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House of Loom Weaves a New Cultural-Social Dynamic for Omaha
Urban hot spots come and go. A rocking new one in Omaha that's all the rage is House of Loom. What it's staying power is no one knows, but it's almost beside the point as far as co-founder Brent Crampton is concerned. He's more about using the venue as a launching pad for socially and culturally progressive ideas and connections that assume a life of their own than he is in making the place a runaway commercial success. So far, he and his partners seem to be doing both. Crampton is another in a long and growing line of creatives making an impact here and his House of Loom is another tangible expression of the more sophisticated and diverse cultural menu emerging in this once sleepy Midwest burg that has awakened. Omaha has actually come into its own as a hopping place where there's always something compelling going on no matter what you're into. This blog is full of profiles about the persons and places transforming the city into a cosmo receiving center and exporter of new, different, engaging stuff. Much more to come. Keep reading and checking back.
House of Loom Weaves a New Cultural-Social Dynamic for Omaha
©by Leo Adam Biga
Originally appeared in Encounter Magazine
For a startup bar, House of Loom at 1012 South 10th St. is generating mucho buzz. The reasons for its popularity are as eclectic as the place and the young creatives behind it.
Start with the name. It's both a brand and a social theory that co-owner and music director Brent Crampton, a DJ by trade, conceived with business partner Jay Kline. Five years ago they launched loom, with a small l, as a roaming multicultural dance party aimed at getting people who normally don't mix to meet, experience new cultures, form social networks and have fun.
"I have a passion for bringing people together," says Crampton.
It never sat right with him that despite the Afro-beats he played, his DJing gigs drew mostly white crowds. Under the loom name he began inviting diverse audiences to intersect over music or art or causes at theme nights. "Cultural ambassadors" spread the word.
"These are people who are naturally connectors who have a social network within a certain cultural demographic," says Crampton. "Through networking we have a lot of people who are into what we're doing and support us."
For Crampton and Kline, loom describes their intent to weave the social fabric through music, dance and other art forms, thereby broadening the cultural experience and moving forward social progress. With his Russell Brand looks and persona, Crampton's a new-school hipster at ease talking about groove as an instrument of change.
He, Kline (the former owner of Fluxiron Gallery) and a third partner, entrepreneur Ethan Bondelid, made loom hot ticket events. The turnouts and cachet kept growing but loom lacked a home of its own. By the partners leasing and renovating the former site of Bones, the Stork Club and the Neon Goose, they now have a distinctly urban space with more flexibility to entertain patrons and promote social agenda issues.
"It opens up possibilities to a lot of great things," says Crampton.
Bondelid says it's all about "getting people to try new things," adding, "We invite people to go on an experience with us."
Regulars have followed Crampton and Co. to the House of Loom's near-Old Market location. First-timers are quickly becoming devotees. With a decor equal parts classic Old World bar, nouveau club, chic salon and kitsch bordello it has a warm, funky ambience that, combined with an intimate scale, encourages staying awhile and interacting.
"The idea is for it to look really nice but we don't want any form of pretentiousness. We just want a nice, unique, comfortable place that does look elegant in its own way," says Bondelid.
The bohemian vibe extends from the lounge's rich, multi-colored Victorian-style furniture, homey book cases and tiled fireplace to the well-appointed oak and cedar bar and its crafted cocktails and premium beers to the black painted tin ceiling. Contemporary paintings and sculptures dot the interior.
Curtains can be drawn and furniture rearranged to create more private or open spaces.
A custom-built booth is where Crampton and guest MCs ignite the music. LED lights frame the electric mood. When weather permits, an outdoor patio and garden offer an open-air hang-out.
House of Loom has hosted everything from an Omaha Table Talk dinner to an Opera Omaha night to a Project Interfaith speed dialogue to a celebration of India's Festival of Lights to a Tango Night to private parties, tastings and spoken word events. It's an in meet-up spot for arts patrons before and after shows. Featured bands have played Cuban, hip-hop, jazz and a myriad of other music.
Catered international cuisine accompanies some events.
The cultural mix happens in a blend of music, food, ideas, personalities and walks-of-life. Bondelid says House of Loom is a haven for creative class urban adventurers seeking to sample "all different kinds" of experiences and expressions.
For events, bookings and hours, visit http://www.houseofloom.com or call 402-505-5494.
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Going to Extremes: Professional Cyclist Todd Herriott
George Herriott, a writer friend of mine who was once a client, pitched me the idea of doing a story on his pro bike racing son, Todd Herriott, and the following profile is the result. I like when stories come out of left field like this because it's unlikely I would have ever come to telling Todd's story otherwise. Todd has since retired from the pro circuit to own and operate his own cyclist training and fitness gym, but he was full in it when I interviewed and profiled him. The story of how he came to the sport, then left it, only to take it up again at a rather advanced age, whereupon he enjoyed his greatest success, is a compelling one.
Going to Extremes: Professional Cyclist Todd Herriott
©by Leo Adam Biga
Originally published in The Reader (www.thereader.com)
"I have an all or nothing personality."
The telling self-assessment belongs to Omaha native Todd Herriott, a pro bicycle racer who made a dramatic return to the sport three years ago after a long hiatus to sate his insatiable curiosity. An uptown New York City resident with the cocksure attitude of a Big Apple denizen, Herriott competed as a premier amateur racer from the late 1980s until 1995, when his sense of wanderlust got the better of him and he opted out, at only 26, to try other things.
Changing gears is nothing new for Herriott, a 1987 Elkhorn Mount Michael graduate. About the same time he got into bike racing as an Omaha teen, he latched onto a dream of being a professional dancer, even studying the art form at Emerson College in Boston, where he supported himself as a bike messenger, before his "hyper-competitive" drive made racing his focus again. When he left the sport, he worked, in quick succession, as a Hollywood film production assistant, a Boston bike messenger again and a Manhattan personal fitness guru. Wherever adventure called, this searcher went, once driving cross-country on a motorcycle because "it sounded like a really bad idea, so it must be good." Reinventing himself is a habit.
Even when racing "back in the day," his eclectic interests kept him from ever giving himself fully over to the single-minded dedication and discipline demanded by cycling. It's why he didn't graduate then past the elite amateur level. "I wasn't ready to be a professional bike racer when I quit the sport," says Herriott, who radiates the high-energy vibe and rebel cool of the extreme athlete. "There were too many other things I wanted to try and, it's like, there weren't enough minutes in the day. Unless you're really committed to doing the sport, you can't make it. It's too much. It's too hard. It takes too much time and too much energy."
Infatuated with an actress-model during this transitional period of his life, he acted impulsively and married the woman, he says. "for all the wrong reasons." After sampling the west coast's "sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll" scene, his obsession with salvaging his failed marriage sent him on a downward spiral back east, where he bummed lodging from friends between infrequent paying gigs. "The problem is, you take all the problems you had on one coast to the other coast," he says. "I'm one of those people who sort of lives for drama. If I don't have drama in my life, it's very hard for me to get motivated, so I'm very good at creating drama for myself. Life would have been a little easier if I had done some things a little bit differently."
Salvation for Herriott finally came in the form of a light, sleek, carbon-fiber racing bike, something he swore off ever riding again.
"I was in a down period of my life and I needed something to distract me and I thought, Well, cycling has always been a good diversion. It's challenging, it's difficult, it's fast, it's free-flowing, it's a little dangerous," says the hard-bodied Herriott, who since reentering the sport in a Central Park club race a few years ago has found his love for competitive cycling intact. "I'm still very much in awe of the sport. I still get excited to get up and go ride. I get real giddy about it. It's almost embarrassing to talk about. It's very much the way it was when I was 17 in that respect. I'm still overwhelmed by the guys I race against..,I'm like, Wow, they're really good. Am, I that good?"
He made his amateur racing comeback at 32, an age when most top-flight athletes are slowing up or breaking down, by promptly winning two of the sport's biggest international events, the 2002 Univest Grand Prix in Souderton, Pa. and the 2003 Tour of Cuba. Despite competing as an amateur for only part of the season, he was named the best amateur male road racer for North America in 2003 by Velo-News Magazine, the top cycling magazine in the world. Things clicked just right. He was in top form. In the zone. In sync.
"You don't have those days very often, but, boy, it sure is nice when you feel it. You're like Superman. I felt like that in Cuba. I felt that way in the Univest Grand Prix. I didn't think anybody could beat me. At the end of the race, with like two laps to go on the circuit, I just rode away. I didn't attack, I didn't make some big move…nothing. I just put my head down and thought, 'I'm out of here.' I looked over my shoulder and saw 'em hesitate and I said, 'I just won the race.' You just know. That was a really extraordinary feeling. It's like the heavens opened up and someone shot a beam of light down and said, You are on! I think those moments are few and far between and I think that's what everybody's trying to capture."
In a sport traditionally dominated by Europeans, Herriott became the first American to win the Univest and the Tour of Cuba. Along the way, he dispelled any doubts about the wisdom or the ability of a thirtysomething trying to keep pace, much less outdistance, competitors nearly half his age.
"I knew people would have problems with it," he says, referring to his "old man" status. "I got a lot of, 'Oh, you're pretty old to be doing that.' My mother was definitely not excited about me riding my bike. She was like, 'You're going to do it again? Nothing happened last time. You're not driving a flashy sports car and you don't own a home. There must be something wrong with you.' But there just comes a time when you have to decide what you're going to do and do it, whether or not anybody agrees with you."
Herriott never second-guessed himself. "That's the thing. I didn't have any doubts," he says. "That's probably why I was able to pull it off. It probably would have been more of an issue if I sat down and really thought about it."
He was recovering from an illness contracted in Chile, where he'd traveled for a big event, when he accepted an offer to join the elite pro team, Health Net, with whom he rode the second half of the 2003 U.S. Pro Road Race season. As a Team Health Net member, he rode with one of his idol's and one of the sport's icons, Gord Fraser, whom he trained with at the living legend's Tucson, Arizona home.
