{"id":1807,"date":"2009-03-12T00:00:09","date_gmt":"2009-03-12T04:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dworkincompany.com\/site\/?p=1807"},"modified":"2018-01-04T18:55:10","modified_gmt":"2018-01-04T23:55:10","slug":"karpman-aym-smithsonian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dworkincompany.com\/site\/karpman-aym-smithsonian\/","title":{"rendered":"Laura Karpman and Smithsonian magazine talk about Ask Your Mama before its Carnegie Hall premiere"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"pw-widget __pw-theme-default pw-widget-13495 __pw-size-32 __pw-hover-false __pw-layout-horizontal __pw-padding-true __pw-view-auto __pw-label-false __pw-counter-horizontal \" data-id=\"wid-oafc97vl\" data-title=\"A Jazzed-Up Langston Hughes\" data-via=\"SmithsonianMag\">\n<div class=\"article-line\">\n<div class=\"articleline\">\n<div>\n<h1 class=\"headline\">A Jazzed-Up Langston Hughes<\/h1>\n<h2 class=\"subtitle\">A long-forgotten poem about the African-American experience is given new life in a multimedia performance<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1810\" src=\"https:\/\/dworkincompany.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/Langston-Hughes-631.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"631\" height=\"300\" \/><\/div>\n<div class=\"by-line\">By <span class=\"author-name\">Laban Carrick Hill<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"edition\"><span class=\"pub-edition\"> smithsonian.com<br \/>\n<\/span> <time class=\"pub-date\">March 12, 2009<\/time><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"article-body pagination-first\">\n<p>\u201cThe words need to float above the orchestra,\u201d composer Laura Karpman instructs world-renown soprano Jessye Norman who is singing passages of Langston Hughes\u2019 most ambitious though nearly forgotten work, his 1960s epic poem <em>Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz<\/em>. Sitting in folding chairs in a Carnegie Hall rehearsal room, Norman and Karpman, along with mezzo-soprano Tracie Luck and jazz vocalist de\u2019Adre Aziza, prepare for the first major performance of Hughes\u2019s jazz poem, which premieres on March 16 at the historic theater.<\/p>\n<div>\u201cOf course,\u201d replies Norman, who has sung at the hall dozens of times. She lifts her chin, and in the voice that has thrilled millions of grand opera lovers the words take flight, soaring to the rafters. But this music isn\u2019t about a tragic heroine; it\u2019s about the African American experience.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Luck and Aziza join in, the three distinct voices merging and separating as the piano accompanist plays a stripped-down version of Karpman\u2019s multi-layered score.<\/p>\n<p><em>Diamonds in pawn<br \/>\n(And I never had a diamond<br \/>\nin my natural life)<br \/>\nMe<br \/>\nIn the White Hous<\/em>e<br \/>\n<em>(And ain\u2019t never<\/em> had a black house)<br \/>\n<em>Do, Jesus!<\/em><br \/>\n<em>Lord!<\/em><br \/>\n<em>Amen!<\/em><\/p>\n<p>They repeat the \u201cAmen\u201d several times, then erupt in laughter and smiles. The lines resonate with everyone in the room. Hughes\u2019s phrase \u201cMe in the White House\u201d seems both funny and prescient just a month after the inauguration of the first African-American president.<\/p>\n<div class=\"slideshow-wrapper\">\n<div class=\"slideshow-nav\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"slideshow\">\n<div class=\"slideshow-slides\">\n<div class=\"slideshow-wrap\">\n<div class=\"slide slide-in-next\">\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/thumbs-prod.si-cdn.com\/A-ODmhWCM6kksbyUH26PsKeXDVc=\/fit-in\/1072x0\/https:\/\/public-media.smithsonianmag.com\/filer\/rehersal-Langston-Hughes-Ask-Your-Momma-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><figcaption class=\"caption\">The orchestra rehearses Ask Your Momma at Carnegie Hall <span class=\"credits\">(Nan Melville)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Hughes\u2019s\u00a0<em>Ask Your Mama<\/em>\u00a0is playful and serious all at once. He teases the reader by couching his verse in the black urban expression known as the \u201cdozens,\u201d but the work is intended to dig deep into the American consciousness. Hughes\u2019s biographer, Arnold Rampersad, describes the sardonic verbal jousting as \u201ca familiar ritual of personal insult in the black American world.\u201d The title of the poem is a \u201cdozens\u201d riposte and is repeated throughout the work.<\/p>\n<p><em>They asked me at the PTA<br \/>\nIs it true that Negroes\u2014?<br \/>\nI said, ask your mama.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Hughes began the cycle of poems after witnessing white youths rioting at the 1960 Newport Jazz Festival because the performances were sold out. Perhaps he saw the irony in the fact that whites were now fighting for the right to see black performers and sensed a shifting of old ways. When\u00a0<em>Ask Your Mama: Twelve Moods for Jazz<\/em>\u00a0appeared in 1961, the collection was largely ignored by reviewers and the public, according to Rampersad. Shortly after Hughes death, the book went out of print and only a few small-scale performances have been staged.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe poem amounts to a bristling challenge to the established American social and political order,\u201d Rampersad says in the introduction to the recent reissue of the Hughes biography. Hughes, who died in 1967, seems keenly prophetic. Writing 50 years ago, he imagined a future when \u201cMartin Luther King is governor of Georgia\u201d and \u201cwealthy Negroes have white servants.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The\u00a0<em>Ask Your Mama<\/em>\u00a0production is part of \u201cHonor!\u201d a three-week festival on African American music commissioned by Carnegie Hall and curated by Norman. \u201cThere are kids today who are making hip hop and rap who are too young to have had any personal knowledge of the sixties,\u201d she says. \u201cI want them to understand that what they\u2019re doing has grown out of something very old.