Benevolent Sons Of Sam Circa 1944

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It is a bungalow but not of the beach variety: there being no surf in sight
in the South-Central corridor of Los Angeles.

The bungalow is the music classroom on the campus of  Thomas Jefferson High School.

A wall is muraled with a classical orchestra on a slave ship. The slaves do not wear chains.
They are wearing tuxedos just like the musicians.
The "slaves" are a captive audience and the ship is musically propelled.

Sam Browne, the only Negro on the faculty of a school serving a student body
that is 98% black, is listening to an animated student.

Eric Dolphy is waving his hands around an invisible saxophone
as they approach the string section of the mural.
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"But Mr. Browne, we didn't invent jazz: Mozart did.
Just listen to his 25th Symphony.
It goes 'da da da ta da dum dum dum ta.'
Blackfolk just took all those strings
and stuffed them into a saxophone
and an upright bass."

"This is what I call..."

"Yeah, what you call wind over wire."

"Thank you, Eric."

"We didn't invent jazz. We invented cost-efficient music: no need for fifty chairs and fifty musicians
when we can approximate the same results with a tight jazz combo.
We took the baton away from the conductor, gave him a pair of drumsticks and a stool.
Now he has to play for his pay. 'Nother thing we did was get rid of that andante and adagio stuff.
You said it was Italian for 'rest and relaxation.' It sounded like the whole orchestra
fell asleep on the job. We keep one guy awake and say 'Solo'!

"Mr. Browne, you gotta meet my friend, Ming, a wild bass player.
He says that classical music is what jazz sounded like before black people were discovered! "

"Well, I never heard it explained like that before. The connection between jazz and classical
is strictly a family matter that was settled in a closet and out of that closet...

"Once upon a time, the Violin family decided to streamline the sound of music by forming a four-piece band. All four brothers got excited about the idea but because it was his brainstorm, the Violin
invited his identical twin cousin to join the Viola and Cello.
Basso, the 'fat' brother, felt left out and locked himself in a closet. He cried for years until
the butler came along with the right key. Elroy tickled the strings and made Basso laugh.
JR Merton, the gardener, sat at the master's piano. JR Merton had a green thumb and magic fingers.
They played with such passion and precision that if Beethoven could have heard them,
he would have written the 9th 'Street' Symphony or, rather, the 9th Street Sonata."

"By the way, Eric, the 'rest and relaxation' you mentioned is a necessary musical function.
The adagio and andante are as important to classical compositions as the allegro and vivace.
Good music can not be played only in the highest gears.
Adagio is the musical equivalent of the seventh inning stretch."

"Yes, Sir! You mean like when Satchel Paige and Cool Papa Bell
bow to the audience before crunch time?"

"That's the idea. Or you can think of it as a breathing exercise.
ALVIN, it's five o'clock, you can stop dancing now."

Mr. Browne was addressing another student who was in the back of the classroom.
For the duration of this conversation, Alvin Ailey had been dancing by himself
even though there was no music being played. Alvin was not a musician.
Just a strange boy who considered himself a "musician's liquid sculpture."


Samuel Rodney Browne
Approximately the year he graduated from
University of Southern California


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Footnotes
BENEVOLENT SONS OF SAM is the copyrighted property of the Lewis Carroll School of Logic.

A page honoring another distinguished student of Mr. Browne's is here.
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