Now with Team Colavilta Bolla, Herriott sees this as his moment to shine. That he's defied time by not only recapturing but improving upon his performances as a youth, Herriott's validated his own passion for cycling and his decision to rededicate his life to it. All the while he was out of the sport, living that fast, freaky lifestyle, he says his long-suppressed desire to ride "ate at me." When he finally heeded the hunger, he felt the timing was right.
"The way I thought of it was, it's such a brutal sport, that by taking years off from riding at the intense level it's made me years fresher than I would have been. Early 30s is when you really hit it hard. Your body's really matured. You really know what you're doing. So, I have no question my best rides are ahead of me. My training gets better every year. I pay more attention to detail. I continue to get stronger and lighter at the same time. Strength to weight ratio is a big thing in cycling. So, I'm smarter and stronger and more motivated than ever. I really believe I'm going to uncork something pretty big," he says.
He wouldn't be where he is today if he weren't so passionate about cycling. "It's just too hard of a sport to do to not really enjoy it at that level," he says. Being good helps make it fun. Defining good from mediocre is a mix of endurance, discipline, strategy, gamesmanship and technique. It all starts with conditioning. Herriott, who still trains clients in fitness programs of his own design, follows a rigorous workout regimen. "I'm something of a psycho when it comes to training. Training is fun for me. I'm training all the time. I love it." In what can be "a selfish sport," he's often off alone doing his thing. An understanding girlfriend helps.
He works on different things on different days, sometimes emphasizing aerobic-cardiovascular training and other times resistance-strength exercises. For example, Tuesdays, one of his resistance days, finds him tackling a wide-ranging cross-training schedule that is equal parts pleasure and pain and an expression of both his attention to business and his personal cycling mantra.
"I'll get up at 6. I'll train a client at 7. Make a little money. Then, I'll do like a two-hour ride, usually indoors, where I can monitor the intensity more easily. I'll be doing base intensity, but on the higher end of my aerobic capacity. I'll ride a special crank set that forces me to use one leg at a time. You have to coordinate the strokes, which forces you to use your hip flexors and your hamstrings. I do that indoors so I don't have any distractions.
"Then, I'll take the train downtown. I'll change my gear around. I'll run in the gym. I'll do 30-40 minutes on a climbing machine or some weird different exercises I've created on the gym floor. Medicine balls, stair climbers, jumping rope, hitting the heavy bag. Then, I'll teach a spinning class for an hour. Then, I'll go back out on the gym floor for 30-40 minutes. I'll run back to the apartment and do another 90 minutes or two hours on the bike. Usually, I have another client or two late in the afternoon. I'll come home and eat. I have five floors to walk-up to my apartment to drop off my bike every night. It's that last, little extra push at the end of my workout. After dinner I take a hot soak before stretching.
"So, some of those days can be working out for four or five hours."
Other days, riding takes precedence. "Wednesdays, I do a long ride, anywhere from five to six hours. Sometimes, I do a double session…riding indoors, working form on the pedal stroke." Gearing up in the winter for the spring-summer racing season, he progressively ratchets up his outdoor mileage until he's riding 30 to 35 hours a week. During a December swing through his hometown to visit family, he noted, "I've already started doing six-and-a-half hour rides in 40-degree weather. You have to do it. It's all about preparation."
In preparaing for the rigors of the season, when he travels from event to event, competing in races ranging over a few days to a few weeks and covering anywhere from 100 to 155 miles over widely varying terrain, altitudes and weather conditions, Herriott goes to extremes. In December, he put in a grueling 30-hour week up and down the 11-mile El Diablo Climb outside San Francisco. As he often does, he wore a power meter that gave "a real time wattage output of how much power" he generated, one of many measures he uses in gauging his finely calibrated fitness. Besides giving him a steep vertical challenge to hone his climbing skills on, the El Diablo offers a chance to work on the equally vital art of descent.
"Descending is a serious technique. Going down a mountain and taking turns at mach 10, if you don't practice that…CRASH."
An edge. Every competitor seeks one. It can be a steely attitude or a superior bike or a high pain tolerance. Some resort to performance enhancing drugs. Herriott, who says he doesn't "take anything funny," feels his advantage resides in something basic. "Yeah, I'm always looking for an edge and I think my big edge this year is stretching a lot more. I hate stretching. It's painful. But I still sit down and do it for 45 minutes to an hour a day because I know it's going to help my recovery." He's also careful to rest and eat right. Seemingly little things separate winning from losing. Aside from physical aspects, a competition turns on wills and tactics. "Yeah, there's a lot of races within the race," he says, referring to the jostling and sizing-up that go on. It's all about knowing your and your opponents' capabilities and, when opportunity arises, seizing the moment. "When it's on, it's on," he adds.
"If you're being lazy sitting on the back during a breakaway move, people are going to think you're useless. Well, that's great because that's what you want 'em to think. It doesn't matter how strong or hard you ride in the first 105 miles of a 110-mile road race. What matters is that last kilometer or last 500 meters," he explains. "Will you be able to respond to the attacks that will certainly come? If you're not a sprinter and you know there's three sprinters in this group of 10 guys…you've got to jump off now and play your card. If you don't play your card, you'll never know. If you wait for the sprint, and you're not a sprinter, you're going to lose."
From aching muscles to burning lungs, a cyclist's physical threshold gets tested. "When you're hurting, it's safe to assume everybody's hurting," he says. "Some people can suffer more than other people. Period. That can be the difference." The real race begins once the field's trimmed. "The race is now a different race altogether," he explains. "Your odds have already greatly improved. Your chances of crashing have decreased. So, you have to take some inventory. 'Who's fresh? Who's not.? Over here's a guy who won two weeks ago. He's got good form. I don't know this other guy in from Argentina. He's supposed to be a good sprinter, but he looks like he's suffering. Is he gonna be worth a crap after a couple of attacks?'"
In service of his team's star racer, he often plays the rabbit by strategically drawing out the competition to "get my guy to the finish line. If I hear in my radio ear piece a teammate is coming up, I might attack off the front like a lunatic, and get a couple guys to come with me. And maybe when I take off, I am the strongest guy, and I'm gone. For any major race there's probably 10 guys who could possibly win. And I'll have days where I might be one of those 10 guys."
Whatever comes of his cycling career, Herriott feels it's steeled him for the future. "If I can do this, there isn't anything I can't do," he says. For now, he's "full on" for this cycling season, having completed his first Redlands Classic in Redlands, Calif. and earlier this year and now gearing up for the Wachovia USPRO Championship on June 6 in Philadelphia. The Phillie event is the longest running and richest single day cycling race in the U.S. A 35-year old champion?
"Who knows? Stranger things have happened in my life."
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Buck O'Neil and the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City Offer a Living History Lesson about the National Pastime from a Black Perspective
What follows is one of two cover stories I did on the late Negro Leagues Baseball legend Buck O'Neil. I earlier posted an O'Neil article I did for The Reader (www.thereader.com), and the story I'm posting here appeared in the New Horizons. Both pieces appeared in these Omaha publications mere months before O'Neil passed and were largely based on an interview I did with him in Kansas City at the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum he was instrumental in founding. I found the gregarious O'Neil every bit as charming and enthusiastic in person as I saw him on television.
Buck O'Neil and the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City Offer a Living History Lesson aboutthe National Pastime from a Black Perspective
©by Leo Adam Biga
Originally published in the New Horizons
Monuments of both the human and brick-and-mortar kind abound at the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum (NLBM) in Kansas City, Mo., where the story of a vital but long neglected chapter in the national pastime's history is told. The NLBM preserves a rich heritage alongside the American Jazz Museum it shares space with in a sleek modern facility of bold colors and designs. It's only right the NLBM calls Kansas City home, as that city gave birth to the Negro leagues and for decades hosted one of the great black ball clubs — the Kansas City Monarchs.
KC is also the adopted home of Buck O'Neil, widely considered the elder statesman of the Negro leagues. An all-star player and manager with the Monarchs of the Negro National League, the 94-year-old O'Neil co-founded the museum, which opened in a much smaller facility in 1991. The present structure opened in 1997. The NLBM is located smack dab in the middle of the historic cultural hub of KC's black community, the 18th and Vine District, a gentrified neighborhood of brick, circa-1900s buildings, that in its day featured a 24/7 promenade of people taking in the area's many clubs, eateries and stores.
A short jaunt off the Paseo exit finds you on John Buck O'Neil Way, which traverses a mixed commercial-residential area of brownstone walk ups — the Jazz Hill Homes — and places of worship — St. Stephen Baptist Church, Paseo Baptist, Bethel AME Church — whose names signify black culture. You arrive at 18th and Vine, to find an Old Market-style environs surrounded by the Blue Room, the Historic Lincoln Building, the Gem Theatre and the Swing Shop. Like a shrine stands the combined baseball-jazz museum and its homage to the game and the music that served to unite and thrill the black community.
The last Negro leagues team folded more than 40 years ago. The color barrier that precipitated the formation of the Negro leagues fell just after World War II ended. Yet African American pioneers in baseball are very much on people's minds these days due to the July 30 National Baseball Hall of Fame induction of 17 Negro leagues and pre-Negro leagues figures. It's the largest group from early black baseball to be elected to the Hall at one time.
A name conspicuous by its absence from this new crop of inductees is Buck O'Neil's. In addition to his feats as a player-manager, he's devoted himself to ensure the history of the Negro leagues not be lost. He's perhaps best known for his narration in Ken Burns' acclaimed Baseball documentary. His vivid descriptions of Negro leagues lore and the rousing place players-teams enjoyed in black communities, put a face on this story as never before. Long before the film, however, he lobbied for recognition of the Negro leagues as a singular slice of history and led the drive for its stars to be inducted in Cooperstown.
