop and reach some of its highest heights. After all, Count Basie, Louis Armstrong, Cab Calloway, Fats Waller, Louis Jordan, and indeed the greatest of them all, Duke Ellington, are all most often associated with the big nightclubs in Harlem, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Chicago. What would performers like these, who played to standing -room audiences in the Apollo Theater , be doing in tiny clubs in the remote mountains of southern West Virginia? The answer to this is not as simple as just money, although these performers were paid the going rate for their performances in these parts. The answer is found in the people. Some mighty special people launched their musical careers from the mountains of southern West Virginia, southwestern Virginia and Eastern Kentucky—people like Bobby Benson, the original keyboard player for the Ink Spots; Teddy Weatherford, entertainer and composer of "Kitten on the Keys"; and perhaps the brightest star in the early days, Maceo Pinkard. Although his name does not appear in any of the state's history books, Maceo Pinkard is one of the most revered native sons of Bluefield, West Virginia—at least in the city's black community. He was born around the turn of the century in a home located on Commerce Street, but moved to Jones Street at about the age of five, according to some sources. He performed locally in churches, and later in night clubs, before striking out for the big time in New York City's Tin...