0:00

Support for NPR and the following message

0:03

come from our sponsor Whole Foods Market.

0:05

Enjoy the hot grill summer event through

0:07

July 16th with sizzling sales

0:09

on steaks and sustainable salmon or choose

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favorites like picnic salads and cooler friendly

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beverages. Make it a hot grill summer

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at Whole Foods Market. Hello,

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hello. I'm Brittany Luce and

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you're listening to It's Been a Minute

0:25

from NPR, a show about what's going

0:27

on in culture and why it doesn't

0:29

happen by accident. June

0:40

is Black Music Month and that

0:42

doesn't just mean hip-hop, R&B and

0:44

gospel. We are

0:46

everywhere. But today I

0:48

want to explore one genre where the

0:51

contributions of Black artists have gone unsung.

0:54

Classical music. Even

0:58

though the genre hasn't always been hospitable

1:00

to us. There are a lot of

1:02

Black folks who love classical music and

1:05

more than a few Black musicians who've

1:07

made classical music their own. When

1:09

I heard it, I just knew it spoke to something in me.

1:11

And from there, I think I was off the races. That's

1:14

Miles Blakemore, trombonist, composer,

1:16

Howard University professor and

1:18

great appreciator of classical

1:21

music. And it's a great way

1:23

for me to express myself without having to be

1:25

able to use things like my voice. You know,

1:27

I'm not a great singer, so it's something that

1:29

I can do through the instrument, which is just

1:31

wonderful. In his music,

1:33

Miles has been adapting the classics,

1:35

turning up the tempo and putting

1:38

the trombone center stage. You

1:40

can hear it in his recent album,

1:42

Bachish, which is what I like to

1:44

call a Johann Sebastian Bach tribute album.

1:47

And today, Miles is going to help us

1:49

learn to hear the finer points in classical

1:51

music. This critically acclaimed international

1:53

trombonist and the steam professor at my

1:56

alma mater is going to give us

1:58

a crash course in music. Mozart.

8:00

And it's not just that they

8:02

were both in the Germanic world,

8:04

but Bach's son was actually one

8:06

of Mozart's teachers. So there's some

8:09

connection there. I didn't know that.

8:11

Wow. Wow. That is deep. I

8:15

feel like I'm seeing everything now in zeros and ones. Yes,

8:19

right. Yeah. We

8:22

just heard this beautiful

8:24

passage from Nina Simone's first

8:26

album. And I can

8:28

see how that very directly calls

8:31

back to a lot of Bach's

8:33

influence, especially as you've described it.

8:36

Nina was a musician who didn't call herself

8:38

a jazz artist or a classical artist. You

8:40

mentioned that she referred to jazz as black

8:42

classical music. We hear a

8:44

lot about the utility of genre today.

8:47

Beyonce just released a whole country album

8:50

that explored that very topic. So this

8:53

is something that people are still talking

8:55

about and unpacking when it comes to

8:57

black music to this very day. But

8:59

Nina Simone was talking about this decades

9:02

ago. I wonder, as a

9:04

black classical musician, how

9:06

do you feel about Nina Simone describing jazz

9:09

like that? I think it's spot

9:11

on when you think of what classical music is

9:13

in the days that it was being performed in

9:15

Europe. That was like the pop music of the

9:17

day in the same way

9:19

that jazz music, when it was developed

9:21

in the 1920s in America, was like

9:24

pop music of the time. It only

9:26

became classical years later. So when you

9:28

think of where jazz came from, it

9:30

came from the streets of St. Louis,

9:32

from New Orleans, and it was black

9:35

musicians who developed this music on the

9:37

streets. But where the instruments come

9:39

from, it came from the military bands that were

9:41

so prevalent in those days.

9:43

So when you think of the instrumentation that's

9:46

in a lot of jazz, right, as things

9:48

like the saxophone, the trumpet, the

9:50

drums, these were all, again, classical instruments that

9:52

were being used in military bands in this

9:55

country at that time. So they were readily

9:57

available. They were cheap. You could go to

9:59

a pawn shop, pick up a horn, and

10:01

then meet your buddies on the street. We

10:05

use those instruments and the classical training

10:08

to develop our own music. It really reminds

10:10

me of the birth of hip hop on

10:12

the streets of Harlem. People

10:16

using what they had, the resources that were available

10:18

to them to play the music that they

10:21

wanted to play. That's so

10:23

cool. We went to the Jazz Museum down

10:25

there, and that was the first time that

10:27

I had heard how those

10:30

military band instruments ended up

10:33

being picked up by people on street corners and

10:35

then turned into jazz. It

10:37

was just such a surprising connection to me.