"I always thought the story should have been told and I've been telling it for the last 50 years," O'Neil said. "But nobody listened to me until the Ken Burns documentary. Now everybody wants to talk to Buck about it."
NLBM Marketing Director Bob Kendrick said O'Neil knows well his place in baseball history. "He's a very proud man. He understands the fact he's a trailblazer. He understands what this story represents to the core and he's doing everything in his power to make sure others will have an opportunity to know about those who made great sacrifices and were trailblazers like himself. Education has been at the forefront of his life, and we're talking about someone who's the grandson of a slave, who was denied the opportunity to attend public high school in Sarasota, Fla., even though his parents were tax payers, who rose above that to become this elder statesman and icon for everything that is good in this country. He has been everything to this museum. If you had to point to a single individual for the building of this institution and keeping alive the legacy of the Negro leagues, it would be Buck O'Neil."
"And that's why we felt so disheartened by the fact the doors to the Hall of Fame were shut on him," Kendrick said. "It's difficult to assess his 70-plus-year baseball career and say he wasn't worthy of inclusion as a contributor. You know, it leaves you to wonder what their criteria were, but certainly all of us understand the remarkable contributions this man has made to the game of baseball, across the board. Fans across the country were not just disappointed but outraged because he is the face of the Negro leagues now. Just as Satchel (Paige) was during his heyday, Buck has become the face of the Negro leagues. He is the reason people care about the Negro leagues. There's no question about it."
Bob Kendrick at the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum
Ever the diplomat, O'Neil downplays the Hall's snub. "I had an idea I had a chance" to be elected, "but having been on the Veterans Hall of Fame Committee for 20 years I knew what could happen." He prefers to take the high road. "We're fixing to put 17 more in there at the end of July. Isn't that wonderful?" Kendrick doesn't rule out O'Neil might one day still get in, but he only hopes it's not too late. "We hope Buck will get this coronation at some point in time, but the thing is we hope that it comes in his lifetime."
Hall or no Hall his name's soon to grace the planned Buck O'Neil Education and Research Center that will mark the NLBM's largest expansion project in a decade. The center will be housed in the nearby Paseo YMCA, a National Historic Landmark regarded as the birthplace of the Negro leagues. A $15 million rehab will provide state-of-the-art facilities for the museum's oral history and archival work.
The museum O'Neil's dedicated the past 16 years of his life to charts, in words and images, the rise and fall of the Negro leagues. A "Field of Legends," complete with life-sized bronze statues of Negro league greats arrayed on a mock diamond, puts you right there in the action. If there's a recurring theme, it's that these teams and players made it possible for future generations of blacks to enter major league baseball (MLB). Without the Negro leagues, equal rights for blacks in baseball and other aspects of society might well have waited another generation.
"As Buck so eloquently puts it," Kendrick said, "it's nice sometimes we celebrate those who built the bridge as opposed to those who crossed over the bridge. That's what we're doing here — we're celebrating the bridge builders."
Kendrick said major league players who visit the museum come away awe-struck.
What most captivates people are the stories, told in interactive exhibits, that make this living history come alive. That's especially true if you're lucky enough to be there when O'Neil happens by to regale anyone within ear shot with tales of those halcyon times. The much-beloved O'Neil is a familiar figure there. An ebullient man, whose bright attire reflects his sunny disposition, he chats up visitors and staff, charming everyone he greets.
For a recent Legends Luncheon held at the Madrid Theatre in KC, a program that raises funds for the NLBM, O'Neil made the rounds at each table to welcome attendees — "Good to see you guys" — to sign autographs and to pose for pics. During an auction of baseball memorabilia, he worked the crowd, imploring and cajoling them to up their bids. "We're going to start this off at $40. Forty, who's going to say 40 for Buck? Fifty? Who's going to give me 55? C'mon, bro. Thank you, brother. Who's going to give me $60? What do you say, sugar? There you go, love. Going once, going twice…I've got to let her have it," and with that he saunters to the woman, embraces her and plants a kiss on her cheek.
"The man has never met a stranger in his life," said Kendrick, who often travels with O'Neil to spread the gospel of the museum's mission. "I'll tell you what, he's the most charismatic individual I've ever encountered. The energy he exerts at 94, it's just amazing to me how he does it. Just his sheer love of humanity, his love of life. When you meet Buck O'Neil, you've just got to be on his team."
O'Neil loved being a Negro leaguer. The way of life it afforded him. The people it allowed him to meet. The game he loved it enabled him to play.
"The only experience I would have traded it for would have been to have done it in the major leagues," said O'Neil, the prime of whose playing career came before the color barrier fell. "Yeah, that's the only thing."
Until the color barrier was broken in 1947, the Negro leagues offered black ballplayers, coaches and managers the next best thing. It was their major leagues.
The warm embrace blacks once extended to the game is in sharp contrast to their low participation in it today. Where blacks used to identify with baseball, it's now largely seen as a white or Latino or even Asian sport. But not so long ago black-is-beautiful and baseball went hand in hand. The Negro leagues constituted a cultural institution that fostered black pride and generated black commerce.
"The painful images of blacks are pretty much out there — the images of slavery, the struggle of the civil rights movement — but very rarely are our success stories celebrated, and this is a success story" Kendrick said. "Blacks succeeded at the highest level you can succeed playing this game and went on to spark social change in this country. I think it's an inspirational illustration of what blacks were able to accomplish in the face of tremendous adversity.
"It was an economic stimulus for black businesses. It created a sense of pride in the African American community because while this was shared by others, it still was intrinsically ours. It had been born, anchored and become successful" in the black community, He said. "Negro leagues baseball brought tremendous joy to African Americans during a time that was very difficult for blacks in this country."
"I always share with our visitors that the story of the Negro leagues embodies the American spirit unlike any other," Kendrick said, "because in it is everything we pride ourselves in being Americans. It's a story of courage. It's a story of men who flat out refused to accept the notion they were unfit to play America's co-called national pastime. They created leagues of their own that actually rose to rival, and in many cities across this country, surpass the major leagues in popularity and attendance. They were determined, they persevered, they did whatever they had to do to prove to the world they could play this game as well as anyone. That is the prevailing American spirit."
During an era when a "gentlemen's agreement" among major league owners and commissioners kept blacks off the field, African Americans created their own baseball universe. In 1920, Andrew "Rube" Foster — "the father of black baseball" — held a meeting with other black team owners at KC's Paseo YMCA and the result was the Negro National League, the first organized black pro league. Other leagues followed. The hope was the big leagues would eventually take-in one team from each main Negro league. It never happened.
Instead, it took another 27 years before the majors let in blacks. In the meantime, the Negro leagues continued to prosper. The first Colored World Series was held in 1924. New leagues followed. The boom was from 1933 to 1947, with teams in KC, St. Louis, Indianapolis, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Birmingham, Memphis, Baltimore, New York, et cetera.
The Negro leagues featured comparable talent as the majors and, as the museum highlights, offered innovations, such as night baseball, years ahead of the bigs. A period poster on display called the attraction "the greatest drawing card outside the major leagues." Also documented, in box scores and anecdotes, is the fact Negro league teams fared well against major league teams in exhibitions. One only imagines how the record books would be rewritten had greats "Cool Papa" Bell, Judy Johnson, Buck Leonard or Josh Gibson played in the majors. Or if pitcher Satchel Paige made it there in his prime rather than at the tail end of his career.
The museum provides a glimpse into what's called a "parallel" baseball experience, but one relegated to the back pages of white newspapers and to the shadows of mainstream history. Yet this other world of professional baseball enjoyed every bit the cache and support among black fans the major leagues did among white fans.
Black baseball also attracted white fans, particularly when Negro league teams like the Monarchs barnstormed to play exhibitions versus local town teams or major league clubs. Fans flocked to see the Monarchs at Western League Park and Rosenblatt Stadium in Omaha and American Legion Baseball Park in Council Bluffs.
The high times of being part of this unique experience is what O'Neil recalls.
"All you needed was a bus and I'll tell you what, we traveled in some of the best money could buy during that period. And actually we stayed in some of the best hotels in the country — they just happened to be black owned and operated. We ate in some of the best restaurants in the country. Of course, during that time, the best cooks in the world were black," said O'Neil his sing-song patios swelled with the solemnity of a preacher and the jive of a hipster. "In that bus you'd have 20 of the best athletes that ever lived. To be able to play, to participate, to compete with these type of athletes, oh, it was outstanding. As a young man from Florida, yeah, up north here in Kansas City playing baseball, outstanding really."
Black athletes and musicians were THE celebrities in black communities and they socialized together. In KC, they stayed at the Streets Hotel, right down from where the museum stands today.
"At the Streets Hotel I might come down for breakfast and Duke Ellington and them might be there and say, 'Come over and have breakfast with us this morning." Or Sarah Vaughn. You're talking about jazz and baseball. That was here, that was Kansas City," said O'Neil, whose plaintive voice rises and falls like a soft riff.
When the Monarchs were in town, it was news. "Yeah, we were very well respected," he said. "I'll tell you how much — I courted a preacher's daughter."
Churches heeded their presence. "Sunday, 11 o'clock service, but when the Monarchs were in town, service started at 10 o'clock so that they (churchgoers) could get to the ball park. And then they would come looking good — dressed to kill. It was actually not only a ball game, it was a social event. The Monarchs, this was the thing. You saw everybody that was somebody there at the ball park. People would hobnob with their friends. Yeah, mmmm…hmmm." Or as Henry "Pistol" Mason, a Monarchs pitcher O'Neil signed and managed, said, "We had a different brand of baseball. People wanted to see our brand of baseball, with its action and enthusiasm, running and bunting. It was more festive when we played. Going to the ballpark was just like going to a picnic. We had something to prove too — that we were good enough to play in the major leagues."
