Early on during this rocky and perilous crisis, the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts in Hyde Park has been presenting culturally exciting online options for public access. A few weeks ago, they managed to outdo themselves.
Like expert tailors dabbling in magic, they wove together a lavish suite of artistic components commemorating the past; in this case, that part of history that witnessed the fruits of the Harlem Renaissance. It included music, art and a snapshot of what life was like in Harlem during the 20’s and 30’s when people helped each other survive just as they’re doing now.
Aaron Diehl, a young pianist who, like the greatest of keyboard kings, sits just as comfortably in the domain of classical music and as he does in world of jazz, was the effort’s centerpiece. Through the joint sponsorship of the Chamber Music Society of Detroit, the Civic Music Association of Des Moines and the University of Chicago Presents, he hosted (and continues to host) a concert from his living room in Brooklyn, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hIiOWJ56S0&feature=youtu.be . The performance first aired May 1st and is still available.
Initially, it was clear the experience was a little disconcerting for Mr. Diehl. Simply and impeccably dressed as always, he commented on the strangeness of being isolated in his apartment for six weeks and hinted at the incomprehensibility of the times. Rallying, his spirits lightened as he talked about the music he’d be playing. Stride, a dance oriented musical style goes back over 100 years and has blood ties with ragtime. It reigned as a dominant musical expression that added lightness and release during the darkness of the Depression. Both stride and ragtime would be featured in Diehl’s concert and, as he said, each can easily be considered uplifting. The notes are high and the tempo is often fringed in joy. He even ended the performance with the holy grail of what this music is all about, James Johnson’s ebullient Carolina Shout. It’s delightful music and to have such an intimate view of a superb pianist playing it added an unexpected level of gratification to the show.
After having us soak in the music of the period, the Logan Center team then moved on to the visuals and showed us the kind of art being produced when Stride filled the air. We were escorted back a couple of years to the fall of 2018 when the Columbus Museum of Art featured a show celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the Harlem Renaissance. It was a rapturous look at how African American artists and their allies saw themselves and their world ninety plus years ago. From the steady and gallant poise seen in Harold Pippin’s 1941 self-portrait to the elegant profile of The Harlem Girl by Reinhold Weiss that conjures up Nefertiti’s majesty, the Columbus exhibit showed how artists so beautifully captured the distinctiveness of the individual. It also widened its view to show what it was like to live in a city that followed the national norm and institutionalized the exclusion of thousands of its citizens. Palmer Hayden’s The Subway subtly suggests the angst this rejection produced and the grit needed to live in such an environment. And Jacob Lawrence’s sweepingly energetic The Long Stretch shows yet another side of life where everyone can escape and dream heroic dreams through the lens of baseball.
Slate used its resources to assemble some of the rent party pluggers poet and writer Langston Hughes collected when he walked those Renaissance streets. Too sassy to be innocent and too utilitarian to be considered quaint, they represent the perfect example of what creative ingenuity looks like when you realize we’re all in this together, https://slate.com/human-interest/2013/03/rent-parties-langston-hughes-collection-of-rent-party-cards-photo.html?utm_
