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PITTSBURGH JAZZ

 

From Blakey to Brown, Como to Costa, Eckstine to Eldridge, Galbraith to Garner, Harris to Hines, Horne to Hyman, Jamal to Jefferson, Kelly to Klook; Mancini to Marmarosa, May to Mitchell, Negri to Nestico, Parlan to Ponder, Reed to Ruther, Strayhorn to Sullivan, Turk to Turrentine, Wade to Williams… the forthcoming publication Treasury of Pittsburgh Jazz Connections by Dr. Nelson Harrison and Dr. Ralph Proctor, Jr. will document the legacy of one of the world’s greatest jazz capitals.

 

Do you want to know who Dizzy Gillespie  idolized? Did you ever wonder who inspired Kenny Clarke and Art Blakey? Who was the pianist that mentored Monk, Bud Powell, Tad Dameron, Elmo Hope, Sarah Vaughan and Mel Torme? Who was Art Tatum’s idol and Nat Cole’s mentor? What musical quartet pioneered the concept adopted later by the Modern Jazz Quartet? Were you ever curious to know who taught saxophone to Stanley Turrentine or who taught piano to Ahmad Jamal? What community music school trained Robert McFerrin, Sr. for his history-making debut with the Metropolitan Opera? What virtually unknown pianist was a significant influence on young John Coltrane, Shirley Scott, McCoy Tyner, Bobby Timmons and Ray Bryant when he moved to Philadelphia from Pittsburgh in the 1940s?  Would you be surprised to know that Erroll Garner attended classes at the Julliard School of Music in New York and was at the top of his class in writing and arranging proficiency?

 

Some answers  can be gleaned from the postings on the Pittsburgh Jazz Network.

 

For almost 100 years the Pittsburgh region has been a metacenter of jazz originality that is second to no other in the history of jazz.  One of the best kept secrets in jazz folklore, the Pittsburgh Jazz Legacy has heretofore remained mythical.  We have dubbed it “the greatest story never told” since it has not been represented in writing before now in such a way as to be accessible to anyone seeking to know more about it.  When it was happening, little did we know how priceless the memories would become when the times were gone.

 

Today jazz is still king in Pittsburgh, with events, performances and activities happening all the time. The Pittsburgh Jazz Network is dedicated to celebrating and showcasing the places, artists and fans that carry on the legacy of Pittsburgh's jazz heritage.

 

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Duke Ellington is first African-American and the first musician to solo on U.S. circulating coin

    MARY LOU WILLIAMS     

            INTERVIEW

       In Her Own Words

Mary Wilson, an Original Member of the Supremes, Dies at 76

Ms. Wilson joined with Florence Ballard and Diana Ross — who later emerged as the lead singer — to form one of the biggest musical acts of the 1960s.

 
Mary Wilson in 2019. She was a founding member of the Supremes and the last original member still in the group when it broke up in 1977.
Mary Wilson in 2019. She was a founding member of the Supremes and the last original member still in the group when it broke up in 1977.Credit...Rozette Rago for The New York Times
  • Feb. 9, 2021Updated 2:15 p.m. ET


Mary Wilson, a founding member of the Supremes, the trailblazing vocal group that had a dozen No. 1 singles on the pop charts in the 1960s and was a key to the success of Motown Records, died on Monday at her home in Henderson, Nev. She was 76.

The death was confirmed by her publicist, Jay Schwartz. No cause was given.

Formed in Detroit as the Primettes in 1959, the Supremes, whose other two original members were Diana Ross and Florence Ballard, made their mark with hits like “Baby Love” and “Stop! In the Name of Love” whose smooth blend of R&B and pop helped define the Motown sound.

Berry Gordy, the founder of Motown, said in a statement that the Supremes had opened doors for other Motown acts. “I was always proud of Mary,” he said. “She was quite a star in her own right, and over the years continued to work hard to boost the legacy of the Supremes.”

She was the only original member still with the Supremes when the group broke up in 1977.

