Finding Serenity

Part 1: Then: -- 1: Growing up as a musician in Detroit -- 2: Cass Tech High -- 3: Boston (1979-1988) -- 4: Making music, finding meaning (1989-2003) -- Part 2: Now: -- 5: Hope and new directions (2004) -- 6: Slowly contemplating Boston (2005) -- Move east: space, serenity, peace of mind and creativity, and an essay about arriving home -- 7: Life lived east (2006) -- 8: New essays (2006-2008) -- Days with Ornette Coleman -- Connecting jazz to contemporary culture: how are we making jazz culturally relevant? -- iPodology: what are we being asked to plug into? -- Hop ain't hip without the music (or what happened with the music in popular culture markets?) -- Wrestling with a black aesthetic in contemporary living -- Aesthetics of sales in the contemporary marketplace post-2007 -- Closing argument on hip-hop -- Without fear of shame: the eighty-year-old debate -- American idle? -- Using your creative voices: an essay on race and artistic action -- Culture of conflict and confrontation -- Letter to my students -- Out of the woods with Bobby McFerrin -- There's something new there, but you have to find it -- 9: Representing culture (2008) -- Homage to mentors -- Modern media music culture madness -- Audacity in hope -- Wow, mom, he looks like me (an Obama poem) -- 10: Reckonings and recognitions (2009) -- Alvin Ailey Dance Company and Sweet Honey in the rock -- Letter to Dr Ysaye Barnwell -- Michael dies -- Beer summit -- Great ones passing: Horace Boyer, George Russell, Hale Smith -- 11: Closing comments on culture: entries and essays (2010) -- Roots and reason series, concerts produced by Bill Banfield, interviewed by Leslie Mahoney, Berklee Faculty News -- Warmest December -- Don't use the J word: jazz connections to culture and meaning -- Bicycling in Bangkok: considering condition, context, challenge, conflict, change, charge, cash, comfort, and complacency -- Payoff: investing yourself in a multi-toned, voiced, angled, and cultured world (May 29, 2009) -- Baking of American music culture -- 12: Tag and Coda -- Part 3: When Again: -- 13: Artist photo profiles.;Book Description: In this collection of essays, interviews, and profiles, William Banfield reflects on his life as a musician and educator, as he weaves together pieces of cultural criticism and artistry, all the while paying homage to Black music of the last 40 years and beyond. In Representing Black Music Culture: Then, Now, and When Again?, Banfield honors the legacy of artists who have graced us with their work for more than half a century. The essays and interviews in this collection are enhanced by seven years of daily diary entries, which reflect on some of the country's most respected Black composers, recording artists, authors, and cultural icons. These include Ornette Coleman, Bobby McFerrin, Toni Morrison, Amiri Baraka, Gordon Parks, the Marsalis brothers, Spike Lee, Maya Angelou, Patrice Rushen, and many others. Though many of the individuals Banfield lauds are well-known to most readers, he also turns his attention to musicians and artists whose work, while perhaps unheralded by the world at large, are no less deserving of praise and respect for their contributions to the culture. In addition, this volume is filled with candid photographs of many of these fellow artists as they participate in expressive culture, whether on stage, on tour, in clubs, behind the scenes, in rehearsal, or even during meals and teaching class. This unique book of essays, interviews, diary entries, and Banfield's personal photographs will be of interest to scholars and students, of course, but also to general readers interested in absorbing and appreciating the beauty of Black culture.