Amen, said O'Neil, who feels this extra motivation explains why Negro leagues teams often beat major league teams in exhibitions. "We wanted to prove to the world they weren't superior because they were major leaguers and we weren't inferiors because we were Negro leaguers," he said. Besides, he said, major leaguers "couldn't afford to twist an ankle or break a finger in an exhibition ball game."
Home or away, O'Neil said he and his fellow Negro leaguers felt the passion of fans.
"Oh, man, listen, the Rev. Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. at his Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, New York, preached a baseball sermon for the New York Cubans, the New York Black Yankees, the Kansas City Monarchs and the Memphis Red Sox before a four-team doubleheader at Yankee Stadium," he said. "He preached that sermon, and man, the church was full. They followed us to the ball park. We had 40,000 at Yankee Stadium. We played over at Branch Rickey's place" — Ebbets Field, home to general manager Rickey's Brooklyn Dodgers — "and we had 20,000 there."
It was Rickey who signed Jackie Robinson away from the Monarchs in 1945 and brought him to the majors in 1947. Robinson was one of five blacks called up to the majors that year. O'Neil said Rickey's enlightened move to buck the system made sound business sense. "Branch Rickey, the astute businessman that he was, saw this as a brand new clientele" to be mined, O'Neil said.
O'Neil emphasizes the men who broke baseball's color barrier helped to spark a social revolution. "When Branch Rickey signed Jackie (Robinson) to that contract that was the beginning of the civil rights movement," he said. "That was before Brown versus Board of Education. That was before sister Rosa Parks said, 'I won't go to the back of the bus today.' Martin Luther King, Jr. was just a sophomore at Morehouse (College). Jackie started the ball rolling right there in baseball."
In O'Neil's opinion, "What kept us out of the major leagues was in fact not the fans, but the owners. See, the baseball fans, all they ever asked — Could you play?"
Robinson's success and the success of players like Larry Doby proved, once and for all, blacks belonged on the same field, paving the way for others to follow. With integration underway, MLB increasingly tapped the Negro leagues' deep talent pool. Sadly, many greats were deemed too old to invest in and thus never played in the bigs. Even Negro leagues teams began to prefer young prospects, whose contracts they could sell, over old veterans. Devoid of their stars, Negro leagues teams folded and then entire leagues disbanded. The last survived into the early 1960s. By then, blacks were regarded as essential cogs to any successful MLB franchise with the exception of a few hold outs (most notably the Boston Red Sox),
The impact black players had on the majors is undeniable. From the inception of the Rookie of the Year Award in 1949, seven of the first 10 winners were black. From 1949 to 1959, nine of 11 National League MVPs were former Negro leaguers. Future legends and Hall of Famers Robinson, Doby, Monte Irvin, Roy Campanella, Don Newcombe, Willie Mays and Hank Aaron, among others, all came out of the Negro leagues. Besides their talent, they brought a livelier style of play — the hit-and-run, stretching a single into a double or a double into a triple, stealing home.
As a teen, Omaha's own baseball icon, Bob Gibson, turned down a Monarchs offer to sign with the St. Louis Cardinals. By then, blacks were established in the majors while the Negro leagues were on their way out.
In a 33-year Chicago Cubs scouting career, O'Neil brought great black talent to the bigs, signing, among others, future Hall of Famers Ernie Banks and Lou Brock. He became MLB's first black coach with the Cubs. He later scouted for the Royals.
Buck O'Neil Legacy seat at Kaufman Stadium
He doesn't think much about his own place in history. He's too busy "running all over the country raising money" for the museum. "But, you see, I'm 94 and I ain't going to live but 20 more years," he said, smiling. "After I'm gone I want this to be here forever. That's why we need an endowment." To garner that support he meets with everyone from MLB superstars to commissioner Bud Selig to billionaires Warren Buffett and Bill Gates to Hollywood celebs to ordinary fans.
What makes him a great ambassador for the Negro leagues and for the game itself is his ability to engage folks from every walk of life. He said he'd like to be remembered as "a spokesman for the Negro leagues — to keep this memory alive."
To close the Legends Luncheon he did what he usually does at his public appearances — he invited people to join hands and sing along with him a melody from an old song that best expresses the way he feels about baseball and its fans.
"The greatest thing, in all my life, is loving you. Thank you, folks." Thank you, Buck.
The Negro Leagues Baseball Museum is open Tuesdays through Saturdays, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Sundays from noon to 6 p.m. For details about the museum, its permanent and traveling exhibits and its many educational programs, check out the web site www.nlbm.com or call toll-free at (888) 221-NLBM.
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Omowale Akintunde's In-Your-Face Race Film for the New Millennium, 'Wigger,' Introduces America to a New Cinema Voice
Over the past 20 years I have had the opportunity of stumbling upon some filmmakers from my native Nebraska whose work has inspired me and many others. I first became aware of Alexander Payne back when I was programming art films in the late 1980s-early 1990s. This was before he'd directed his first feature. I read something about him somewhere and I ended up booking his UCLA thesis film, The Passion of Martin, for screenings by the nonprofit New Cinema Cooperative. Hardly anyone came, but his work was unusually mature for someone just out of college. That lead to my interviewing him in the afterglow of his feature debut, Citizen Ruth, and his making Election. I've gone on to interview him dozens of times and to write extensively about his work. I even spent a week on the set of Sideways. I almost made it to Hawaii for a couple days on the set of his film, The Descendants. I may be spending weeks on the set of his next film, Nebraska. It's been an interesting ride to chart the career of someone who has become one of the world's preeminent filmmakers.
More recently, I was fortunate enough to get in on the evolving young career of Nik Fackler, whose feature debut, Lovely, Still, shows him to be an artist of great promise.
More recently still I discovered Charles Fairbanks, a true original whose short works, including Irma and Wrestling with My Father, defy easy categorization. He is someone who will be heard from in a major way one day.
In between Fackler and Fairbanks I was introduced to Omowale Akintunde, an academic and artist whose short film Wigger became the basis for his feature of the same name. Akintunde and Wigger are the subjects of the following story, which appears in The Reader (www.thereader.com). The small indie film, made entirely in Omaha, is getting some theater exposure around the country.
This blog contains numerous stories about these filmmakers and others I've had the pleasure to interview and profile.
Omowale Akintunde's In-Your-Face Race Film for the New Millennium, 'Wigger,' Introduces America to a New Cinema Voice
©by Leo Adam Biga
As published in The Reader (www.thereader.com)
Make no mistake about it, filmmaker Omowale Akintunde intends for his 2010 racially-charged Omaha-made feature, Wigger, to provoke a strong response.
After premiering here last year, and in limited theatrical release around the country, the dynamic looking and sounding film returns for a 7 p.m., July 28 red carpet screening at the Twin Creek Cinema. It's back just in time for Native Omaha Days (July 27-August 1), the biennial African-American heritage celebration.
The film, definitively set in North Omaha, plays off a young white man, Brandon (David Oakes), so enamored with African-American culture he's adopted its trappings. He pursues a R & B career amid skeptics, users and haters. His interracial relationships, both platonic and romantic, are tinged with undercurrents.
"He feels he has transcended whiteness," says Akintunde, chair of the University of Nebraska at Omaha Department of Black Studies. "On the other hand, his father is a very overt racist who calls people nigger, talks about fags and Jews. He's very open about his biases. So Brandon sees himself as disconnected from his father."
Brandon's best friend, Antoine, is black. As pressures build, the two have a falling out, each accusing the other of racism, unintentionally setting in motion a tragedy.
"There's just some things you learn in a black household you don't get in a white household, and vice versa," says Eric Harvey, who plays Antoine and co-produced the film, "so that line between them keeps them from being as close as they really want to be. They're both in denial of self-conscious racism.
"It's not a bad thing, it's a reality. We do things without thinking about it. Seriously, it's been embedded for so long it's just the norm."
This is the prism through which Akintunde, who produced, wrote and directed the film, examines polarizing attitudes. Nearly everyone in the film exhibits some prejudice or engages in some profiling. Race and privilege cards abound.
"I thought this story…was the perfect premise to get into some real deep stuff," says Akintunde. "It's about these two characters with this improbable dream. This white boy who loves black culture and wants to be accepted comes from a background that says, why would you want to be like THEM? And then them telling him you're not one of US. And how does one make that fit?"
The film suggests a post-racial world is a fallacy short of some deep reckoning or ongoing discussion. It's message is that not confronting or deconstructing our racial hangups has real consequences. Akintunde can spout rhetoric with the best, but his film never devolves into preaching.
He does something else in offering a raw, authentic slice of black inner city life here with glimpses of Native Omaha Days, the club scene, neighborhoods, church. He avoids the misrepresentations of another urban drama set here, Belly (1998).
"This is the first film that really deals with North Omaha and attempts to make icons of the things that have become emblematic of it," says Akintunde. "I really did want to show this city and that community some big love. It was very intentional I made the location a character in this film."
Rare for any small independent, even more so for a locally produced one, Wigger is managing theatrical bookings at commercial houses, albeit mostly one-night engagements, coast to coast. In classic roadshow fashion, the filmmaker is brokering screenings through his own Akintunde Productions. He pitches exhibitors and when he sells a theater or chain on the flick he often appears, film in hand, to help promote it. He often does a post-show Q & A.
Meshach Taylor
In May the film got national mention when co-star Meshach Taylor plugged it on The Wendy Williams Show.
The success is the latest affirmation for Akintunde, who has a solid reputation as a serious artist and scholar. His 2009 nonfiction film, An Inaugural Ride to Freedom, which charts the bus trek a group of Omahans made to the Obama presidential inauguration, won a regional Emmy as Best Cultural Documentary.