 
ImageMs. Wilson in 1979, two years after the Supremes broke up. She released her first solo album that year.
Ms. Wilson in 1979, two years after the Supremes broke up. She released her first solo album that year.Credit...Richard Drew/Associated Press

Ms. Wilson was born on March 6, 1944, in Greenville, Miss., to Sam and Johnnie Mae Wilson. She grew up in the Brewster-Douglass Projects in Detroit and began singing as a child. When Milton Jenkins, who in 1959 was the manager of the Primes, a male singing group (two of whose members would later be in the original lineup of the Temptations), decided to form a female version of the act, the original members were Betty McGlown, Ms. Ballard, Ms. Wilson and Ms. Ross.

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To get Mr. Gordy’s attention, the group, then known as the Primettes, frequented Motown’s Hitsville USA recording studio after school. They were eventually signed, changed their name to the Supremes and became a trio in 1962.

The Supremes did not fare well early in their career, but they achieved success after they began working with the songwriting and producing team of Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier and Eddie Holland — and after Mr. Gordy made Ms. Ross the lead singer. (Before then, Ms. Wilson and Ms. Ballard had shared most of the lead vocals.)

The trio’s breakthrough single was “When the Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes,” which peaked at No. 23 on the Billboard pop chart in 1963. Five consecutive No. 1 singles, all with Ms. Ross as the lead singer, followed in rapid succession in 1964 and 1965: “Where Did Our Love Go,” “Baby Love,” “Come See About Me,” “Stop! In the Name of Love” and “Back in My Arms Again.”

The Supremes emerged as stars during an era of tension and upheaval in the United States: 1963, the year of their first hit, was also the year of the March on Washington at which the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. famously spoke, and the year President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. If the nation was seemingly divided, the Supremes nonetheless found fans everywhere.

“They were extraordinarily popular with white audiences, Black audiences and everyone else,” said Dolores Barclay, an author and adjunct professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, who collaborated with Ms. Ross on a memoir, “Secrets of a Sparrow” (1993).

“Appearing in white venues was breaking down racial barriers,” Ms. Barclay said. “But it’s a different type of disruption. It’s nonconfrontational. It’s having a platform and saying, ‘Yes, we’re here, we’re great, and we’re a part of American music.’”

The Supremes “transcend adolescence without repudiating it,” an article in The New York Times said in 1967, adding, “Their audience spans ages and taste barriers.”

By that year, the group had undergone another change: Ms. Ballard was replaced by Cindy Birdsong, and the group was renamed Diana Ross and the Supremes. Ms. Ross left the group for a solo career in 1970 and was replaced as lead singer by Jean Terrell, leaving Ms. Wilson as the last remaining original member. The group went on to score several more hits, including “Up the Ladder to the Roof” and “Stoned Love.”

The Supremes were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1988.

The Supremes broke up in 1977. Ms. Wilson released the album “Mary Wilson” in 1979 (it met with limited success) and had begun working on a second album when she was dropped by Motown in 1980. She did not release another album until “Walk the Line” in 1992, but she maintained a busy career as a singer.

 
Image
The Supremes in an undated publicity photo. From left, Diana Ross, Ms. Wilson and Cindy Birdsong.
The Supremes in an undated publicity photo. From left, Diana Ross, Ms. Wilson and Cindy Birdsong.Credit...Charlie Gillett/Redferns, via Getty

Reviewing a cabaret performance in 2009, Stephen Holden of The Times praised her “sizable voice with its rough Tina Turner-like edges” and noted that, despite its emphasis on the Supremes’ catalog, her performance “suggested that Ms. Wilson would really like to get away from all that history to be a grander, more grown-up pop diva.”

For all the Supremes’ success, Ms. Wilson acknowledged in her 1986 autobiography, “Dreamgirl: My Life as a Supreme,” that there had been friction in the group during Ms. Ross’s tenure. (The book took its name from the 1981 Broadway musical “Dreamgirls,” later made into a movie, which was widely regarded as being based on the Supremes’ history. Ms. Wilson was quoted as saying she liked the musical; Ms. Ross claimed not to have seen it.)

“Diane always liked to be the center of attraction,” Ms. Wilson told People magazine in 1986, using Ms. Ross’s original first name. “If you happened to be in her way while she was going toward the center, that was your fault.”