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.smithsonianmag.com\/videos\/category\/arts-culture\/performing-ask-your-mama\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-1809\" src=\"https:\/\/dworkincompany.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/AYM-video-screenshot.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"498\" height=\"251\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dworkincompany.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/AYM-video-screenshot.jpg 1340w, https:\/\/dworkincompany.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/AYM-video-screenshot-300x151.jpg 300w, https:\/\/dworkincompany.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/AYM-video-screenshot-768x387.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dworkincompany.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/AYM-video-screenshot-1024x517.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 498px) 100vw, 498px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In a workshop at the University of Michigan, composer Laura Karpman oversees a rehearsal of Ask Your Mama, a musical rendition of the Langston Hughes epic poem, with George Manahan conducting<\/p>\n<p>Collaborating with Karpman, the Emmy-winning composer of the PBS series\u00a0<em>The Living Edens<\/em>, Norman seems primed to deliver a multimedia\u00a0<em>tour de force<\/em>\u00a0with jazz, opera and world music as well as film and spoken word. In addition to Luck and Aziza, the concert features the hip-hop band The Roots, who recite passages and provide their signature percussion. Vintage clips of films and entertainers play on several big screens behind the orchestra, and visual artist Rico Gatson provides a kaleidoscope of images of African American artists and leaders. Hughes makes an appearance via film and audio recordings of him reading the poem. After the Carnegie Hall debut, the show travels to the Hollywood Bowl for an August 30 show and then to Baltimore on February 4-6, 2010 for a performance with the Baltimore Symphony.<\/p>\n<p>Although Norman did not know this particular Hughes work, her mother, a schoolteacher, had introduced her to many of his popular poems such as \u201cThe Negro Speaks of Rivers.\u201d Upon reading\u00a0<em>Ask Your Mama<\/em>, Norman was struck by the poet\u2019s \u201csoundtrack of the world in the sixties.\u201d His margin notes call for familiar gospel songs and jazz standards. He riffs on \u201clovely leider Leontyne,\u201d in homage to opera great Leontyne Price. The shout-outs to political leaders, sports heroes and newsmakers of the era, like Jackie Robinson and Emmett Till, still resonate. \u201cThere are call-outs of these names,\u201d Norman says, \u201cnames that everyone should know, because they increase the understanding of the meaning of civil rights.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Karpman, the piece\u2019s composer, was raised on bebop as well as Beethoven. Having played jazz and scatted while a graduate student at Juilliard, she feels in sync with the jazz sensibilities of\u00a0<em>Ask Your Mama<\/em>. \u201cThe thing that was so attractive about it,\u201d she says, \u201cwas that in the right hand margins of the text, Langston actually said how the music should sound. He creates kind of a sonic landscape for the poem. For me that was just irresistible.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She opens the book to one of Hughes\u2019s directions: \u201cDelicate leider on piano continues between verses to merge softly into the melody of the \u2018Hesitation Blues.\u2019\u201d She follows the cues, but notes that \u201cHughes has left a lot of room for interpretation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Karpman turns to her singers. \u201cCould you bleed over into the rests following Miss Norman\u2019s lead?\u201d A humidifier on a table nearby silently blows moisture to protect the singers\u2019 voices from the hot, dry air of the heated room. Luck and Aziza nod and listen for Norman\u2019s lead.<\/p>\n<p>See the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.smithsonianmag.com\/arts-culture\/a-jazzed-up-langston-hughes-58366941\/\">article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Jazzed-Up Langston Hughes A long-forgotten poem about the African-American experience is given new life in a multimedia performance By Laban Carrick Hill smithsonian.com March 12, 2009 \u201cThe words need to float above the orchestra,\u201d composer Laura Karpman instructs world-renown soprano Jessye Norman who is singing passages of Langston Hughes\u2019 most ambitious though nearly forgotten [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"related-artist":[12],"class_list":{"0":"post-1807","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-press","7":"related-artist-laura-karpman","8":"entry","9":"has-post-thumbnail"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dworkincompany.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dworkincompany.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dworkincompany.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dworkincompany.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dworkincompany.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1807"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/dworkincompany.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1807\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1813,"href":"https:\/\/dworkincompany.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1807\/revisions\/1813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dworkincompany.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dworkincompany.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dworkincompany.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1807"},{"taxonomy":"related-artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dworkincompany.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/related-artist?post=1807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}