The Winter JazzFest is ready to ignite with invigorating music and thought-provoking discussions from January 12–18 at multiple venues in Manhattan and Brooklyn, kicking off on January 15 (1 p.m.) with a conversation between leading Black music writers who collaborated with author Willard Jenkins on his recent book Ain’t But a Few of Us: Black Music Writers Tell Their Story.
Writing is a love, a mistress that demands unlimited time and thought but who cares; writers just want to write and write. However, in our stories of Ain’t But a Few of Us, conflicts arise such as how we as Black writers contend with a world of jazz writing dominated by white men. These and other pertinent questions will be discussed with Jenkins and his panel of Jordannah Elizabeth (freelance journalist), John Murph (freelance journalist) and Ron Scott (Amsterdam News) at the National Jazz Museum in Harlem, 58 W. 129th Street. RSVP at jmih.org. The event is free.
Kwame Brathwaite has been called the “Keeper of the images.” His photographs, reflective of the clichéd black fist of the Black Power movement, were instigators for the second Harlem Renaissance and far beyond. His current debut exhibit at the New York Historical Society, “Black Is Beautiful: The Photography of Kwame Brathwaite,” will end its successful six-month run on January 15. The exhibit includes 40 engaging photographs that offer a glimpse into the revolution of Black awareness through jazz, Buy Black, the Grandassa Models, and his African Jazz-Art Society & Studios (AJASS) organization.
Brathwaite, 85, and his brother Elombe Brath (died in 2014) were both activists who were pivotal in raising the consciousness of Harlem and New York City at large with their strong conviction of Black is Beautiful. Their belief in the power of the Black community was evident in the co-founding of AJASS, an ode to their love of jazz and the teachings of Marcus Garvey. “Later, we formed the Grandassa Models. ‘Black is Beautiful’ was my directive. It was a time when people were protesting injustices related to race, class and human rights around the globe,” said Brathwaite. “I focused on perfecting my craft so that I could use my gift to inspire thought, relay ideas and tell stories of our struggle, our work, our liberation.”
The original members of AJASS were fellow creative students of Brathwaite at Manhattan’s School of Industrial Arts (SIA), now the High School of Art and Design. To satisfy their teenage appetite for jazz, they were obligated to travel downtown (late 1950s) to Birdland, Café Bohemia and the Five Spot in the Bowery. Brathwaite and his group agreed that the only way to stop their weekly downtown jazz excursions was to bring Black jazz artists back to their South Bronx neighborhood where the music once thrived.
They contracted an agreement with Club 845, where artists such as Nancy Wilson, Elmo Hope and Dexter Gordon performed and were now being resuscitated. Bronx and Harlem jazz fans were ecstatic over jazz returning Uptown with artists such as Lee Morgan, Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln (two of their most ardent supporters). Some of these jazz photos now on exhibit are so vivid you can hear the melodic notes of Roach’s drums or Lincoln’s harmonic vocals.
AJASS held fashion shows titled “Naturally 62” that continued through the ’70s and featured the Grandassa Models (taken from the term “Grandassaland,” used to refer to Africa by Black Nationalist Carlos Cooks, whose teachings Brathwaite and his group followed), who demonstrated Black is Beautiful with their natural hairstyles (Afros) and by wearing designs of West Africa. These beautiful Black women of varied complexions and sizes shattered the European concept of beauty: 110 pounds with long straight hair. At the time, even Black publications like Ebony were holding to the European standard.
The Grandassa Models were making a bold revolutionary-political statement that vibrated the walls of America and the world. They are a focal point of the exhibit and book. Their fashion shows at the Rockland Palace became just as successful as AJASS’s jazz shows at Club 845. Both organizations were agents of community empowerment and self-sufficiency They employed the active concept of Black economics using the events to keep Black dollars in their community. In the book, there are images where a sign saying “Buy Black” is in the background.
Sikolo Brathwaite, an original Grandassa Model and the wife of Kwame, said the ladies now come together weekly on a Zoom call. She invited me to one of those meetings, where I had an opportunity to meet and discuss the journey of these ladies whose lives were the epitome of Black is Beautiful.
“One topic during our meetings is how to change the conversation as our women continue to wear fashions to stimulate men, which is wrong,” said Barbara Adjua Solomon. “We are spiritual beings, we bring forth life, we should be honored for our beauty and spirituality, not as sexual beings. Our role is to share with our young Black ladies.”
Ironically, the goal of the Grandassa Models has not changed at all; they still represent the Black cultural and political movement that celebrates Black is Beautiful through wearing African garments and natural hairstyles while understanding and honoring African and African American history. “I joined the group because I thought it would be fun to be a fashion model, but once I heard Elombe and Kwame talk about Black history and Nina Simone, it made me aware of the fashion show’s importance,” said Eunice Townsend.
The youngest of the Grandassa Models, Ajuba Grinage-Bartley, was inspired when her parents would bring her to both the AJASS jazz concerts and Grandassa fashion shows. “I grew up attending those shows. That’s where I met Betty Shabazz, Ossie Davis and Sun Ra,” said Bartley. “I had the opportunity to work with Brooklyn activists Sonny Carson, Bob Law and Rev. Herbert Daughtry. That was such a positive learning experience, and it all happened because my parents took me to those fashion shows and concerts. I absorbed so much that became a part of my life. Later, when I became a Department of Education librarian, Elombe and Kwame spoke at my school.”
For Bartley, the concerts and shows were a form of edutainment that inspired her life journey. “Our role is to be role models for our young people and to let them know we are fine as we are and don’t have to emulate other people,” said Brathwaite. “We have so much more work to do.”
The exhibit has an accompanying book by the same title, Kwame Brathwaite: Black Is Beautiful (Aperture). The NY Historical Society is at 170 Central Park West. For times and ticket purchases, visit nyhistory.org. The traveling exhibit is on an eight-city tour that will now make its way to Alabama.
For more information, visit grandassamodels.com.