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Tallahassee.com

OpinionTALLAHASSEEDEMOCRAT

Letters to the editor
P.o. Box 990
taLLahassee, FL 32302
or Letters@taLLahassee.com

SaTurday,February 12, 2011

mary ann Lindley, editorial page editor: 599-2178, mlindley@tallahassee.com

Jazz melds musicianship and manhood
It was a night to remember— a cliche that nonthelessconveys a recent experience. Two Fridays ago, I was
hanging out at
B-Sharp’s, a jazzcafe in Frenchtown, and experienced someincredible music.
chris
There wasPaul McKee on timmons
trombone, BillMy View
Kennedy ontenor sax, Leon
Anderson on drums, Scotty Barnhart on trumpet,
Bill Peterson on piano, anda graduate student on bass
doing some hard playing,sweating as he tried to staywith the licks were being volleyed about the room.
The numbers were mostly
uptempo — a great samplingof the individuality inherent in the genre — from John Young black men seeking role models would do well to look to scotty Barnhart, above, and Leon anderson, below.
Coltrane to Joe Henderson,
and the riffs were playful,side gang member, out in thesomber, impish, fun with atouch of locker-room joshingcommunity. There are young
to goad the musicians to play brothers such as City Commissioner Andrew Gillum
their best.
and state Rep. Alan WilA highlight of the night
was a minor, not long enough liams, and the seasoned, oldschool cats in former stateduel between Kennedy andBarnhart, imbued as it wasSen. Al Lawson and Floriwith all the elements ofda A&M president James H.
excitement, surprise, laughAmmons.
ter, mischief and craft that
Anderson and Barnhart,good jazz playing demands.
though, represent a vantage
Anderson and Barnhartpoint in black history thatare internationally renowned largely goes unexpressedtoday.
instrumentalists and wideThe novelist Ralph Ellison,ly praised for their amazing,
brilliant chops. They are also living in a time and place
bereft of many black heroes,
professors at the College ofMusic at Florida State Unitook instruction from thejazz musicians who’d playedversity.
and persevering, constantboys having no masculinein the honky-tonks, at rent
Throughout the night, I
ly shifting and original art
couldn’t help pondering both parties, and in the ballrooms figures with whom to identify” would look at Ellington form..
of yore, writing of his first— a sharply dressed BarnIf you go in for “Big Thinkand the “thousands of onereal life experience of jazz,
hart, in a black suit with aning,” its a great racial metaeven-keeled green Oxford
in an essay celebrating Duke night stands” of many jazzphor for our creativity andmusicians — a call to whichshirt, and Anderson, wearEllington’s birthday:
resilience. But for blacks andsociologists such as Jamesing dark-hued brown Afri“Ellington and his greatfor black men, it represents
Q. Wilson should pay heed.
can attire — as black men in orchestra came to town —something in its mostly male
Really, all of us.
came with their uniforms,
a demanding mistress of apractitioners that is close to
Jazz obviously demands
craft, playing the night away, their sophistication, their
manhood, or an ideal of mana nightly display of skill,firmly and expressively. They skills, their golden horns,
hood that is sorely lacking
are incredible role models,
their flights of controlled and which comes through grindtoday.
ing practice. But it’s more
showing how man should
disciplined fantasy. ... They
It’s not straight-laced orthan that. There’s the poiseapproach his life and vocawere news from the greatand professionalism. There’s suburban — it still maintion.
wide world, an example andtains its irreverence andthe regal pageantry of being
There are plenty of rolea goal.”earthy and cosmopolitan
part of a great tradition,models for black young men,
Furthermore, he’d wish
being curators but also living qualities, as I saw when
whether you’re a Alpha Phi
that those who “write soexamples of a still-persistent Leon Anderson gave his
Alpha or a potential Northknowledgeably about NegroaBoUt the aUthor: Chris Timmons, a member of the Democrat’s first Citizen Editorial Board,
now works and writes in Tallahassee. Contact him at christimmons@yahoo.com.

attention to a few music
students during a break
between sets.
It’s seriousness laced withhumor, a measure of good
will and openness, an ability to see the goodness inlife, rejoice in it, but also
see the blues. And it doesn’t
mind being tough about lifeby laughing in its face — agreat example being Barnhart’s 2009 album “Say ItPlain.”
Recently, I was reading
an old essay of James Baldwin on Earl Hines, a great
hot-dog pianist who’d playedwith Louis Armstrong in theground-breaking “WeatherBird” — part of Armstrong’s
original Hot Fives and Hot
Sevens side. Baldwin writes
about the toiling of male jazzmusicians such as Hines inan era of racial turmoil andindignity, when for example,
they had to wait when traveling in Pullman cars until all
the white diners would leave,
before they all could gather
to eat:“And, it seems to me, it
is because these men were
doing something, and knew
what they were doing, thatthey could call upon vast
reserves of generosity, be so
free of bitterness and evince
so little need to prove theirmanhood.”
Baldwin writes that
because the segregationists
were children due to their
petty ways, these musicians,
like other black men of theirtime, had no need to prove
what was inside of them.
They had the self-assuredness and pride in the seriousness of their art that I
saw in Leon Anderson and
Scotty Barnhart that nightplaying their instruments toa full house, but also a confidence about their manhoodand their place in this world
so many of our young black
men need, and now.