The strains in their relationship appeared in public again in 2000, when Ms. Wilson and Ms. Birdsong did not join a Supremes reunion tour, saying they had been offered much less payment than Ms. Ross. For the tour — which did not do well and was canceled midway through its scheduled 29 dates — Ms. Ross was joined by Lynda Laurence and Scherrie Payne, who had joined the Supremes after she left.

“My biggest desire and dream is that Diane and I are together again,” Ms. Wilson said on CBS that year. “First of all, it’s a friendship thing for me.”

Ms. Ross said on Twitter on Tuesday that she had “wonderful” memories of her time with Ms. Wilson and that “the Supremes will live on in our hearts.”

Ms. Wilson is survived her daughter, Turkessa; her sons, Pedro Antonio Jr. and William; her sister, Kathryn; her brother, Roosevelt; 10 grandchildren; and a great-granddaughter. Her marriage to Pedro Ferrer ended in divorce.

She remained in the spotlight in recent years. In 2019 she competed on “Dancing With the Stars” and released the book “Supreme Glamour,” a collection of pictures of the Supremes’ most dazzling gowns. “Our glamour changed things,” she said at the time. “What we wore mattered.”

The influence the Supremes had on Black girls and women across America in the 1960s was undeniable. “You never saw anything like it in the 1960s — three women of color who were totally empowered, creative, imaginative,” Oprah Winfrey was quoted as saying in “Diana Ross: A Biography” (2007), by J. Randy Taraborrelli.

The Supremes have also influenced countless musical acts, among them Destiny’s Child and En Vogue.

“We, the Supremes, can’t take all the credit,” Ms. Wilson told The Guardian in 2019. “The writers and producers at Motown gave us the music and sound that people loved. And then there was the glamour. My whole life is like a dream. I tell you — if I were not a Supreme, I would want to be a Supreme.”

Peter Keepnews contributed reporting.

Derrick Bryson Taylor is a general assignment reporter on the Express Desk. He previously worked at The New York Post's PageSix.com and Essence magazine

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I played with the original Supremes and & the Temptations with a quartet on their first tour in 1964 at the Pitt Field House.  


Our group led by Joe Westray - organ w/ me on trombone, Art Nance - tenor sax and Phil Terrell-drums stood right on stage behind them.  They didn't have any sheet music then we just knew their tunes from the records. Wish I had some photos but alas.  We just thought of them as the kids from Detroit at that time. Who knew?

IN MEMORIAM: Keeping the legacy of legendary Supremes star Mary Wilson alive


By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent
@StacyBrownMedia

Mary Wilson was a friend to the Black Press of America, a neighbor to the world, and the radiance she exuded never seem to fade. At 76, the Supremes legend is gone too soon.

Wilson died suddenly late Monday, Feb. 8, at her home just outside of Las Vegas.

Mary Wilson  (NNPA Photo)

“I was extremely shocked and saddened to hear of the passing of a major member of the Motown family, Mary Wilson of the Supremes,” Motown founder Berry Gordy wrote in a statement emailed to NNPA Newswire shortly after 2 a.m. Tuesday.”

Gordy emphasized, “The Supremes were always known as the ‘sweethearts of Motown.’ Mary, along with Diana Ross and Florence Ballard, came to Motown in the early 1960s. After an unprecedented string of number one hits, television and nightclub bookings, they opened doors for themselves, the other Motown acts, and many, many others.”

“I was always proud of Mary,” Berry Gordy concluded.  “She was quite a star in her own right and continued to work hard to boost the legacy of the Supremes over the years. Mary Wilson was extremely special to me. She was a trailblazer, a diva, and will be deeply missed.”

Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr., National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) President and CEO, affirmed, “On behalf of NNPA Chair Karen Cater Richards and all of the 230 African American NNPA member publishers across the United States and the Caribbean, we pause solemnly today to pay tribute and our profound respects to the living memory, legacy and cultural genius of our beloved Mary Wilson. She loved and supported the Black Press of America, and we will always love and keep Mary Wilson’s transformative spirit in our hearts as the NNPA continues to publish truth to power in America and throughout the world.”

In a 2020 interview on the Black Press of America’s “Fiyah!” livestream ..., Wilson talked about her life and career and her long pursuit of having Florence Ballard memorialized with a United States Postal Service stamp.

