Harlem Nocturne (29 page)

17.
Kernodle,
Soul on Soul
.

18.
New York, March 7, 1944, originally on World Broadcasting Systems.

19.
Williams, Autobiographical Notebook #2, 265–267.

20.
See Karen Chilton,
Hazel Scott: The Pioneering Journey of a Jazz Pianist, from Café Society to Hollywood to HUAC
(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2010).

21.
Mary Lou Williams, Autobiographical Notebook #3, Mary Lou Williams Collection, MC 60, Series 5, Box 1, Folder 3, Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers University, Newark, New Jersey.

22.
Max Jones,
Talking Jazz
(New York: Norton, 1988), 204.

23.
Williams, Autobiographical Notebook #2, 290.

24.
Hazel Rowley,
Richard Wright: The Life and Times
(New York: Henry Holt, 2001), 297, 350.

25.
Jones,
Talking Jazz
, 205.

26.
Williams, Autobiographical Notebook #2, 275.

27.
Ibid., 275–276.

28.
Ibid., 268–269.

29.
See Dahl,
Morning Glory
, 115, 187.

30.
Quoted in ibid., 188.

31.
Williams, Autobiographical Notebook #2, 273.

32.
Jones,
Talking Jazz
, 204.

33.
Ibid., 204; telephone conversation between author and Gray Weingarten, January 11, 2011.

34.
“Roots: The Little Piano Girl of East Liberty,” n.d., Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers University, Newark, New Jersey,
http://newarkwww.rutgers.edu/ijs/mlw/roots.html
.

35.
Though Williams often appeared in the
Amsterdam News
, the
Zodiac Suite
was not reviewed there. Barry Ulanov, writing for
Metronome
in February 1946, found the suite underrehearsed and sloppy in places. Nonetheless, he commended Williams for the courage of her musical convictions.

36.
Rosenkrantz and his wife Inez Cavanaugh endeared themselves to many musicians. Gray Weingarten remembers parties at their apartment where Billie Holiday and Langston Hughes might be in attendance. She also remembers that Rosenkrantz encouraged the musicians to play and then recorded them without their knowledge. Many of these recordings were released in Denmark.

37.
Jones,
Talking Jazz
, 202.

38.
Williams, Autobiographical Notebook #3, 374.

39.
Ibid., 376.

40.
Ibid., 379–380; telephone conversation between author and Gray Weingarten, January 11, 2011.

41.
Mary Lou Williams, Autobiographical Notebook #4, 432–433, Mary Lou Williams Collection, MC 60, Series 5, Box 1, Folder 4, Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers University, Newark, New Jersey; Williams, Autobiographical Notebook #3, 376.

42.
Williams, Autobiographical Notebook #3, 375; Williams, Autobiographical Notebook #4, 434–435.

43.
Williams, Autobiographical Notebook #3, 375.

44.
Ibid., 378.

45.
Mary Lou Williams to Mr. Roy Norris, June 17, 1946, Mary Lou Williams Collection, MC 60, Series 5, Box 4, Folder 1, Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers University, Newark, New Jersey.

46.
Eleanor Roosevelt to Mary Lou Williams, September 12, 1946, Mary Lou Williams Collection, MC 60, Series 6, Box 1, Folder 8, Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers University, Newark, New Jersey.

47.
Joe Louis to Mary Lou Williams, September 23, 1946, Mary Lou Williams Collection, MC 60, Series 6, Box 1, Folder 8, Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers University, Newark, New Jersey.

48.
Governor Ellis Arnall to Mary Lou Williams, September 23, 1946, Mary Lou Williams Collection, MC 60, Series 6, Box 1, Folder 8, Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers University, Newark, New Jersey; Benjamin E. Mays to Bill Nunn, in copy sent from Bill Nunn to Mary Lou Williams, November 6, 1946, Mary Lou Williams Collection, MC 60, Series 6, Box 1, Folder 8, Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers University, Newark, New Jersey.

49.
Telephone conversation between author and Gray Weingarten, January 11, 2011.

50.
Duke Ellington,
Music Is My Mistress
(New York: DaCapo Press, 1976), 169.

51.
“Manners and Morals,”
Time
, March 8, 1948.