Half a marathon is more than enough Zing!
Among the many
fantastic characters in Greek legend, Phidippides is one
I alwaysremember.
That’sdue not asmuch toeffective
mark
teaching
hohmeisteras to thefact that
Associate
there was Editora store forrunners bythat name here, backin the 1970s when theNorthwood Centre was
the Northwood Mall.
It’s also a perfect story. In 490 B.C., as theGreeks were fighting
off the Persians, Phidippides was a battlefield messenger. After awarm-up run of about
150 miles over twodays, he finally sprinted from Marathon toAthens (about 25 miles)
to announce, “We havewon!” At which point,
he dropped dead.
Phidippides came tomind on Sunday, when
I ran my first halfmarathon. I surely
didn’t run as hard as
Phidippides, but as I
crossed the finish line
my immediate thought
was “I did it!” followedby “Where are thefree bagels?” “I’m glad
I don’t have to drivehome, because my legs
are about to cramp up

big-time” and “Let’s
never do that again.”
My sainted wife will
be happy with that last
bit of news.
As part of my midlife crisis, I started
the obligatory exercise program in 2008.
I couldn’t run a halfmile, and my simple
goal was to finish theless-than-two-mile
Jingle Bell Run that
December. With thatmountain climbed, I
ran a 3.1-mile race thenext spring (the Palace
Saloon 5K, with beerpulling me toward thefinish) and then the
6.2-mile Turkey Trot.
The aforementioned
wife looked at me oneday and said, “You’regoing to want to run amarathon.” Like a president caught with a lit
cigarette in the Rose
Garden, I swore she
had it all wrong. I justwanted to feel healthy,and I was content trotting a few miles a day.
Somewhere along theway, my son joined mefor speed training atFlorida State on Tuesdays and longer runs
on Saturdays. Jimmy
Ledford — the whipcracking husband of aco-worker and a longtime runner — told thetwo of us we just hadto run a marathon! Itwould be easy. All wehad to do was … andpeople wereout there formore than fivehours. Sorry,but four hours
is too longto do almost
anything butsleep. An FSU
football gameis the most
exciting event
around theseparts, yet even
there fansand players
get a halftime
break.
That’s not for
SUSAN LEDFORD / Democrat
marathoners.
mark hohmeister, right, celebrates
after the finish with Jimmy Ledford, who
At the traalways has plenty of ideas for future
ditional pasgoals.
ta dinner thenight before
he started laying out athe race, the speakertraining program.
was Carolyn Mather,My son bought thewho was part of thesales pitch and regisrunning scene here
tered for the half-marand got a Ph.D. at FSU
athon. And I thought,
before moving to Georwhat the heck, if I’mgia. She runs every
going to train with him, single day, 120 miles aI might as well run it,week. Yeah, it’s an oldtoo.
joke, but I don’t evenLet’s be honest. Rundrive that far. She hasning 13.1 miles is pretrun more than 100
ty impressive, if I domarathons, though she
say so myself. But —dialed back to the halfand apologies to themarathon this week
234 people who combecause of a broken foot.
pleted the full mar(Don’t linger on the factathon on Sundaythat a hobbled 62-year— running the full
old woman beat me bymarathon’s 26.2 miles
more than 23 minutes.)
is insane.
At the dinner, they
The mid-pack runalso handed out prizners ran for more thanes for various accomfour hours, and 30
plishments — oldest

marathoner, youngest, etc. One fellow
drew applause when
he announced that thiswas going to be his155th marathon.
I’m in awe of theirendurance, not to mention their time-management skills. It’s not foreverybody.
John Parker, a serious runner and noted author, discussed
the growing marathon
craze in his 1983 book
“Runners and Other
Ghosts on the Trail.”“When the whole thing
reached that strange
critical mass in themedia, the trendy wentout and got the correct
outfits and hopped intoo. There are now people trying to run marathons who would be far
better off taking brisk
daily walks.”
Or maybe short daily
runs. And the occasional 5K race with a beerat the finish.
I delight in feeling fit.
The Saturday morning runs with my son
are a joy, as we shareconversation as well assightings of deer, turkeys and co-workers.
But fear not, dear wifeor Phidippides. I don’t
think there’s a marathon in me.

n Contact Mark Hohmeisterat mhohmeister@tallahassee.com or (850)599-2330.

Readers’ opinions
stated succinctly
n How wonderful to see
the flocks of cedar
waxwings at the Union
Bank every morning.
Bet they are making
quite a deposit.
n Thanks, Paul Flemming. We knew Scott
was slick; we justdidn’t know how slick.
Now we know. God
help us.
n Lets make a deal.
Florida gets Hilton
the death penalty andGeorgia pays the legal
costs out of what it
saves on lifetime imprisonment.
n It’s been said manytimes before but itbears repeating, especially in view ofthe daily exposure of
Scott’s Gollum faceand preponderance ofright-wing articles andZing!s: Change yourname to the Tallahassee Republican.
n Stop it! The entire paper is left-leaning progressives, and thenyou have the nerve totaunt us for not writing. Why write when
it will never get published?
n Zing! wonders if you two
could get together and sort
this thing out. E-mail zing@tallahassee.com or write
P.O. Box 990, Tallahassee,
FL 32302. And be sure tocheck out the Zing! blog at
Tallahassee.com.