10:39

Yeah. What's surprising to me too about those

10:42

instruments is, if you go to

10:44

the African-American History Museum, that's in Washington DC

10:46

here, a lot of those instruments

10:48

are on display. In fact, I got

10:50

to see Charlie Parker's saxophone. Wow. It's

10:52

a beginner saxophone. Just thinking like

10:55

all the beautiful music at the highest level possible

10:57

that he was performing on what

10:59

today would be in the hands of a fifth grader

11:01

who's learned to play saxophone for the first time. It's

11:04

like using whatever is

11:06

available to you to create

11:08

something completely new. You

11:10

don't have to have the shiniest,

11:12

newest, most right-sized saxophone

11:16

in order to create something brilliant, the same way

11:18

that you don't even need to have instruments to

11:20

be able to create hip hop music. Exactly. You

11:22

can find ways to work with what's

11:25

old and create something altogether

11:28

completely different. We're

11:31

here to talk about music appreciation. Since you're

11:33

a musician and a professor of music at

11:35

that, I want to know how

11:37

did you become the classically trained

11:39

trombonist and composer you are today?

11:42

Where did all this start? Yeah. It was

11:44

when I was in fourth grade. My

11:46

high school marching band, the high school of that

11:48

town, came and played for elementary

11:50

school. It was

11:52

very much like an HBCU, think

11:55

of how or think of Gramlin

11:57

style, high-media style marching band. of

14:00

music in general, or it can be. And

14:02

I think if you develop again, those classical

14:04

music skills and fundamentals, you can then take

14:07

that to jazz. It's gonna help you in

14:09

the long run, so do it all. ["Bachish"]

14:13

Well, Miles, it has been such a pleasure to talk

14:15

with you today. You have grown my ear. That's what

14:18

I would say. You have grown my ear today. Thank

14:20

you so much. Thanks for having me,

14:22

Brittany. It's been a pleasure talking to you. That

14:25

was trombonist Miles Blakebourn. His

14:27

album, Bachish, is out now.

14:29

["Bachish"] Support

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16:06

["I'm Not Gonna Give You Up"] ["I'm

16:08

Not Gonna Give You Up"] ["I'm

16:11

Not Gonna Give You Up"] Hey, Brittany.

16:14

Hey, Brittany. Hey, Brittany.

16:16

Hey, Brittany. It's your producer, Corey

16:19

Antonio. Last week, we asked

16:21

what songs you think should be in the

16:23

history books, and I have a submission from

16:25

Carlos. He says, My

16:27

choice for the best song is The Impossible Dream

16:29

from the Broadway show, The Man of La Mancha.

16:32

I cry every time I listen to it.

