Maybe it’s just a bling thing
{Photo Credit: Raymond Laws/Davidson Local}
Opinion
My friend Tere and I arrived late to the jazz concert on Friday night, because I couldn’t find the bling I wanted to wear. Tere and I had discussed what one wears to a jazz concert and agreed that black and white and bling—something shiny and bold—would fit the bill.
“Alexa, play cool jazz,” says my grandson on Sunday mornings when he’s visiting, because that’s what he listens to at home. We wanted to be cool. Think sunglasses, think beat poets, think bling. I did.
That’s what I wore in college when on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday nights, my friends and I would head to the jazz bar on Battleground Avenue in Greensboro. We’d sip on our beers, snap our fingers, light up our cigarettes (back then), scratch poetry on napkins, and feel the music in our blood. It was soothing, it was inspiring. It made my body move even when my body was too tired to move.
The Lexington event, open to the public, was sponsored by the Ebony Community Collective and Arts Davidson County, two organizations dedicated to community. The main event featured Nick Hayes and Cufflinx, a group renowned in live music circles. Organizer Patsy Matthews’s idea was to bring high-quality jazz to Lexington. She succeeded.
When Tere and I arrived, DaiTrell and his backup singers were already on stage. The room was packed. The usher led us to two of only a few remaining seats in the back. We could see well and sound, brought to us by the talents of Jack Riggs and his team, was just right—not too loud, not muddled, not ear-splitting. We could hear words as well as the music. When the CuffLinkx took the stage, the combination of velvety saxophone, piano, and drum was balanced and offered the perfect accompaniment to the mellow voice of the lead singer.
I never did find my bling of choice, so I had to go with a substitute, which nobody knew but me. We settled into our back table seats, and before I knew it, my whole body was moving, and something deep inside me began to ease up. All around the room, bodies were swaying, feet were tapping, and in the case of some who were standing, there was full out dance going on. I looked over at Tere and, even though she’d received some bad news that afternoon, she was smiling. That’s what you need on an afternoon of bad news—cool jazz.
During the break, I found myself loading my plate with food and then moving around the tables, saying hello to those I knew and those I didn’t know, striking up conversations with neighbors, and meeting new friends. It was that kind of event. A community event. Everybody was welcomed. Everybody felt good.
After the break, when the CuffLinkx singer said, “We need to do some dancing,” seats began to empty. First, it was one young woman and a familiar gentleman wearing all white, but pretty soon, table after table began to empty, and Tere said, “Wanna dance?”
I did.
We joined folks elbow to elbow, nobody really dancing with anybody, but everybody dancing with everybody, up and down, around and around, eye-closed grooving or arms raised and waving with hips and feet. At one point, I smiled at the man in white, the man with the best moves in the place. He smiled back, and together we danced low to the floor, well, as low as these old knees could go. He offered a hand to get me back up, and when I was upright, we slapped hands, smiled, and kept dancing.
It ended too soon. Riding home, Tere and I were laughing, her bad news of the day tucked away, and my tired body feeling renewed from movement, friendship, and just plain fun. I placed my not-quite-what-I-wanted bling back into my drawer and thanked it for being a great substitute.
The next day, Tere said, “I felt more like ‘me’ than I have in a while.”
“I like you being you,” I told her. I like being me.
Saturday was a cool jazz kind of day. Steady work hanging blinds that were giving me fits, stopping every now and then to feel my blood warming with the memory of a saxophone and a voice saying, “Let’s dance,” of friends, good food, laughter.
Only then did it occur to me to ask, “Where were all the white people?”
Including Tere and me, I counted ten, maybe twelve, white skinned folks. Add Jack and his sound assistant, add Destiny, working the “bar.” In a crowd estimated to be 80+, white folks were sparse.
I can’t tell you how many groups I’ve been a part of, planning events, meetings, programs, where one of the challenges, in addition to assigning food and seating, has been, “How can we get the Black folks to come?”
If we do at all, it’s the same folks, and I could name them. Those who work for community, those who cross racial lines not just to be symbolic or to make a statement, but because they want to attend and won’t be shut out because of skin color.
On Friday night, where were all the white people?
Don’t tell me jazz is a Black thing. Jazz is an everybody thing. I’ve been doing it since I first had a chance back in the 80s. My 5-year-old white, blond-haired, blue-eyed grandson has been doing it as long as he’s been alive. “Alexa, play some cool jazz,” that little voice says.
Jazz was born of African American musical traditions mixed with European. It’s a uniquely American sound that has included greats such as Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller. Jazz might not draw a beach music and loud guitar crowd, and that’s a choice sometimes reflecting lack of experience more than anything else. It’s also true that other events conflict, and we have to make a choice. I’m not saying white people stayed away because they assumed it was only for our darker-skinned residents. I’m just asking, where were all the white people?
I can’t say—because I don’t know—where they were. I can’t say why you didn’t go or you didn’t go or you didn’t go. To those who were there, I can’t say what drew you. A chance to support a predominantly Black organization and a local arts organization? A chance for good quality jazz? A desire to share community in Lexington? A chance to be with friends? I didn’t see one single unhappy face there. I saw joy. I saw community. I felt it in my blood, moving smoothly through me.
I believe in my heart and soul and life experience that the division between differently-skinned people is closing. Just a little. There is a long way to go and a lot of division still. But if you saw an ad for the event—and how could you not—and said, “Oh, that’s a Black thing,” shame on you. It was an everybody thing.
We need to think less about Black things and White things, Hispanic things, or Asian things, and we need to think about Community things. We ARE really in this together. Building community, being neighbors, being friends, coming together to realize that our distances are not created by God but created by us.
We need to get over it. We need to do better. Everybody does, Black and white.
“I felt more like ‘me’ than I have in a long time,” said Tere.
That’s a human thing. A thing worth celebrating. A thing more valuable than all the bling in my bling drawer, more important than all the bling in the world.
