Toni Morrison: Lord Have Mercy

This Fall I am teaching an undergraduate class on Toni Morrison with 80 students and a graduate class with 20 students at the City College of New York.  Doing so has become a totally absorbing activity as I have been struggling to catch up with the brilliant proliferation of scholarship and media on the topic of Toni Morrison and her writings at the same time that I am keeping up with 100 students.

We are reading four books in the following order: The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon, Beloved and Jazz.  As we are entering the middle section of the semester, I would completely change the order if I could. I think perhaps now it would have been good if we had read Jazz first.  Just jump into the deep end of the pool, into the heart of Morrison's work, from the very beginning. Also, I think I would have liked to have included at least one of the 3 most recent books.  Perhaps the most likely choice would be Home although Love might have served just as well.  All of the  books shed light on all the other books so there are many combinations that might suggest themselves.  Of course, the very best would be to do the class in which the students would read all ten of her novels, or at least 8 of them.  But I think the books are best understood in the light they shed upon one another.

In any case, am going to include here to 2 links to videos of a conference on the religious dimensions in Toni Morrison's work which occured at the Harvard Divinity School.  One link is to the lecture that Morrison gives on the theme of Mercy.  The conference which features faculty expounding on the sermon in various Morrison novels will be the first link.  I would direct your attention in particular to the extraordinary comments of Reverend Jay Williams on the sermon by Pilate in Song of Solomon.  I cannot help but add my frustration in not being able to stream this material in my classroom at the City College of New York because our internet strength is not great enough to support such a practice.  I have managed to make an audio tape of William's remarks to present in class today I hope although I am not sure of the sound quality. 

Recommended Films and Reading

The Great Jazz Day, Photo by Art Kane, Esquire 1959

Music Films--For Reference 

20s
"The Portrait Collection of Louis Armstrong," Decca UM--DVD 2008
Compilation Documentary Film, 1930s through 1960s
Song Titles:
Includes: I Cover the Waterfront
When Its Sleepy Time Down South
Dinah
Basin Street Blues
Shine
Mack The Knife
Black and Blue
TV Interview

40s
"They Filmed The War in Color (WWII)"

Color Footage in the Pacific including Pearl Harbor.  Amazing.
Dir: Rene-Jean Bouyer, Koch Vision DVD 2000
ISBN 1-4172-2922-5

50s
*Documentary Film: "A Great Day in Harlem."

B&W Video 60 minutes
DirProducer: Jean Bach, Castle Hill Productions/BWE Video 1995
ISBN: 1-57742-283-x

This isn't such a great film but the event from a photographic and historical point of view is highly instructive.  First, that so many key figures in music gathered at the same time on a Harlem street, and then second the distinctive manner in which they consented to take a picture together and the various embedded narratives in the image.
Book: The Great Jazz Day edited by Charles Graham, Da Capo Press 2000
Essays by Dan Morgenstern, Whitney Balliet, Gary Giddins and Ralph Ellison
Photographs by Art Kane, Dizzy Gillespie and Milt Hinton
Cover Photograph for Esquire: The Golden Age of Jazz, January 1959

Jazz Icon Series:
Duke Ellington, Live in '58, B&W Holland, 80 minutes
AVRO, Commentary by Sjef Hoefsmit
Concert Film: Performance at Concertgeboux, November 2, 1958
Johnny Hodges(alto sax), Russell Procope (alto sax & clarinet), Paul Gonsalves (tenor sax), Ray Nance (trumpet, violin, vocals)
Clark Terry (trumpet), Sam Woodyard (drums), Ozzie Bailey (vocalist)

"At Amsterdam in 1958, throughout the first concert, Hoefsmit watch AVRO cameramen plot their angles, note soloist positions and time solos to prepare for smooth, efficient operation during Concert Number Two. Apparently Ellington noticed, too, and, not wanting to be considered predictable or be taken for granted, altered the program in the second concert, sending the men with the cameras scrambling."

Sarah Vaughn, Live in '58 & '64
Concert Films; Sweden (SVT July 9, 1958), Holland 1958 (AFRO June 16, 1958), and Stockholm, Sweden (January 10, 1964)

Dave Brubeck, Live in 64 & 66
Concert Films: Belguim 1964; Germany 1966, 2007

60s
Documentary Film: "Sweet Honey in the Rock: Raise Your Voice," 84 minutes color
Dir: Stanley Nelson, Firelight Media 2005 DVD www.firelightmedia.org
Subject: Civil Rights Movement, Gospel and Spirituals, Protest Songs, 

Bernice and Toshi Reagon

Documentary/Fiction Film: Warming By The Devil's Fire, 106 minutes
Dir/Writer: Charles Burnett, Vulcan Road Movies DVD 2003
Subject: The Blues, Willie Dixon, New Orleans

Documentary Film: "Only the Strong Survive: A Celebration of Soul," 96 minutes
Dir: Chris Hegedus and DA Pennebaker, Miramax DVD 1993
Subject: Rufus and Carla Thomas, Jerry Butler, The Chi-Lites, Isaac Hayes, Wilson Pickett, Mary Wilson

Concert/Documentary Film: Wattstax, Fantasy, 103
Director: Mel Stuart DVD 1973
Subject: Isaac Hayes, Richard Pryor, The Staples Singers, Johnny Taylor, Luther Ingram, Rufus Thomas, Carla Thomas, The Emotions

Gospel!

Documentary Concert Film: Happy Day, 2004 60 minutes.

RECOMMEND TEXTS

Albert Murray, Stomping the Blues, The Da Capo Press 1976.

Marc Miller ed., Louis Armstrong: A Cultural Legacy, Queens Museum 1994. 

ISBN: 0-295-97382-8
Michael Cogswell, Louis Armstrong: The Offstage Story of Satchmo 2003. 

ISBN 1-888054-81-6