I Wonder as I Wander: The Life of John Jacob Niles

Chapter 7. Kerby and Niles Present Folk Music on the Concert Stage

7 Kerby and Niles Present Folk Music on the Concert Stage Even while Seven Kentucky Mountain Songs and Seven Negro Exaltations were still on the drawing board, the songs from the collection were already being given a trial run in rehearsals for Niles’s new performance initiative, the duo of Marion Kerby, contralto, and John Jacob Niles, tenor. Marion Kerby (1877–1956) was already a veteran actress by the time she met Niles in December 1928 at the Princeton Club of New York. She inaugurated her stage career at the turn of the century, and by 1922 she had made her reputation in the role of Nana, the “mean sister,” in the original theatrical production of Seventh Heaven. In 1926 Kerby stepped away from the Broadway stage and redirected her dramatic expertise toward interpreting African American culture. The Social Notes column of the New York Times included notice of a 1926 Palm Beach, Florida, performance of stories and spirituals: “A dinner dance was given by Mrs. William Randolph Hearst last evening at the studio apartment of Addison Misner in Via Misner. . . . Two orchestras played, and Miss Marion Kerby and Miss Marjorie Lambkin entertained with negro spirituals and stories.”1 After working with Lambkin, Kerby initiated a new partnership with Marie Cecelia “Cissie” Loftus (1876–1943), who was renowned as an im- 112 I Wonder as I Wander personator both in the United States and in Britain. Cissie was comfortable with both vaudeville and legitimate theater and had a wealth of social and artistic connections, which made her an ideal complement for Kerby. Together they performed in London and Dublin and subsequently made their American debut at New York’s Selwyn Theatre on May 15, 1927. A preview was printed in the New York Times: “Miss Loftus will present impressions of the popular stars of the moment and will likewise be heard in children’s songs. Miss Kerby will confine herself to negro melodies and anecdotes.”2 Kerby and Loftus continued to perform at joint recitals, particularly during the summer months, when regular Broadway work was light. On August 23, 1927, they presented a benefit for the Soldiers and Sailors Club of New York at “The Orchard,” the home of Mr. and Mrs. Charles E. Merrill at Southampton, Long Island. On this occasion William Walker was their piano accompanist. In 1928 Kerby appeared on Broadway in a revival of John Ferguson at the Theatre Masque but continued her performances with Cissie Loftus. In the summer of 1929, they were joined by pianist John Jacob Niles. The recital at New York’s Barrymore Theatre headlined Loftus and featured Kerby for the sake of variety.3 Niles was not content to merely serve as Kerby’s accompanist, however . He envisaged a more equal partnership in which Kerby would present her character sketches, Kerby and Niles would each be featured in solo songs, and then they would sing some songs in duet. Niles would also serve as both accompanist and arranger. While it was useful to be connected to Cissie Loftus initially, it was clear that the team of Kerby and Niles would be too much in her shadow if they continued to share the bill with her, so in the fall of 1929 the pair went on the road without Loftus. Niles and Kerby’s decision to perform folk and traditional music in a concert-hall situation was not unusual at this time. By the 1920s a substantial repertoire of artful spiritual arrangements was published by composer-arrangers such as Harry Burleigh (1849–1966), so that the music was readily available to both white and black performers. Baritone Oscar Seagle (1877–1945) presented a whole program of spirituals as a solo performer in a recital context on April 14, 1917, and for his annual New York recital he programmed a set of Burleigh arrangements of spirituals along with a group of Dvorak songs and a set of “patriotic Kerby and Niles Present Folk Music on the Concert Stage 113 songs” written by French composers in response to the war in Europe.4 The remarkable singer, athlete, actor, and activist Paul Robeson (1898– 1976) performed what may be considered the first program consisting of entirely African American works on the concert stage; it took place on November 2, 1924, at Boston’s Copley Plaza Hotel. Robeson followed that performance with a series of concerts and recordings with arrangeraccompanist Lawrence Brown. What made...