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Harold Battiste: Unfinished Blues

 

The Historic New Orleans Collection celebrates New Orleans composer, producer, arranger, educator and jazz ambassador Harold Battiste Jr. with the release of his memoir, Unfinished Blues: Memories of a New Orleans Music Man.

 

Chasing the dream from New Orleans to Los Angeles and back, Battiste thrived in the jazz, blues and pop scenes. The creative force behind a bevy of number-one hits—Barbara George’s “I Know (You Don’t Love Me No More),” Joe Jones’s “You Talk Too Much,” Sam Cooke’s “You Send Me”—and the sage who launched the careers of Dr. John and Sonny & Cher, Battiste worked behind the scenes of the music industry for more than half a century. With Unfinished Blues, his voice is heard, unfiltered, at last.

Battiste’s musical sensibilities were formed—and his racial consciousness raised—in the churches, classrooms and jazz joints of New Orleans. A graduate of Dillard University’s music education program, Battiste confronted discrimination as a teacher in Louisiana’s segregated public school system. In the early 1950s he founded All for One, the nation’s first African American musician-owned and -operated record label. His commitment to education and uplift has never wavered: in recent decades he worked alongside lifelong friend and fellow musician Ellis Marsalis to build the renowned jazz studies program at the University of New Orleans. He can count among his friends and protégés many of today’s leading young jazz musicians—Nicholas Payton, Branford, Wynton, Delfeayo and Jason Marsalis, Victor Goines, Jesse McBride and other members of a “next generation” keeping the New Orleans sound alive.

Richly illustrated and featuring excerpts from Battiste’s personal letters and journals, Unfinished Blues launches The Collection’s new Louisiana Musicians Biography Series, dedicated to documenting the region’s rich musical heritage.

The Collection is the permanent repository for the Harold Battiste Papers, an archive of music-industry photographs, manuscripts and memorabilia available to the public at the Williams Research Center. Unfinished Blues will available in June 2010 at The Shop at The Collection, (504) 598-7147 or www.hnoc.org, and through major online retailers.

 

 

 

The Silverbook

 

The Silverbook is tied into the music that is the foundation of The Next Generation repertoire. This music was developed over the 2nd 50 years of New Orleans Jazz andits being inspired by a statement made by Ellis Marsalis in 1987 durring a tribute concert for Ed Blackwell in Atlanta, Ga. "If it wasn’t for this music, I don’t think I would have finished Dillard (University)".

This book features more than just 61 original compositions by the likes of Harold Battiste, Ellis Marsalis, Alvin Batiste, James Black, and others. It contains brief commentaries on rhythmic, melodic, and harmonic information contained in each composition, along with observations regarding style, genre, and historic perspective, are provided to stimulate thought and discussion of Jazz musicology. A complete set of lead sheets are included in this section, with ample space for note taking or annotations.

 Click Here to purchase the Silverbook online at the Louisiana Music Factory.

 

The Foundation

 

My return home to New Orleans in 1989, to work along with Ellis Marsalis in developing the newly created Jazz Studies program at the University of New Orleans, gave focus to projects on which I had been working on for some time. One of those projects, The Silverbook Series, would become a major teaching tool and an important vehicle for "Keeping the Music…and the Musicians…ALIVE!"

I was invited to serve on the Board of Directors for the National Black Music Hall of Fame & Museum by its founder, Ms. C.C. Campbell-Rock. The organization needed to create a historical music exhibit using items from local musicians. I was asked if I, as a board member, had any items that might be useful. It was decided, after examining my stuff, that the entire exhibit could be done with AFO items.

From the basic work done by AFO Records and At Last Publishing Co. in the early 1960’s, we will go back to research the period from 1950 through to 2000. We will not only expand the AFO Exhibit, but also uncover many of the treasures of the period that have gone unnoticed by history. 

We now have four of the Foundation’s components:

  1. The Silverbook
  2. AFO re-birth
  3. The AFO Exhibit
  4. The Second Fifty Years of Jazz in New Orleans

 

The decision to bring these components under the shelter of a non-profit 501 © (3) organization came about upon recognizing the tremendous importance of the work and the meager resources (money and people power) at my disposal. I needed to beg for both.

I have been very fortunate here at home to have had several…many people who have offered, and helped me in many ways at many levels. Some are helping me now. I hesitate to name them here for fear I may omit someone. Even so, as the project expands and the work becomes more intense, we need more people…people who Love this CITY, its MUSIC, and MUSICIANS.

Thank you for your time and attention, and, if you are so inclined, I would welcome a response from you.

Peace be with you,

HAROLD R. BATTISTE, JR.

Contact Information

Harold R. Battiste, Jr.
A.F.O Foundation
P.O. BOX 8598
New Orleans, LA 70182-8598
Phone & Fax: (504) 281-4942.
afofoundation@cox.net