Getting the beat and history
of black women in song

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By John Berger
jberger@starbulletin.com

America is often thought of as place where mainstream cultural values are strictly of the moment. What's new is hot, what's not new is not -- and is quickly forgotten. That's an overstatement, of course, but how many pop music fans these days are aware of the importance of artists such as Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith to the development of modern pop and "urban" music?

Almeta Speaks On stage: 7:30 p.m. tomorrow Place: Orvis Auditorium, University of Hawaii Admission: Free Information: 956-3836 or www.outreach.hawaii.edu

Don't know who Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith were? Then be sure to catch Emmy Award-winner Almeta Speaks tomorrow night in her one-woman show, "I Want A Little Sugar in My Bowl: Black Women in Song and History."

Don't dig lectures? Speaks says it won't be that kind of party. "I'm really doing a concert (tomorrow) and what I have to say about the women is basically historical data," she said.

Rather than lecture, she'll feature songs made popular by Rainey and Smith, and by Nina Simone and Dinah Washington, and showing how their music, too, fit into the broader history of black music in America.

"But in order to introduce the topic, I go back to talk about the early days of slavery, traditional music ... and music that will speak to the spiritual and its importance to what eventually became America's contribution to the world of culture."

Born in North Carolina, Speaks grew up singing gospel. She moved to New York City to sing and study music, balancing her music career with academic study.

She currently divides her time between Canada and France, where she teaches the history of black music at Ecole Polytechnique, which she says is described by the French as "a cross between West Point and MIT."

"I teach students at the master's-degree level who will leave this year and begin their Ph.D. program. ...

"The students are quite well versed, particularly in jazz music, because the French have such an affinity for the music and an historical involvement in the development of the music. ... Even the young people have an appreciation for the early development (of jazz) ... and many of them have a great interest in how the music has been formulated."

Speaks says that college students in the United States also seem to be "more aware than we think they are" of the roots of jazz, blues and rhythm and blues. One reason, she says, is the greater presence on college campuses of jazz musicians and scholars who can "articulate the foundations of the music."

And in recent years the Internet has become an important alternative to conventional radio. "(Students) won't have somebody in Texas programming what they will hear on radio in San Diego. Now with the Internet these kids aren't even paying attention to radio."

You're not likely to hear Speaks' recordings on mainstream radio, but they'll be available at the concert tomorrow night.

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