“People forget that Florence Ballard not only gave us our name, but she formed the group,” Wilson revealed on “Fiyah!”

“It was really Flo who formed us, and I want people to know that. I am putting together a program to get Florence Ballard a U.S. stamp, hopefully, so I want people to send their request and say something about Florence. All those hits were Florence, so when you listening to [The Supremes], it’s about Flo, so I want people who listen to those songs that bring back memories, think about Flo.”

A singer, best-selling author, motivational speaker, businesswoman, former U.S. Cultural Ambassador, mother, and grandmother, the legendary Mary Wilson made great strides on her inevitable journey to greatness.

As an original/founding member of The Supremes, she changed the face of popular music to become a trendsetter who broke down social, racial, and gender barriers, which all started with the wild success of their first number one song.

Formed in Detroit as The Primettes in 1959, The Supremes were Motown’s most successful act of the 1960s, scoring 12 No. 1 singles.

They also continue to reign as America’s most successful vocal group to date. Their influence not only carries on in contemporary R&B, soul, and pop, but they also helped pave the way for Black artists’ mainstream success across all genres.

Mary achieved an unprecedented 12 No.1 hits, with 5 of them being consecutive from 1964-1965. Those songs are “Where Did Our Love Go,” “Baby Love”, “Come See About Me,” “Stop! In the Name of Love,” and “Back in My Arms Again,” according to Billboard Magazine.

In 2018, Billboard celebrated the 60th anniversary of Motown with a list of “The Hot 100’s Top Artists of All Time”, where The Supremes ranked at No. 16 and remain the No. 1 female recording group of all time.

Jan. 21, 2021, marked the 60th anniversary of the day The Supremes signed with Motown in 1961. This year, Mary kicked off the celebration of the 60th anniversary of The Supremes.

“With the same passion as she did singing with the original Supremes as well as with her solo career, the world-renowned performer was an advocate for social and economic challenges in the United States and abroad,” Wilson’s longtime publicist and friend, Jay Schwartz, said.

“Ms. Wilson used her fame and flair to promote a diversity of humanitarian efforts, including ending hunger, raising HIV/AIDS awareness, and encouraging world peace. Mary was working on getting a U.S. postage stamp of her fellow bandmate and original Supreme Florence Ballard who passed away in 1976,” Schwartz said.

In 2019, Wilson stretched her dancing muscles when she joined the cast of the 28th season of ABC’s “Dancing with the Stars,” Schwartz recalled.

He noted that in 2019 she also published her fourth book, “Supreme Glamour.”

“The coffee-table book showcased the gowns The Supremes were known for over the decades and delved into more history of the most successful female recording group of all time,” Schwartz wrote in an email.

He provided the following extensive recent bio of Wilson:

She was honored at the Paley Center for Media in Beverly Hills, celebrating her work in music and her influence on young African Americans and entertainment.

Her conversation with Janice Littlejohn left the audience laughing with her unmatched humor and standing with applause displaying her graceful composure throughout the night. Showing the same love she has always demonstrated to all her fans, Wilson gladly met and personally thanked every attendee that night for their support throughout her career.

Wilson’s influence reached beyond music.

In 2018, Mary’s longtime fight for the passage of the Music Modernization Act (MMA) came to fruition when it was signed into law on Oct. 11.

The law modernized copyright-related issues for new music and audio recordings due to new forms of technology like digital streaming, which did not protect music recorded before Feb. 15, 1972, according to Schwartz.

Her tireless advocacy for this legislation included trips to Washington D.C. to personally meet with Congress members to advocate for legacy artists gaining fair compensation when their songs are played on digital radio stations, Schwartz continued.

Mary Wilson’s last solo recording, the song, “Time to Move On,” reached No. 23 on the Billboard Dance charts, which marked her first time on the charts with a solo recording since The Supremes.

She was working on new projects for 2021, including an album she recently teased on her YouTube channel. Her primary love of preserving the legacy of The Supremes and introducing her music to new generations.

“I think that The Supremes had a lot to do with the awakening of the world in terms of what blackness was,” Wilson said in her 2020 NNPA interview. “The whole world was watching Black people in a way they’d never seen.”

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