The Rural We: Avery Sharpe
Inspired by his mother, a pianist in the Pentecostal church, Avery Sharpe got his musical start at a young age before going on to become an acclaimed jazz bassist, performing with Archie Shepp and Art Blakey. He spent more than 20 years in McCoy Tyner’s group, playing hundreds of gigs worldwide and appearing on more than 20 recordings with them. His career also includes sideman stints and recordings with Dizzy Gillespie, Wynton Marsalis, Bobby McFerrin, and Pat Metheny. Sharpe went on to start his own record label, JKNM Records, write and conduct the soundtrack for “An Unremarkable Life,” tour in a production of “Raisin’ Cane” with actress Jasmine Guy, and release numerous albums. His latest album, “400,” marks the 400th year since Africans were brought to the U.S. as slaves. Sharpe, who has led workshops at home and abroad, now teaches at Williams College, where he is an artist associate in jazz bass, a jazz coach, faculty advisor for the gospel choir, and affiliated faculty for Africana Studies. He and fellow Williams College music faculty will perform “400” in its entirety on Feb. 19 at the Williams Club in New York City and on Feb. 27 at Williams College’s Brooks-Rogers Recital Hall.
I was born in Georgia, in the segregated South, number six of eight children. My father was in World War II when the Armed Forces were still segregated. Most of the people around us were Baptists, who go to church on Sunday, but Pentecostals go dang near every day of the week and all day on Sunday. During the week you have choir rehearsal, regular church service on Friday, funerals, a minister might visit and have a revival and be there all week, so my mother was there all the time. I got to spend a lot of time with her and that’s where my early music came from. You had to be involved in something in the church, but I wasn’t crazy about the choir or being an usher, and there was already an organ player, so I started playing bass in the church at 16.
My father was not interested in the church. You were not supposed to be listening to pop music at the time — the church gave classical music a pass — but he was listening to jazz and what my older brothers and sisters were listening to — James Brown, Motown, artists on the Stax label — so I heard a good mix of music.
When I got to college, I got more into jazz and fell in love with the double, upright bass. I went to UMass Amherst when Max Roach, who helped form the music, was there and I took his classes. A lot of great people were there at the time — Reggie Workman, Archie Shepp, Fred Tillis, Horace Boyer, Billy Taylor, Roland Wiggins — it was like they had a black think tank at UMass in the ‘70s and those people were my influences.
Music became my main gig and I was on the road and recording sometimes 10 months out of the year. I started my own label in the ‘90s, and had projects in producing, festivals, plays, I’ve done every aspect of this business. In the ‘90s I started doing larger projects instead of small jazz groups, big band orchestras with choirs. I love epic and big things.
I was shopping one day and ran into a friend who said, “2019’s coming up.” Black folks know exactly what you mean when you say that. The first slaves were brought over in 1619. It blew my mind, I started hearing all this music, and thought that would be a great way, not to celebrate, but to acknowledge it. How would I do that? How could I commemorate 400 years of the African experience in America? The next challenge was how to put 400 years into a one-hour recording.
I broke it down into 100-year increments — arrival, the Colonial period, antebellum which includes New Orleans music, ragtime, the Harlem Renaissance, then WWII and the civil rights movement, Obama, etc.
The performance will include Samirah Evans, Tendai Muparutsa, Chris Allen, Laurel Harkins and some of my students. We’ll perform the whole recording and there will also be a video slideshow I put together happening during the performance. I like to challenge the listener and give them more.
People ask what I’m trying to achieve with this, and the main thing is that this should never happen again. When you declare open season on a group of people for economic reasons, you pretty much destroy people. We’re going to throw away any decency we have for money? We went to Iraq strictly for the oil, not to mention we’re killing people in a war. War is stupid, it never makes sense. I’m trying to remind people that these things can happen and don’t think because you’re in a particular place that things can’t turn around. People should never be complacent. You need to always need to be vigilant and aware, in the back of your mind, because things can change.
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