16:35

Carlos, thank you so much for writing in with

16:37

this submission. Oh my

16:39

gosh, Man of La Mancha. What a

16:41

musical, but also to dream the impossible

16:44

dream. To

16:46

dream the

16:49

impossible dream. This

16:52

musical is about the character Don Quixote from

16:54

the classic novel of the same name by

16:57

Miguel Cervantes. And I appreciate you saying that

16:59

this one should be in the history books

17:01

because I do remember it being one of

17:03

the more beautiful stories that I learned in my Spanish

17:05

class in high school. I don't think I

17:07

was at Cervantes level of Spanish at age 16, but

17:11

the story is famous. Don Quixote

17:13

is an idealist on an absurd

17:15

and epic quest to defend

17:18

the helpless and bring back the ways

17:20

of the knights. ["The Unreachable,

17:23

The Unreachable Storm"] So

17:27

I'm going to give you points

17:29

for that answer. Bravo

17:33

to you, Carlos. Thank you so much for

17:35

writing in with this response. Now my answer

17:38

is a little bit different than yours. I

17:41

actually think that a song that should

17:44

be taught in history

17:46

books is Justin Bieber's One

17:48

Time. ["One Time"] Not

17:58

because... the song

18:01

itself has any

18:03

type of musical significance. I could see

18:05

this song being in history books one

18:07

day because of how much it changed

18:10

the music industry, but even more so

18:12

how it changed how we think about

18:14

fame. So before

18:16

Justin Bieber, most

18:19

of the time, the

18:21

way that music popularity

18:23

and fandom was built

18:25

was through music industry ANR representatives

18:28

and execs. And street teams and

18:30

marketing plans. And don't get it

18:32

twisted, I would argue

18:35

most artists who record music and

18:37

tour at a high level are still

18:39

using all of these things, but there

18:42

is one crucial apparatus that

18:45

Justin Bieber had access to

18:48

that we really hadn't seen before

18:50

used at that level until he became

18:52

famous in 2009. And

18:55

that is the internet. Justin

18:57

Bieber didn't just have a MySpace

18:59

music page or something like that.

19:02

He was absolutely massive on YouTube.

19:04

You would record cover songs from

19:06

artists like Neo and Usher, like

19:08

really cute R&B covers. I'm

19:10

your man, you're my girl. I'm

19:13

gonna sell it to the whole wide world.

19:15

Say I've been there, darn it, for the

19:17

crowd. And he had

19:20

grown popular through the young audience

19:23

of his peers, mostly young girls, in Canada

19:25

and the United States who would see his

19:27

videos and thought he was so cute and

19:29

loved his little chirpy voice. Now,

19:31

of course, the music industry took notice

19:33

of this and decided

19:36

to invest in Justin Bieber, which resulted

19:38

in one time being his first official

19:40

single that was all professionally recorded and

19:43

had a video and everything like that

19:45

with it. But still, before

19:47

Justin Bieber, it was not the norm for

19:49

people to be discovered on YouTube and then

19:51

go on to have a massive career. Now,

19:54

in his wake, oh my gosh, how

19:57

many artists have come from YouTube? Charlie

19:59

Puth, The Weeknd. Chloe and Halle, and

20:01

now the music industry will troll

20:04

TikTok and troll YouTube, actually looking

20:06

for talent with built-in fan bases

20:08

that they can monetize. And

20:10

speaking on Justin Bieber's popularity and its

20:12

impact on how we think about fame,

20:14

also in past ages, celebrities were determined

20:16

by whether or not they were starring

20:18

in a movie, or they were the

20:20

quarterback of a football team, or

20:23

they had a huge album out right now.

20:25

Now you can become famous in almost

20:28

no time, for literally any

20:30

reason whatsoever, all because of the power

20:32

of these big social media platforms. So

20:34

I would also argue that Justin Bieber's

20:37

fame wasn't just a

20:39

hallmark of a changing music industry, but

20:41

also a really big shift

20:44

in who we consider a celebrity

20:46

and how those people get to

20:48

those posts. So there it is.

20:50

That is my submission for a

20:52

song that I think should probably

20:54

be in history books. And if

20:56

you want to be heard on

20:58

next week's Hey, Britney, oh my

21:00

gosh, do we have a question

21:02

for you? So we have a

21:04

wonderful conversation next week with poet

21:06

and cookbook author, Krystal Wilkinson. We're

21:09

going to be talking about how

21:11

we pass our family lineage down

21:13

through beloved and cherished recipes. And

21:15

so I'm asking all of

21:17

you to tell me what is a

21:19

dish that you know your family member

21:21

makes it better than anybody else in

21:23

the world. Tell me what is the

21:25

dish? What does it taste like? And

21:28

why do you love it so

21:30

much? Send us a voice memo

21:32

at ibam at npr.org. That's I

21:34

B A M at

21:36

npr.org. This

21:40

episode of It's Been a Minute

21:42

was produced by Corey Antonio Rose.

21:44

This episode was edited by Jessica

21:47

Placzak, Sarah Saracen. Engineering support

21:49

came from Patrick Murray. We had

21:51

fact checking help from our

21:56

executive producer is Verilyne Williams.

21:58

Our VP of programming. is

22:00

Yolanda Sanguini. All right, that's

22:02

all for this episode of It's Been a

22:04

Minute from NPR. I'm Brittany Luce.

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