Swing Along: The Musical Life of Will Marion Cook

203 Pages·2008·8.12 MB·English

by  Marva Carter

Swing Along
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Swing Along
The Musical Life of Will Marion Cook
Marva Griffin Carter
1
2008
1
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Carter, Marva Griffin.
Swing along : the musical life of Will Marion Cook / Marva Griffin Carter.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN978-0-19-510891-0
1. Cook, Will Marion. 2. Composers—United States—Biography.
3. African American composers—Biography. I. Title
ML410.C7545C37 2007
780.92—dc22 2007020402
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
To my father and mother, Marvin and Lois Griffin,
who have given me life and love
To my husband and son, Lawrence Carter, Sr. and Jr.,
who have supported me tenaciously, and—
To musicologists Eileen Southern and Samuel Floyd, Jr.,
who have inspired me to tell the untold stories
of African-American musicians
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acknowledgments
This study represents the culmination of conversations with informants, in-
cluding scholars, and discoveries in newspaper accounts, letters, and other
primary sources. The work began as a musicological dissertation and has
undergone radical surgery before recovering in its present form. I am in-
debted to Lawrence Gushee for originally shepherding this project and to
committee members Bruno Nettl, Charles Capwell, and David Stigberg for
their amendments. Samuel A. Floyd, Jr., and Sheldon Meyer deserve special
thanks for acknowledging its publication value.
Cook’s biography would not have been possible without the able assis-
tance of many librarians. Most instrumental in this regard were Wayne
Shirley at the Library of Congress; Joellen Elbashir, Donna M. Wells, Ida E.
Jones, Deborra Richardson, Denise D. Harbin, and Esme Bhan at the Moor-
land-Spingarn Research Center of Howard University; Archie Motley at the
Chicago Historical Society; W. E. Bigglestone and Roland Baumann at Ober-
lin College; Wendy Warnken and Marty Jacobs at the Theatre Collection of
the Museum of the City of New York; Richard Jackson at the Lincoln Center
Branch of the New York Public Library; and Vera Mitchell, Rosemary
Stevenson, Jean Geil, and William McClellan of the University of Illinois at
Urbana. Other archives used include the Driscoll Collection at the Newberry
Library; the James Weldon Johnson Memorial Collection of American Liter-
ature at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library of Yale University;
the Music Library and Theatre Collection of Harvard University; the Institute
of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University; the Schomburg Center for Research in
Black Culture of the New York Public Library; and the Vivian G. Harsh Col-
lection, Carter G. Woodson Branch of the Chicago Public Library. European
archives include the British Library of London and the Hochschule für
Musik of Berlin.
Other persons who shared valuable knowledge and resources were
Dwight Andrews, Valerie Bada, Richard Barksdale, Adrienne Fried Block,
Rae Linda Brown, Sterling Brown, Mellonee Burnim, Richard Crawford,
Dominique DeLerma, John Graziano, Thornton Hagert, Eva Jessye, Richard
Long, Josephine Harreld Love, Doris McGinty, Carol Oja, Lee Orr, Thomas
Riis, Lawrence Schenbeck, Ann Sears, Eileen Southern, Jean Snyder, Judith
Tick, and Mark Tucker. European sources were contributed by Jeffrey
Green, Howard Rye, and Karl Gert zur Heide. Penelope Williams and April
Grier served as research assistants and gathered data on Cook family his-
tory and legal records. Clinton M. Schaum and Paul DeAngelis provided edi-
torial critiques, Irmgard Immel submitted German translations, and Stuart
Feder offered medical interpretations.
Funding for this project was obtained from Georgia State University,
Morris Brown College, Oxford University Press, the Smithsonian Institution,
and the University of Illinois. I am particularly grateful to Maureen Buja, Shel-
don Meyer, Maribeth Payne, Kimberly Robinson, Norman Hirschy, Suzanne
Ryan, Robert Milks, and other Oxford University Press stafffor their compe-
tence and patience in this endeavor.
Special thanks to Michael and Rickie Byars Beckwith, Alice Holliday,
Clarence and Pearl Hollis, Vivian Taylor, Veola Tinsley, Pat Williams, and
Robert O. Young for helping me to maintain body and soul.
viii acknowledgments
contents
Prelude: Exhortation 3
1 Boyhood 5
2 From Oberlin to Berlin 11
3 The Chicago World’s Fair of 1893 22
4 The National Conservatory and Beginning of Musical Career 29
5 “Broadway, Here I Come!” 36
6 In Dahomey 56
7 The “Students” and the Stage 68
8 Removing the “Minstrel Mask” 80
9 The Clef Club, Darkydom, and World War I 91
10 The Southern Syncopated Orchestra 101
11 “A Hell of a Life” 107
12 A Composer’s Legacy 116
Postlude: “Swing Along!” 121
Appendices
1. Will Marion Cook Compositions 129
2. Songs by Cook Performed in Musical Shows 138
3. Southern Syncopated Orchestra’s Personnel 140
4. Itinerary for the Southern Syncopated Orchestral Tours 142
5. Sound Recordings of Will Marion Cook Compositions 143
Notes 147
Select Bibliography 169
Index 177
Photo gallery follows page 90