The Alabama native has heeded his creative and academic sides for as long as he can remember. "I always wanted to be a university professor and I always wanted to make films," he says. "I wanted to make films because there are so many people who will never attend a university, who will never be involved in a high level ivory tower discussion, and movies reach everybody. What I always wanted to do is to meld those two worlds — to use film to teach academics."
In a career that's seen him widely published on issues like white privilege and diversity, he's penned academic texts, short stories, a novel and a children's book. He says he always conceives his stories cinematically. Well into his professional career though, the cinephile still hadn't realized his dream of filmmaking.
"It was one of those things you always wanted to do but everyone discouraged you from because they felt you needed a real job," he says. "No one ever thought that was a credible goal. I finally reached a point where I realized credibility was determined by me, and if I had a passion for filmmaking I needed to do what…makes me happy. That was one of the missing things in my life."
During a sabbatical he attended the New York Film Academy's Conservatory Filmmaking Program. His thesis project was a short version of Wigger. Another of his shorts, Mama 'n 'Em, was selected for the Hollywood Black Film Festival.
An expanded Wigger script became his feature debut. He and producer Michael Murphy financed the film themselves. Akintunde imported principal cast and crew from outside Nebraska, including film-television actors Meshach Taylor (who was in the short) and Anna Maria Horsford, cinematographer Jean-Paul Bonneau and composers Andre Mieux and Chris Julian.
"I didn't follow any of the traditional methodologies in terms of even making Wigger, much less how I promote it and get it out there."
David Oakes
Kim de Patri (Kim Patrick), who plays Antoine's girlfriend Shondra, says the script's unvarnished truth grabbed her.
"It said every single thing most people think (about race) but would never actually say. It was the way it was said and the voice it was speaking from, these characters. It was so real and so honest and it came from a very genuine place."
Taylor, a big advocate of Akintunde's, says he likes how the film "challenges people's concepts of what racism really is" by dealing with "the reality of institutionalization racism," adding, "It's not an overt thing, it's really built into the system." He says he and Akiintunde just click. "I like what he's trying to do. It's really wonderful to have someone who has an intellectual approach to filmmaking but still has the artistic sensibility to make it fun and interesting to watch."
To date, Akintunde has arranged limited bookings in mid and major markets, ranging from Minneapolis and Birmingham to Denver, Las Vegas and Los Angeles. It's one continuous run was at the Edge 12 in Birmingham, the home of Tim Jennings, who has a supporting role. Akintunde says an Edge Theaters official "became a big fan and supporter" of the film and offered a one-week run.
Future screenings are scheduled in Chicago, Atlanta, Washington D.C. and New York City. He's negotiating with Edge for new, multi-date runs.
Kim de Patri (Kim Patrick)
With Wigger, he's taken a subject and set of conventions rife with stereotype and exploitation possibilities and dramatized them as an extension of his scholarship. His goal is as much to frame a dialogue as to make a profit.
"My biggest objective here was to really put a story out there that would compel people to talk about institutionalized bias in a way that I don't think we've had. I really wanted to have a national conversation about this."
In the tradition of Do the Right Thing and A Time for Burning, which was shot in Omaha 45 years ago, Wigger makes a full-frontal assault on our expectations.
"Obviously, I chose a very provocative and incendiary title because I want it to evoke a very strong, visceral response. I want to incite people. I want to grab America by the collar and just shake them," he says. "The title itself is very problematic for people because we live in a society where we won't even pronounce the word nigger. It becomes the "n word" in any context in which we use it.
"In many of the (Q & A) discussions we talk about why I gave the film such a provocative title — it's because I want people to stop and think. Certain words are simple, symbolic representations of a much deeper social problem that we tend to mask by using silly euphemisms, as if we do not know what they mean, instead of looking at why the actual word bothers us."
The film deftly handles topics usually glossed over or overdone without becoming pedantic or sensationalistic, though it does get melodramatic. As an "ethnic" genre pic, it draws largely black audiences, but enough of a mix that Akintunde is able to gauge how it plays to black and white viewers.
"There has not been a huge disparity in response and I think that's because Wigger takes on multiple kinds of institutionalized biases. What I find is people see in a sense the mirror being held up to themselves."
If nothing else, he hopes the film encourages viewers to see past the taboo or race.
"In our society we're taught the way you demonstrate you're not racist is to pretend you don't know race exists. Because of this color blind mentality we're all supposed to be adopting, we have come to a point where we can't discuss the 600 pound gorilla in the room, and what Wigger does is give people an opportunity to discuss the 600 pound gorilla.
"But it goes beyond that — to our gender, our class, our sexuality, our religious beliefs. These are so interwoven and so inextricably bound that it is impossible to construct yourself in any of those domains without taking into consideration the others."
Wigger shows how racism, sexism and other isms thrive in both white and black culture. Everyone is guilty of some kind of bias.
"I try not to make a compelling argument of black versus white," says Akintunde, "but about what it means to be either and how we can transcend these boundaries, these ridiculous social constructions, these radicalized expectations that keep us divided. I believe we have the ability to cross these boundaries and truly become a society resolute in its solidarity.
"I think the reason people don't leave that film feeling as if they're more divided is because of the way the film is structured. I think you cant help but see how really alike we are. It's hard to walk away from this movie seeing the world in, no pun intended, black and white."
Relegating someone to a narrow category or box, he says, diminishes that person and in the process only widens the gulf between individuals and groups.
"I don't think they are things that exist on their own. I don't think people are born heterosexist or are racist or Christian. We are taught these positions, we are taught these ideologies, and we reinforce them in our social context in such discreet ways that we're formed and shaped into opinions and ideas long before we understand that's what has happened to us.
"Nobody can be plugged comfortably into one of these slots. It ain't that damn simple. It never has been that simple. It's a very complex thing."
The film unabashedly "goes there" by unearthing the fear and anger alternative lifestyles generate, from gay revelations to interracial affairs to wigger mainfestations.
"Society paints a picture of what it wants to see and some people just don't want to see certain things," says de Patri (Patrick).
Overcoming these barriers, in Akintunde's view, starts with recognizing them for what they are and how complicit we are in maintaining them.
"The thing I want to get across to people is that it's all of our problem. Even if you think you're just a victim, you're not, you are a participant. It's not a white problem, and it's not a black problem, and it's not a gay problem. It is a human problem."
Omowale Akintunde reviews script with cast
Akintunde enjoys the canvass film provides for expressing multi-layered themes.
"I'm very attracted to film as a way of telling that story because I think it allows you more complexity."
Wigger marks the beginning for what he hopes is a string of films, but for now, he says, "it's the fruition of my life's work." He's justifiably proud the film's getting seen.
"For an independent filmmaker to even get a film to run continuously anywhere for any length of time is an extraordinary achievement, and I got that to happen."
The exhibition schedule is being revised as new screening opportunities surface.
"I had this carefully laid out plan, man, with absolute linearity, and instead things are happening in the moment."
Zaina Ark'Keenya
He says the film's well received wherever it plays and is invited back in some cases for additional screenings, including Las Vegas and Birmingham.
"Obviously, I would love to see the movie in an even larger roll out and I think that that is happening," he says. "I didn't plan that Edge Theaters was going to pick up the movie. I didn't plan these people in Vegas and Birmingham would want me to come back. I'm going to go with what happens in that moment and just enjoy it. I'm sort of like riding the wave."
He says there's been preliminary talk about Rave Theaters pickiing up Wigger. He's also following up a lead about potential interest from BET in acquiring the film for network broadcast. Wigger will eventually go to Blu-Ray and DVD.
"I am still seeking a distribution deal."
Considering its small marketing budget, he's pleased with the film's performance.
"We sell out the house wherever we play. I'm not making a killing, but certainly making back the money invested to bring the movie to these theaters. I have a real job, so for me it's not so pressing my movie makes a lot of money, Of course, I want it to make money if for no other reason then to allow me to make more films."
His unpublished novel, Waiting for the Sissy Killer, is the basis for a new feature he's planning. The partly autobiographical story concerns a young black man trying to cope with identity issues in the 1960s South. Akintunde hopes to begin pre-production in the fall. He plans shooting the project in his native Alabama.
Omaha rapper ASO headlines the 6:30 p.m. Wigger pre-show at Twin Creek Cinema. Performing at the Blue Martini after-party is co-composer Andre Mieux.
Tickets are $20 for the screening, pre-show and party and available at http://www.WiggerThe Film.com, Youngblood's Barber Shop, Loves Jazz & Arts Center and Twin Creek.
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Luigi's Legacy, The Late Omaha Jazz Artist Luigi Waites Fondly Remembered
I wrote the following two pieces in memory of the late, much-beloved Omaha jazz artist Luigi Waites. I only met the man once and I only saw him perform a few times, but I knew a lot of people who knew him and his music well. I had always meant to do a full-blown profile of him but it just never worked out. These short recaps of his career will have to do. I wish now I had pressed forward in doing something with him. It's a reminder that particularly with older subjects the time to interview them is now, because one never knows when they might be gone. And once gone, the wisdom of that elder goes with them.
©by Leo Adam Biga
Originally appeared in Encounter Magazine
The April 6, 2010 death of Omaha jazz percussionist, vibraphonist, band leader and music educator Luigi Waites brought an outpouring of tributes to this Classic Omaha Hep Cat.
Luigi, whose first name identified him for legions of fans, became an ambassador for jazz in his hometown of Omaha. Unlike the bombast of another local jazz icon, the late Preston Love Sr., Luigi was sedate. Contrasting personalities aside, these "brothers" came out of the same African-American social-cultural milieu to carve out careers.
The humble Luigi made friends wherever he laid down licks. It's not surprising then his passing prompted memorials befitting a beloved hero. He touched innumerable lives with his timeless music and generous spirit.
