Ma Rainey

He was a Canadian jazz pianist, composer, and educator who was famous for his work during the Harlem Renaissance.

He backed legendary blues singers like Ma Rainey and Ethel Waters.

Jesse Hill passed away in 1996 at the age of 63 from heart and kidney failure.

He was a New Orleans R&B singer-songwriter who achieved fame for writing and performing the 1960 anthem Ooh Poo Pah Doo.

Cool.

And so one, one person we talked about, Mamie Smith, but the person that really, to the best of our knowledge, perfected that form is a woman named Ma Rainey, who didn't record until, what, 1923?

Right.

But sh-

Um, they, um, I believe they didn't mean they were destroying the musical form, but they were such a great act, they would destroy you, destroy your blues.

If you felt bad, you'd go see them and you'd feel better.

But Ma Rainey, I don't know whatever happened to Pa, she was the one who held on, uh, long after Pa disappeared, and, um, she was also, uh, because of the fact that she had this big act at the Rabbit's Foot Minstrels, um, which was a touring, uh, organization, she had other, uh, young women, uh, in her act, and they also sang.

She was, you know, she, she would mentor them, and then they would eventually go off and, uh, work with others.

Yeah.

Which begins with Ma Rainey's Black Bottom.

Yes.

Which was premiered here.

It's called his Century Cycle.

And he had written Jitney, which is a part of that.

But Ma Rainey was the first play that got published.

a major production that Lloyd directed.

And then come back to it, when I did know what all these double entendres meant, I found them really sassy.

I liked that Ma Rainey and all the different blues women that were around, Clara Smith, all the Smith girls that were around in her time.

um you know that some of their songs were actually openly lesbian songs which is kind of amazing and that people were actually quite relaxed in 1920s in my idea about being a lesbian and being gay and so that's an interesting thing in itself it took a bit of years before the kind of refreshing kind of came in that way yeah So people were open, openly lesbian, open rent parties and house parties where people would see women having sex as much as they see heterosexuals having sex and men having sex.

I'd have loved to have been at one of those parties.

So what is it that you think as an educator is so compelling and that makes it that trunk of that tree about the blues? What is it that I can rely on to listen for to help me inform my understanding of other music?

right well i think there are several elements there is certainly the harmonic element there's this 12 bar blues that harmonically goes from the one chord to the four chord to the five chord so there's the harmonic element and then there's also the way that it spreads so you have your delta blues which is more guitar and acoustic and what you might hear when you hear that you might think about early country music or but then you also have you know, your Ma Rainey vocal blues that you developed more in cities and with rhythm sections and horns.

So you have these different styles of blues that are developing around the same times in different areas, whether you're in a rural part of the country in the south or you're in a city.

But fundamentally these songs are about life and about love and heartache.

...

Ma Rainey, et cetera.

But no, that makes...

Also, it's like over a series of seasons you get to like evolve a character.

You're like, huh.

all right and finally we have theresa merit as jewel she was in the whiz they might be giants billy madison and on tv and that's my mama nerd alert in 1985 she was nominated for a tony award for best featured actress in a play for playing ma rainey in ma rainey's black bottom

oh nice Yeah, she was a gem in this one, Jewel.

I see

I don't feel like she would have either.

I

don't either, and I don't know if, well, she was in Ma Rainey's Black

Bottom.