Black Swans = Black Classical Music Performers, 1918-1944 – Parnassus (original) (raw)

Black Swans = Black Classical Music Performers, 1918-1944 – Parnassus PACD 96067 79:00 [www.parnassusrecords.com\] *****:

Leslie Gerber, in collaboration with Andy Lanset, Steven Smolian, and Tim Brooks, has revived the astonishing legacy of Black Swan, the record label of the Harlem Renaissance, whose acoustic recordings created using horn technology – many quite rare and in delicate condition – come faithfully restored to us, in addition to other rarities of historical import from the elusive Broome Special Phonograph label.

A black singer, Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield (1820-1876), though born into slavery, was granted freedom and decided to study music to become known as the Black Swan, achieving international celebrity, despite having to perform mainly to white audiences. Harry Pace founded the Black Swan label in 1921, with Fletcher Henderson’s serving as recording director, William Grant Still its music director, and scholar W.E.B. Dubois’ serving on its investment board of directors. Though the label produced hundred of issues, Black Swan went bankrupt in 1923 for lack of local support.

Harry T. Burleigh (1866-1949) made records with the help of George W. Broome (c. 1868-1941), who, inspired by Roland Hayes (1887-1976), started his own record label, entirely devoted to black musical performers. Unfortunately, the label expired in one year, having produced fewer than a dozen records. Burleigh, accompanying himself on keyboard, sings “Go Down Moses,” a slow, deeply intoned version, including occasional long-held notes in low baritone tessitura. Burleigh appears at the disc’s end, singing – with some strain – in 1944 over WNYC Jean-Baptiste Faure’s “Les Rameaux” in English, a mixture of spiritual and personal freedom. And just after: “Thank you. Wasn’t that beautiful? from Mayor La Guardia. Edward H. Boatner, bass-baritone (1898-1981) sings two of Burleigh’s arrangements of spirituals: “I Don’t Feel Noways Tired” and “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child,” in a slow, measured rendition, exploiting the wide tessitura, the manner somewhat anticipatory of Marian Anderson’s style. R. Nathaniel Dett (1882-1943), Oberlin’s first black graduate, obviously had a gift for the keyboard, and his 1919 renditions of his “In the Bottoms – Barcarolle” and his own “Magnolia Suite – Mammy” carry a sense of Gottschalk and Scott Joplin as well as their own lilting lyricism.

Florence Cole Talbert (1890-1961) impresses us in her 1922 Lakme – Bell Song of Leo Delibes, sung in French. Hers is a light coloratura, clear and resonant, reminiscent of Lily Pons, quite reliant on head tone. From 1922 Talbert sings “The Last of Rose of Summer” in a sweetly, carefully enunciated version that might rival what Jeanette MacDonald would accomplish in Hollywood. A more virtuosic piece, Dell’Acqua’s Villanelle (1919) has William King’s accompanying on keyboard. Talbert accomplishes easy slides and melismas with fluency and restrained power. Talbert’s version of Arditi’s (1922) brought a sweet moment of recall for me: Fredric March and Il Baccio and Rose Hobart dance to this lively waltz music in the 1931 Mamoulian D_r. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_. Talbert’s final entry, the 1919 “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen,” clearly could provide a model for Marian Anderson, though Talbert’s voice hasn’t a smoky color.

Violinist Clarence Cameron White (1880-1960), an Oberlin graduate, studied with Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and later became a cofounder of the National Association of Negro Musicians. White recorded for the Broome label, from which we hear two of his compositions, “Cradle Song” and “Lament,” both from 1919 with piano accompaniment from William Leonard King. Despite some intrusive surface noise, the discs permit us some pleasure in White’s plaintive, portamento-laden, arioso style. Hattie King Reavis, contralto, does not receive a biography, but she participated in the Southern Syncopated Orchestra, and her talent illuminates “Make More Room” and Gounod’s “There is a Green Hill,” both recorded for Black Swan in 1922. Her controlled diminuendo bears notice. Her individual bands, 13 and 14, are reversed on the disc. Antoinette Smythe Garnes, soprano (b. 1887 – ) sings Verdi’s “Caro Nome” from Rigoletto (1922) in classic, coloratura style, easily floating the high tessitura with fluency. From Verdi’s La Traviata she sings “Ah! Fors’e lui” in lyric style, the “mystery” of love delivered in a careful, dramatic poise that rival Licia Albanese for ease of transition, obviously to the “Sempre libera.” Her upward scales and roulades certainly qualify her for greater recognition. Garnes concludes with an English rendition of Haydn’s “My mother Bids Me Bind My Hair” (1921, Broome label), aerial and light, rife with vocal finesse.

Roland Hayes (1887-1976) precedes Paul Robeson for fame and sustaining power before the public. His 1918 Columbia recording service of Leoncavallo’s “Vesti la giubba” from Pagliacci with orchestra has strength and pathos, grueling in affect, as Mario del Monaco would impress me later, with Mitropoulos. Donizetti’s “Una furtiva lagrima” from L’elisir d’amore (1918) projects a yearning we know from McCormack and di Stefano. From Verdi’s La forza del destino Hayes joins G. Summer Wormley in the duet “Sollenne in questa’ora,” a tender collaboration equal to the Gigli/de Luca classic. The last four items from Hayes, Glen’s “Twilight” and three spirituals, “Bye and Bye,” “Steal Away to Jesus,” and “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” all from May and June 1918, display a sensitive, clear diction, controlled dynamics, and emotional sincerity. His “Bye and Bye” offers Hayes a middle section that explodes in volume and sonority. A pity he and Robeson did not record duets, especially given the presence of Lawrence Brown (1893-1972) in the role of piano accompaniment.