Long ago divorced, the 82 year-old was survived by six children.
Wearing his signature floppy hat, Luigi exuded a Zen master's inscrutable calm. His signature performance spot, Mr. Toad in the Old Market, lasted some 1,700 Sundays. Manager Rick Renn said what he'll cherish most about Luigi is his "absolutely unique personality, adding: "He was just comfortable with everybody and he made everybody comfortable; he was one of these people who you met for the first time and you loved about a minute later; he was unusual, he was cryptic, he was always making you think."
Whether playing a bar or festival, doing a school residency or giving private music lessons, Luigi was always teaching. Bandmates say he turned gigs into symposiums, encouraging an open exchange of ideas and approaches.
"You knew he was serious when you watched him play. You knew he was going, as the great ones do, into his element,. You'd sit and watch him on the vibes, the concentration on his face, but at the same time the fun he was having," said Renn.
For years Luigi traveled the Midwest for the National School Tours program and Nebraska Arts Council. He provided music lessons, often for free, all over Omaha. His touring multicultural drum and drill corps, The Contemporaries, served at-risk kids. Professional side man and session player Arno Lucas credits his stint with the Contemporaries for saving him from the streets. He considered Luigi "a true mentor."
For years, too, Luigi booked all the entertainment for the Summer Arts Festival downtown. He was also a clinician for Sonar, Trixon and Ludwig drums.
The lifetime learner never stopped being a student himself, whether teaching himself to play drums, later the vibes, or trying new things with his group, Luigi Inc.
He had some formal music training, courtesy a hitch in the U.S. Army and attending the Midwestern Conservatory of Music. Like many musicians of his era though he picked up his chops informally, traveling the country and Europe, but mostly in his hometown, where a vibrant live music scene back in the day saw him haunt the local night spots, sitting in on jam sessions galore and playing in various bands.
Luigi never lost his enthusiasm or curiosity. Late in life the amateur photography buff learned digital techniques from Omaha professional photographer Herb Thompson.
"He was always just very young at heart," said Thompson, who mentored Luigi for a Nebraska Arts Council project that resulted in an exhibition.
Thompson said the only time he saw Luigi slow down was after the ailing musician underwent chemo treatments. The artist finally lost his battle with cancer, but till the end was making plans — for a new CD, for new photography projects.
A memorial service at Omaha North High School and the funeral at St. Cecilia Cathedral drew hundreds each.
"Neither of those was really a sad occasion, they were more a celebration," said Thompson. "People just said how much they loved him, how much he meant to them. It was a cross-section of this city who celebrated the life of a man who had contributed so very much to his community. I don't think there's anyone in the black community of a certain age who hadn't been touched by Luigi. Another thing that struck me is that it's obvious he crossed racial barriers. It came out in almost all of the comments folks made at the tribute but also in the kind of racial mixture you had there."
Playwright Monica Bauer can attest to Luigi gracefully defying social constraints. She was among many whites who took music lessons from him. In the 1960s he was teaching at Swoboda Music Center at 20th and Q. Few blacks worked in the heavily Czech area and despite some raised eyebrows from neighbors, owner Johnny Swoboda hired and kept Luigi, and the two became friends.
If anybody had objected to Luigi's presence, Swoboda would have stood by his man. "We were buddies," said Swoboda. "He made quite an impression on all kinds of people. It's quite a legacy." Swoboda's children became the first white Contemporaries.
Bauer echoed the sentiments of many in describing Luigi as "a terrific music teacher" with a "kind and compassionate" manner. His students say he taught philosophical life lessons as much as music. She said she "learned how to be an artist" and a mensch from him. "Luigi always told me, 'Be kind to everybody, and they will be kind to you.' I took those words with me through two Ivy League degrees, three Master's degrees, and a Ph.D."
Her play My Occasion of Sin dramatizes Luigi's social action of taking on white students in the racially tense '60s. He didn't see it as making a statement. He was just being Luigi.
Luigi Gone But Not Forgotten
©by Leo Adam Biga
Originally appeared in The Reader (www.thereader.com)
As much as the music he made. the generous spirit of iconic Omaha drummer and vibraphonist Luigi Waites is likely be remembered even more. Waites died early Tuesday morning at Immanuel Hospital. He was 82.
His 70-year performing career encompassed much of the Omaha live music scene but extended well beyond his hometown borders. He's perhaps best known for the more than 1,700 Sunday night shows he and his group, Luigi Inc., performed at Mr. Toad in the Old Market. Luigi was also a fixture at the Dundee Dell. As a Summer Arts Festival board member, he booked the event's entertainment.
As early as age 12 he began playing drums and soon gigged at local nightclubs, where his mother served as his escort. He studied at the Midwestern Conservatory of Music in Chicago and worked as a clinician for drum manufacturers. He influenced many youths through the touring multicultural marching corps he formed in 1960, The Contemporaries. He applied R&B rhythms to the traditional military-style marching band aesthetic. Professional musicians Arno Lucas and Victor Lewis "graduated" from The Contemporaries.
In a 2007 interview Lucas spoke for many when he said "Luigi was the guy who made it possible for me to stay focused and to keep out of trouble." Lucas recalled Waites as a "mentor, teacher, step-father."
For decades Waites did artist-in-the-schools presentations.
His many honors included 1996 Nebraska Artist of the Year from the Nebraska Arts Council and 2009 Best Jazz Artist from the Omaha Entertainment and Arts Awards, which previously honored him with a lifetime achievement award. Waites was also inducted into the Omaha Black Music Hall of Fame.
The father of six leaves behind some recordings but mainly a legacy of teaching and sharing. He lives on in YouTube excerpts of his Mr. Toad shows.
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- A Rich Music History Long Untold is Revealed and Celebrated at the Omaha Black Music Hall of Fame (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
- Home Girl Karrin Allyson Gets Her Jazz Thing On (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
- Back in the Day, Native Omaha Days is Reunion, Homecoming, Heritage Celebration and Party All in One (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
- Once More With Feeling, Loves Jazz & Arts Center Back from Hiatus (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
- Tiempo Libre Kicks Off Jazz on the Green at Midtown Crossing in Omaha (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
- A Change is Gonna Come, the GBT Academy in Omaha Undergoes Revival in the Wake of Fire (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
- Lit Fest Brings Author Carleen Brice Back Home Flush with the Success of Her First Novel, 'Orange Mint and Honey' (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
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- A Change is Gonna Come, the GBT Academy in Omaha Undergoes Revival in the Wake of Fire (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
- Lit Fest Brings Author Carleen Brice Back Home Flush with the Success of Her First Novel, 'Orange Mint and Honey' (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
Tiempo Libre Kicks Off Jazz on the Green at Midtown Crossing in Omaha
One of the neat things about being a journalist covering arts and cultural happenings is the opportunity it provides to intersect with emerging or rising talents. In the case of this article for El Perico I got to speak with Jorge Gomez, the leader of the breakout Latin band Tiempo Libre, who kick off this season's Jazz on the Green at Midtown Crossing series in Omaha. The timba-jazz infused, Miami-based group performs July 7, and the series featuring regional and national jazz acts runs through August 11. If you haven't heard of Tiempo Libre, as I hadn't, you'll soon learn why you should take notice in the space of my short article. First of all, the group has only been together 10 years and yet they've already earned three Grammy nominations. They'e opened for and collaborated with some world class artists. Their music draws from many different sources and influences. These musicians are highly skilled and steeped in a classical foundation. They are also inventive enough to blend their native Cuban rhythms with all manner of musical styles. And they have a great story of what fired their imaginations in Cuba and of living out their dream now as a headline act around the world.
Tiempo Libre Kicks Off Jazz on the Green at Midtown Crossing in Omaha
by Leo Adam Biga
As soon to be published in El Perico
Growing up in Cuba members of the hot Miami-based Latin band, Tiempo Libre, studied classical music at Havana conservatories. Popular music, especially American, but even their native timba, was deemed subversive and thus forbidden. Hungry for what they were denied, the players clambered atop roofs at night with homemade antennas to pick up faint Miami radio broadcasts.
The staticky sounds of Michael Jackson, Chaka Chan, Stevie Wonder, Gloria Estefan, Manhattan Transfer and Earth Wind and Fire filled the tropical air. "It was fuel for our dreams. It opened a new door for us," says Jorge Gomez, Tiempo Libre lead vocalist, keyboardist and musical director. "We listened, we recorded and during the day we put the music on and everybody in the neighborhood came to my house. We danced and sang and played dominos, everything. It was a new hope for us."
Today, Gomez and his Grammy-nominated bandmates are touting their new Afro-Cuban fusion album, My Secret Radio, and its celebration of those clandestine raves. Fresh from performing at an Italian music festival, Tiempo Libre opens the Jazz on the Green at Midtown Crossing season Thursday. Their pulsating rhythms begin at 7 p.m. at Turner Park (31st and Dodge Streets).
The band describes their gigs as parties rather than concerts, says Gomez, "because by the end of the show everybody's going to be singing and dancing with us. It happens all the time, and that's the whole idea — to have fun. It's all about the energy people are going to feel. That's the best reason to play music ."
The free performance kicks off the weekly series that runs through August 11.
This is Tiempo Libre's first Omaha show but the group's well known for breakout recordings on Sony Masterworks and high profile appearances on Dancing with the Stars and the Tonight Show and at Jazz at Lincoln Center. Their genre busting work includes collaborations with classical artists Sir James Galway and Joshua Bell and Venezuelan composer Ricardo Lorenz.
The band first made a splash in 2002 opening for Cuban music legend Celia Cruz.
Formed a year before, Tiempo Libre only came together after its seven members separately fled Cuba. Their individual journeys included long stays in other countries before their paths merged again in 2000 in Miami. They were all working with different artists then "and in our free time we came together to make the band, " says Gomez, hence the name Tiempo Libre or "free time."
