Black artists and St. Louis culture

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, September 22, 1994

On September 6, NBC telecast a special, “The Apollo Theater Hall of Fame,” honoring three great African-American artists, Chuck Berry, Marvin Gaye and Dick Gregory. In introducing Gregory, comedian David Alan Grier referred to Gregory’s childhood in St. Louis and quoted his mother’s aphorism, “We’re not poor, just broke.” Then, in an aside, Grier quipped, “Isn’t everyone from St. Louis poor?”

The implication that St. Louis is some kind of cultural backwater was especially incongruous in light of the fact that two of the three honorees—Gregory and Berry—are from St. Louis.

Grier to the contrary notwithstanding, St. Louisans are not necessarily culturally deprived. But American culture as a whole would be impoverished were it not for the contributions of St. Louis’ artists, especially its African-American artists. Anyone seeking to test the validity of jazz critic Albert Murray’s characterization of American culture as “incontestably mulatto” would do well to begin in the Gateway City.

The influences of St. Louis’ black community on American culture as a whole have been enormous and varied, but a few broad generalizations can be made.

First, St. Louis artists have repeatedly demonstrated an impatience with the artificial, arbitrary boundaries that serve to confine art and have pioneered in stretching the limits of various cultural forms and genres.

Scott Joplin, for instance, part of a vibrant local artists’ community in the early 20^th century that was crucial in establishing the international popularity of ragtime, constantly sought to expand the possibilities of the music. In composing such ragtime ballets and operas as “Treemonisha,” he challenged the stereotype of ragtime as the music of “happy darkies,” though the commercial failure of his more serious work demonstrates the difficulty black artists have had in breaking the molds white society has fixed for them.

Other local artists have worked to create a fusion of disparate cultural sources into a dynamic blend that has pushed forward the artistic frontier.

Lonnie Johnson, a seminal blues guitarist who worked with Bessie Smith in the ‘20s and ‘30s, was one of the first to integrate jazz influences into the blues (he also played with Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington). And any one interested in tracing the origins of rock ‘n’ roll should check out Johnson’s 1947 rhythm and blues record “Tomorrow Night.”

Similarly Berry created his distinctive sound by merging the Chicago blues with country and western influences and the jazz phrasings of such musicians as Louis Jordan. And jazz trumpeter Miles Davis, who perfected the St. Louis-style—with its emphasis on smooth and sweet playing in the instrument’s middle range—to establish his reputation as one of the great musical innovators of the post-World War II era, outraged musical purists in the late ‘60s by integrating rock rhythms and instrumentation into jazz to create a revolutionary new form.

St. Louis’ African-American artists have also been quick to understand the liberating potential of humor in articulating a critical vision of American social and political realities.

Chester Himes, who was born in Jefferson City, spent several formative years in St. Louis before eventually gaining fame with his series of violent, ribald and darkly humorous crime novels that plumbed the absurdities of American race relations. Redd Foxx’s earthy comedy represented an underground tradition of black humor dating back to the antebellum era, which was more openly belligerent and critical of white society than the comedy blacks used in front of whites. When Foxx broke through to mainstream success on “Sanford and Son,” it signified the emergence of this underground tradition, albeit in a slightly tone-down form, into broader cultural discourse.

Gregory also played an invaluable role in the emergence of this new style of African-American humor as the first black comedian to gain popularity among white audiences without playing the stereotypical clownish roles black comics had customarily been forced into. His minority status helped him develop a sophisticated sense of irony, which he used to satirize American racial customs. “I sat at a lunch counter for nine months,” he commented in the early years of the civil rights movement. “They finally integrated and didn’t have what I wanted.”

Black artists from St. Louis also have often viewed their art as inextricably entwined with a commitment to social and political equality. Josephine Baker grew up in the slums of St. Louis before moving to New York and then Paris in the ‘20s, where she became the personification of Jazz Age exoticism as lead dancer for the Folies-Bergere revue. During World War II, Baker worked actively in the French resistance against Nazi occupation and after the war she returned to the United States to campaign for civil rights.

Davis, too, was outspokenly critical of American racism but also broke color barriers of a different sort by including white musicians in his band. Even Berry, usually thought of merely as a chronicler of adolescent plaints, penned several songs of social commentary, such as “Brown-Eyed Handsome Man,” a song of racial pride, and “Promised Land,” an ironic tour of the South at the height of the civil rights movement. Gregory, finally, risked his career and life with his work in the civil rights and antiwar movements.

Because St. Louis culture lacks the distinctive, unifying flavor of such places as Chicago, New Orleans or Harlem, its contribution has often been overlooked. But as this brief survey shows, the city has nourished a varied range of artists whose effect on the development of American culture has been incalculable.