As a moment of restored, musical archaeology, this valuable document provides a vital link in Afro-American Studies and the American musical tradition.

—Gary Lemco

Complete Tracklist
1. Harry Burleigh (baritone): Go Down Moses (arr. Burleigh) (piano accomp. probably Burleigh)
Broome Special 51-A (matrix 45-1-1) (Fall 1919) [2:06]
2. Edward H.S. Boatner: (bass-baritone) I Don’t Feel Noways Tired (probably arr. Burleigh)
Broome Special 54-A (matrix 85-3-2) (Fall 1919) [2:25]
3. Edward H.S. Boatner: Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child (probably arr. Burleigh)
Broome Special 51-B (matrix 85-2-1) (Fall 1919) [2:59]
4. R. Nathaniel Dett (piano): Dett: In the Bottoms – Barcarolle
Broome Special 54-B (matrix 86-2-1) (Fall 1919) [2:48]
5. R. Nathanial Dett (piano): Dett: Magnolia Suite – Mammy
Broome Special 55-b (matrix 86-1-1) (Fall 1919) [2:55]
6. Florence Cole-Talbert: (soprano) Delibes: Lakme – Bell Song (in French)
National Music Lovers 1028-A (matrix Black Swan 7103) (late 1921-early 1922) [3:25]
7. Florence Cole-Talbert: The Last Rose of Summer (anon.-Moore)
Black Swan 7104-B (matrix 7104-B) (late 1921-early 1922) [3:01]
8. Florence Cole-Talbert: Dell’Acqua: Vilanelle (William Leonard King, piano)
Broome Special 52-A (matrix 34-3-2) (Fall 1919) [3:28]
9. Florence Cole-Talbert: Arditi: Il Baccio
Black Swan 7104-A (matrix 7104-A) (late 1921-early 1922) [3:20]
10. Florence Cole-Talbert: Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen Anon. (arr. C.C. White)
Broome Special 55-A (matrix 34-2-1) (Fall 1919) [3:31]
11. Clarence Cameron White: (violin) White: Cradle Song (William Leonard King, piano)
Broome Special 53-B (matrix 35-4-1) (Fall 1919) [3:31]
12. Clarence Cameron White: White: Lament (William Leonard King, piano)
Broome Special 52-B (no visible matrix) (Fall 1919) [3:44]
13. Hattie King Reavis: (contralto) Make More Room Anon. (arr. Dett)
Black Swan 7106-B (matrix 7106-B) (late 1921-early 1922) [2:29]
14. Hattie King Reavis: Gounod: There Is a Green Hill
Black Swan 7106-A (matrix 7106-A) (late 1921-early 1922) [3:37]
15. Roland Hayes: (tenor) Leoncavallo: Pagliacci – Vesti la giubba (labelled “Arioso”) (in Italian)
Columbia Personal 62281 (matrix 62281-) (May 4, 1918) [2:56]
16. Roland Hayes: Donizetti: L’elisir d-amore – Una furtiva lagrima (in Italian)
Columbia Personal 91503 (12”) (matrix 91503) (May 25, 1918) [4:14]
17. Roland Hayes: Verdi: La forza del destino – Sollenne in quest’ ora (with G. Sumner Wormley, baritone)
Columbia Personal 91508-1 (12”) (May 26 or June 14, 1918) [4:21]
18. Roland Hayes: Katherine A. Glen: Twilight
Columbia Personal 62282 (no visible matrix) May 4, 1918) [1:59]
19. Roland Hayes: Anon.: Bye and Bye
Columbia Personal 91512 (matrix 91012-) (June 15, 1918) [2:50]
20. Roland Hayes: Anon.: Steal Away to Jesus (probably Lawrence Brown, piano)
Columbia Personal 91502 (12”) (matrix 91502-) (June 25, 1918) [4:47]
21. Roland Hayes: Anon.: Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
Columbia Personal 62050 (approx. Dec. 21, 1917) [2:41]
22. Antoinette Garnes (soprano): Verdi: Rigoletto – Caro Nome
Black Swan 7101 (no visible matrix) (late 1921-early 1922) [3:09]
23. Antoinette Garnes: Verdi: La Traviata – Ah! Fors’ e lui (exc.) (in Italian)
Black Swan 7102 (no visible matrix) (late 1921-early 1922) [3:51]
24. Antoinette Garnes: Haydn: My Mother Bids Me Bind My Hair
Broome Special 53-B (matrix 77-1-1) (probably 1921) [2:08]
25. Harry Burleigh: Jean-Baptiste Fauré: Les Rameaux (in English, as “The Palms”)
WNYC broadcast, April 2, 1944, “Mayor La Guardia Talks to the People” [2:58]