He's proud the band has disproved predictions timba cannot thrive outside Cuban-centric Miami. "It's fantastic the way people respond to it," he says. Playing before enthusiastic audiences around the world, he says, "it's incredible how beautiful the music can be between people who don't even speak the same language." By mixing timba with other styles, Tiempo Libre breaks down artificial barriers, as in the live orchestra work Rumba Sinfonica and the album Bach in Havana.
"Timba style is a mix between jazz and Cuban music. For example, if you put Buena Vista Social Club with Chic Corea, that's timba style," he says. "The harmony's going to be deeper in the jazz roots but the rhythm is going to be, of course, Cuban rhythms, like rumba, ch-cha-cha, bolero. We play a mix of everything — timba, jazz, classical."
Gomez says as the band's exposed to ever more diverse musical influences, the more there is to blend with Cuban rhythms, including a new Placido Domingo Jr. album they're collaborating on.
"We are living our dream playing all the music, all the mix that's in there, adding a lot of Cuban flavor."
Noted for their rigorous musicianship, yet free-spirited manner, Gomez says, "the way we're playing now is so different from the beginning. We feel so secure. Now it's all about how to enjoy yourself and transmit that energy to everybody around you. It's unbelievable, the sensation. It's a beautiful life."
Now that Cuba's more free, Gomez expects Tiempo Libre will perform back home.
"That's part of our dream, too," he says. "We want to play there in our neighborhood, for our friends."
And perhaps inspire others to live their dreams. "Exactly, that's the idea," he says.
Jazz on the Green features other Latin-style bands this summer, including Incendio on July 14.
Visit jazzonthegreenomaha.com.
Related articles
- Tiempo Libre's "My Secret Radio" (theworld.org)
- Cuban Music Icon, Grammy Award Winner Pablo Milanés to Perform in Miami at the American Airlines Arena (thecubanartproject.com)
- The Bay Citizen: A Havana Connection Infuses the Music Scene (nytimes.com)
- Omaha Address by Cuban Archbishop Jaime Ortega Sounds Hopeful Message that Repression in Cuba is Lifting (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
- A Rich Music History Long Untold is Revealed and Celebrated at the Omaha Black Music Hall of Fame (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
- Home Girl Karrin Allyson Gets Her Jazz Thing On (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
- Enchantress "LadyMac" Gets Down (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
- Camille Metoyer Moten, A Singer for All Seasons (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
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Nomad Lounge, An Oasis for Creative Class Nomads
Nick Hudson is one of several Omaha transplants who have come here from other places in recent years and energized the creative-cultural scene. One of his many ventures in Omaha is Nomad Lounge, which caters to the creative class through a forward-thinking aesthetic and entrepreneurial bent and schedule of events. This Metro Magazine (www.spiritofomaha.com) piece gives a flavor for Hudson and why Nomad is an apt name for him and his endeavor. Three spin-off ventures from Nomad that Hudson has a major hand in are Omaha Fashion Week, Omaha Fashion Magazine, and the Halo Institute. You can find some of my Omaha Fashion Week and Omaha Fashion Magazine writing on this blog. And look for more stories by me about Nick Hudson and his wife and fellow entrepreneur Brook Hudson.
Nomad Lounge, An Oasis for Creative Class Nomads
©by Leo Adam Biga
Originally published in Metro Magazine (www.spiritofomaha.com)
Another side of Omaha's new cosmopolitan face can be found at Nomad Lounge, 1013 Jones St. in the historic Ford Warehouse Building. The chic, high-concept, community-oriented salon captures the creative class trade. Tucked under the Old Market's 10th St. bridge, Nomad enjoys being a word-of-mouth hideaway in a shout-out culture. No overt signs tout it. The name's stenciled in small letters in the windows and subtly integrated into the building's stone and brick face.
The glow from decorative red lights at night are about the only tip-off for the lively goings-on inside. That, and the sounds of pulsating music, clanking glasses and buzzing voices leaking outdoors and the stream of people filing in and out.
Otherwise, you must be in-the-know about this proper gathering spot for sophisticated, well-traveled folks whose interests run to the eclectic. It's all an expression of majority owner Nick Hudson, a trendy international entrepreneur and world citizen who divides his time between Omaha and France for his primary business, Excelsior Beauty. Nomad is, in fact, Hudson's nickname and way of life. The Cambridge-educated native Brit landed in Omaha in 2005 in pursuit of a woman. While that whirlwind romance faded he fell in love with the town and stayed on. He's impressed by what he's found here.
"I'm blown away by what an amazingly creative, enterprising, interesting community Omaha is," he said. He opened Excelsior here that same year — also maintaining a Paris office — and then launched his night spot in late 2006.
If you wonder why a beauty-fashion industry maven who's been everywhere and seen everything would do start-up enterprises in middle America when he could base them in some exotic capital, you must understand that for Hudson the world is flat. Looking for an intersection where like-minded nomads from every direction can engage each other he opted for Omaha's "great feeling, great energy."
"We're all nomadic, were all on this journey," he said, "but there are times when nomads come together, bringing in different experiences to one central place and sharing ideas in that community. And that's exactly what it is here. Nomad's actually about a lifestyle brand and Nomad Lounge is just the event space and play space where that brand comes to life for the experimental things we do."
He along with partners Charles Hull and Clint! Runge of Archrival, a hot Lincoln, Neb. branding-marketing firm, and Tom Allisma, a noted local architect who's designed some of Omaha's cutting-edge bars-eateries, view Nomad as a physical extension of today's plugged-in, online social networking sites. Their laidback venture for the creative-interactive set is part bar, part art gallery, part live performance space, part small business incubator, part collaborative for facilitating meeting-brainstorming-partnering.
"That whole connecting people, networking piece is really exciting to us because it's not just being an empty space for events, we're actually playing an active role in helping the creative community continue to grow," said Hudson.
Nick Hudson
Social entrepreneurship is a major focus. Nomad helps link individuals, groups and businesses together. "It's a very interesting trend that's going to be a big buzz word," Hudson said. "Nomad is a social enterprise. It's all about investing in and increasing the social capital of the community, creating networks, fostering creativity. My biggest source of passion is helping people achieve their potential."
"He's definitely done that for me," said Nomad general manager-events planner Rachel Richards. "He's seen my passion in event planning and he's opened doors I never thought I'd get through."
The Omaha native was first hired by Hudson to coordinate Nomad's special events through her Rachel Richards Events business. She's since come on board as a key staffer. With Hudson's encouragement she organized Nomad's inaugural Omaha Fashion Week last winter, a full-blown, first-class model runway show featuring works by dozens of local designers. "That was always a dream of mine," she said.
Under the Nomad Collective banner, Hudson said, "the number of social entrepreneurs and small enterprises and venture capitalist things that are coming from this space from the networking here is just phenomenal. Increasingly that's going beyond this space into start-up businesses and all sorts of things." Nomad, he said, acts as "a greenhouse for ideas and businesses to expand and grow."
Nomad encourages interplay. Massive cottonwood posts segment the gridded space into 15 semi-private cabanas whose leather chairs and sofas and built-in wood benches seat 8 to 20 guests. Velvet curtains drape the cabanas. It's all conducive to relaxation and conversation. Two tiny galleries display works by local artists.
There's a small stage and dance floor. The muted, well-stocked bar features international drink menus. Video screens and audio speakers hang here and there, adding techno touches that contrast with the worn wood floors, the rough-hewn brick walls and the exposed pipes, vents and tubes in the open rafters overhead. It all makes for an Old World meets New World mystique done over in earth tones.
Hudson embraces Nomad's flexibility as it constantly evolves, reinventing itself. In accommodating everything from birthdays/bachelorettes to release/launch parties to big sit-down dinners to more intimate, casual gatherings to social enterprise fairs and presenting everything from sculptures and paintings to live bands and theater shows to video projection, it's liable to look different every time you visit. Whatever the occasion, art, design, music and fashion are in vogue and celebrated.
Dressed-up or dressed-down, you're in synch with Nomad's positive, chic vibe.
"It's this whole thing about being premium without being pretentious," said Hudson. "Nomad is stylish, it's trendy, it's great quality. All our drinks are very carefully selected. But it's still made affordable."
In addition to staging five annual premiere events bearing the Nomad brand, the venue hosts another 90-100 events a year. Richards offers design ideas to organizations using the space and matches groups with artists and other creative types to help make doings more dynamic, more stand-alone, more happening.
Clearly, Nomad targets the Facebook generation but not exclusively. Indeed, Hudson and Richards say part of Nomad's charm is the wide age range it attracts, from 20-somethings to middle-agers and beyond.
Nomad fits into the mosaic of the Old Market, where the heart of the creative community lives and works and where a diverse crowd mixes. Within a block of Nomad are The Kaneko, the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, the Blue Barn Theatre and any number of galleries, artist studios, fine restaurants and posh shops. Nomad's a port of call in the Market's rich cultural scene.
"It's such a great creative community. We want to help make our little contribution to that and keep building on all the great things going on," said Hudson.
Besides being a destination for urban adventurers looking to do social networking or conducting business or celebrating a special occasion or just hanging out, Nomad's a site for charitable fundraisers. Hudson and Richards want to do more of what he calls "positive interventions" with nonprofits like Siena/Francis House. Last year Nomad approached the shelter with the idea for Concrete Conscience, which placed cameras in the hands of dozens of homeless clients for them to document their lives. Professional photographers lent assistance. The resulting images were displayed and sold, with proceeds going to Siena/Francis.
New, on Wednesday nights, is Nomad University, which allows guests to learn crafts from experts, whether mixing cocktails or DJing or practically anything else. It's a chance for instructors to market their skills and for students to try new things, all consistent with a philosophy Hudson and Richards ascribe to that characterizes the Nomad experience: Do what you love and do it with passion.