Epilogue

1.
Jean Toomer, “Song of the Son,” in
Cane
(New York: Boni and Liveright, 1923).

2.
Jennifer Dunning, “Pearl Primus Is Dead at 74; A Pioneer of Modern Dance,”
New York Times
, October 31, 1994.

3.
Robert McG. Thomas Jr., “Ann Petry, 88, First to Write a Literary Portrait of Harlem,”
New York Times
, April 30, 1997.

4.
These contexts also paid special attention to the gendered dimension of the lives and works of women artists. In so doing, they challenged our very understandings of the cultural milieus these women inhabited and the vocabularies we use to discuss them.

INDEX

Abyssinian Baptist Church,
22
,
91
,
118

ACLU.
See
American Civil Liberties Union

Africa,
10
,
24
,
25
,
31
,
42
,
54
,
57
,
72
,
75

African Americans.
See
Black Americans

Ailey, Alvin,
68
,
76
,
191

Allan, Lewis,
53
,
64
,
66
,
74

America.
See
United States

American Bar Association,
98

American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU),
75

American Dream,
89
,
90
,
108
,
112

American Medical Association,
98

American Negro Theater (ANT),
101–103

American Nurses Association (ANA),
98–99

Ammons, Albert,
45

Ammons, Gene,
12

Amsterdam News
,
23
,
43
,
85
,
86
,
92
,
94
,
118
,
134
,
137
,
140

ANA.
See
American Nurses Association

Anderson, Marian,
48
,
166

Angelou, Maya,
49
,
131

Anna Lucasta
,
102

ANT.
See
American Negro Theater (ANT)

Armed services.
See
Military

Art

      
for art's sake,
116

      
in Harlem, NY,
32

      
movement in,
16

      
politics and,
2–3
,
12
,
14

      
Popular Front and,
5

      
as propaganda,
116

      
social justice and,
30

Asch, Moses “Moe,”
167–168
,
182

Attaway, William,
114

Auden, W. H.,
128

Autobiography
(Franklin),
108

Bailey, Dixie,
150fig

Baker, Ella,
110

Baker, Harold,
14
,
54
,
147
,
148

Baker, Josephine,
11–12
,
176

Baldwin, James,
9
,
13
,
115–116
,
117
,
120
,
127

Baltimore Afro-American
,
140

Bambara, Toni Cade,
131

Bandy, Robert,
119
,
124

Basie, Count,
136
,
138
,
139
,
173

Bearden, Romare,
104

Bears-Bailey, Kim,
66–67

Beatty, Talley,
30
,
31
,
63
,
168

Bebop.
See
Music

Belasco Theater,
63
,
67

Benedict, Ruth,
71

Bennett, Gwendolyn,
104

Bethune, Mary McLeod,
37

Bible,
11
,
116
,
117

Black Americans

    
civil rights and,
5

    
class differences and,
27

    
Communist Party and,
20

    
confinement within mobility and,
17
,
27

    
culture and,
3

    
dance and,
42

    
Double V Campaign and,
5–7

    
FEPC and,
20

    
Great Migration of,
28
,
55
,
119

    
in military,
88–89
,
111–113

    
movement and,
16–17

    
New Negro and,
21–22

    
Second Great Migration in,
28

    
Second Great Migration of,
5
,
7

Black Arts movement,
15

Black nationalism,
31
,
32
,
136

Black Power movement,
15
,
197

Black press,
6
,
20

    
black Americans in military and,
88

    
Double V Campaign and,
92

    
government interest in,
92

    
People's Voice
newspaper and,
84
,
86
,
90–96

Petry, Ann and,
113

    
Primus, Pearl and,
43

    
racism and,
92

    
segregation and,
91
,
113

    
The Street
(Petry) and,
13

Black women

    
in American fiction,
13

    
beauty and,
48–50

    
FEPC and,
21

    
forties and,
5

    
Jim Crow and,
27

    
“lady,” meaning of and,
27

    
oppression of,
115

    
politics and,
99

    
sexuality of,
96–97

    
stereotyping of,
96
,
115

    
war years and,
4
,
36

Boas, Franz,
70
,
71

Bolin, Jane,
83–84