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- Alice's Wonderland, Former InStyle Accessories Editor Alice Kim Brings NYC Style Sense to Omaha's Trocadero (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
- Native Omaha Days: A Black is Beautiful Celebration, Now, and All the Days Gone By (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
- Back in the Day, Native Omaha Days is Reunion, Homecoming, Heritage Celebration and Party All in One (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
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Get Crackin'
Another of my stories focusing attention on Omaha black artists and other high achievers follows with this feature on the rock-blues group Crackin', whose reunion back here a few years ago was the impetus for the piece. It's one of several stories I've done that profile African Americans from here who have made major impacts in their fields of endeavor. This blog contains many of those stories, and so I invite you to stroll through the gallery of work here and discover them. It's all part of the build up to the 2011 Omaha Black Music and Community Hall of Fame Awards on July 29 at Slowdown and the July 27-August Native Omaha Days.
Get Crackin'
©by Leo Adam Biga
Originally published in The Reader (www.thereader.com)
The Hood is replete with stories of musicians who should have made it, if only…
Crackin', a smoking 1970s multi-racial rock-blues band from Omaha, did get its shot at fame. After a promising start and recordings on major labels, things fizzled and the band disbanded in '78. But "within the business people knew who we were and really loved our music," said Crackin's Arno Lucas. That rep and the talent to back it up made members in high demand. All have enjoyed serious music careers.
Three decades after splitting up, these stray cats are coming home for August 4-5 reunion concerts at the Omaha Healing Arts Center, 1216 Howard Street. Show times are 8 p.m. Saturday and 7:30 p.m. Sunday. The reunion coincides with Crackin's induction in the Omaha Black Music Hall of Fame. Some players also performed with fellow band-inductee L.A. Carnival.
Headed up by Lester Abrams, Crackin' was invited to Woodstock, NY to work with idol-maker producer Albert Grossman. Then they went to L.A. to record on the Polydor label before signing with Warners, for whom they released three albums in 1977-78. The band's lineup changed from Omaha to NY to L.A..
When the group went defunct, guys began doing their own thing.
Keyboardist/vocalist/composer Abrams co-wrote two songs on Michael McDonald's Grammy-honored album "Minute by Minute." He's collaborated with B.B. King, Stevie Wonder, Peabo Bryson, Quincy Jones, The Average White Band and The Doobie Brothers. He's composed for television and film.
Percussionist/vocalist Lucas has been an A-list sideman with Al Jarreau, Luther Vandross, Bette Midler, Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, Don Henley, Michael Jackson, Burt Bacharach, Randy Newman, Rickie Lee Jones, Chaka Kahn and Gladys Knight. He's written songs with Jarreau and for Dionne Warrick.
Bassist Rick Chudacoff and drummer Peter Bunetta own credits as co-producers/co-composers for Patti LaBelle, The Temptations, Smokey Robinson, Kenny G, and Michael Bolton. They've written for the screen, including the Beverly Hills Cop franchise, and have a new stage musical out called City Kids.
Guitarist Brian Ray has collaborated with Etta James, Peter Frampton and Rita Coolidge and his scorching licks now back Paul McCartney. He also penned Smokey Robinson's lone Grammy-winning tune, One Heartbeat.
Vocalist Leslie Smith is a first-call session artist in L.A.. Guitarist and blues journeyman Bob Bordy has played with a Who's Who of hitmakers.
An early Crackin' member was blues legend Bugsy Maugh.
For Lucas, the reunion celebrates a shared legacy and longevity. "When we walked in a room we just basically took it over. So many great personalities stood out. This thing we're about to do is…a coming together of a group of gifted artists and great friends who truly love each other. We've remained friends. Everyone's maintained a high level of musicianship. It's going to be worth seeing."
He was motivated to organize the reunion when he saw friends passing away. "I told the guys, 'If we don't get together and do this now, I don't know the next time …we can…'" It's an appreciation for the fact "life's been good to us. We're lucky to still be doing what we lov — what feeds the soul. And it's a chance to see some of the people who supported Crackin' in Omaha."
Robbie Dupree and Neal Davis are among the special guest artists expected to jam.
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- Back in the Day, Native Omaha Days is Reunion, Homecoming, Heritage Celebration and Party All in One (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
- Kevyn Morrow's Homecoming (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
- Arno Lucas, Serious Sidekick (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
- A Rich Music History Long Untold is Revealed and Celebrated at the Omaha Black Music Hall of Fame (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
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Big Bad Buddy Miles
This is one in a batch of posts I am making in the lead-up to the 2011 Omaha Black Music and Community Hall of Fame on July 29 at the Slowdown. The late Buddy Miles is one in a long list of musicians from Omaha to find stardom or at least solid success in the upper reaches of the music industry. Miles is one of those who became a legend in his own time and since his untimely death in 2008 his legend is only growing. I did this story for The Reader (www.thereader.com) on the occasion of his induction in the Omaha Black Music Hall of Fame, which after a hiatus is back this year in conjunction with Native Omaha Days. My blog is thick with stories I've done about famous African American figures from Omaha who've enjoyed breakout success in the arts, athletics, and many other fields. You'll also find stories about many other aspects of African American culture and life in these parts. Hope you enjoy the pieces as much as I enjoyed writing them.
©by Leo Adam Biga
Originally published in The Reader
Famed blues-rock drummer and singer Buddy Miles is coming home to accept the Omaha Star Award at the August 3 Omaha Black Music Hall of Fame ceremony, where he'll also perform. The 2005 inductee is using the occasion to deliver a message about the needless waste of young people to violence.
Having grown up in the '50-'60s heyday of the hep North 24th Street music scene, he rues the loss of what used to be.
"Back in the day 24th Street is where all the clubs were. It certainly is nothing like it was then. It's like a ghost town down there now…there's nothing for kids to do," he said. "That's why there's so much havoc and trouble in Omaha and…in every major city…People don't know how to go and party anymore. There's too many senseless shooting.s The time has come that we must band together as one…."
The lifetime train enthusiast hopes to convince Union Pacific Railroad to sponsor a nationwide tour, tracing the railroad's lines, for him to educate young people "about how important their lives are." His new CD, The Centennial, is named after the famous U.P. diesel engine at Kenefick Park.
He dreamed of being a train engineer. Instead he "followed in the footsteps" of his father, George A. Miles, Sr., who played upright bass with Ellington, Basie, Parker, Gordon. Buddy began playing drums at age 8. "I've been a musician all my life," he said. "I've done nothing else."
As a teen he gigged with his father's band, the Bebops, and with Preston Love, Sr. and Lester Abrams. He first made it in New York, hooking up with Wilson Pickett. He jammed in the Village with Eric Clapton. His big break came when Michael Bloomfield plucked him for the Electric Flag, a blues-rock band Miles still considers the best he ever played in. He toured-recorded widely, opening for Cream and the Jimi Hendrix Experience, and playing on albums by Hendrix and Muddy Waters. More Hendrix collaborations followed. Jimi produced an album by the Buddy Miles Express. Miles played on Hendrix's Electric Ladyland. Miles formed with Hendrix and Billy Cox the trio, Band of Gypsys, which released one album before Jimi's death.
Miles recorded hits and played with such artists as Carlos Santana, Stevie Wonder and David Bowie. His greatest commercial success came with his version of "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" for a California Raisins commercial. The gig made the classic song big again and spawned three Miles albums.
A 2005 stroke has not slowed Miles, who lives in Austin, Texas. He's even throwing down a challenge to Motley Crew bad boy drummer Tommy Lee and the rocker's MTV Husker bit. "I'll have a duel with that dude anytime he wants…We can do it at a Nebraska football game, too," Miles said, "because I'll drum him a new ass."
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Back in the Day, Native Omaha Days is Reunion, Homecoming, Heritage Celebration and Party All in One
Even though I grew up in North Omaha and lived there until age 43 or so, I didn't experience my first Native Omaha Days until I had moved out of the area, and by then I was 45, and the only reason I did intersect with The Days then, and subsequently have since, is because I was reporting on it. The fact that I didn't connect with it before is not unusual because it is essentially though by no means exclusively an African American celebration, and as you can see by my picture I am a white guy. Then there's the fact it is a highly social affair and I am anything but social, that is unless prevailed upon to be by circumstance or assignment. But I was aware of the event, admittedly vaguely so most of my life, and I eventually did press my editors at The Reader (www.thereader.com) to let me cover it. And so over the past eight years I have filed several stories related to Native Omaha Days, most of which you can now find on this blog in the run up to this year's festival, which is July 27-August 1. The story below is my most extensive in terms of trying to capture the spirit and the tradition of The Days, which encompasses many activities and brings back thousands of native Omahans – nobody's really sure how many – for a week or more of catching up family, friends, old haunts.
NOTE: The parade that is a highlight of The Days was traditionally held on North 24th Street but has more recently been moved to North 30th Street, where the parade pictures below were taken by Cyclops-Optic, Jack David Hubbell.
My blog also features many other stories related to Omaha's African American community, past and present. Check out the stories, as I'm sure you'll find several things that interest you, just as I have in pursuing these stories the last 12 years or so.
Back in the Day, Native Omaha Days is Reunion, Homecoming, Heritage Celebration and Party All in One
©by Leo Adam Biga
Originally published in The Reader (www.thereader.com)
A homecoming. That's what Native Omaha Days, a warm, rousing, week-long black heritage reunion, means to the thousands of native sons and daughters coming back in town for this biennial summer celebration. Although the spree, which unfolded July 30 through August 4 this year, features an official itinerary of activities, including a gospel night, a drill team competition, a parade, a dance and a picnic, a far larger slate of underground doings goes on between the many family and class reunions, live concerts and parties that fill out the Days. Some revelers arrive before the merriment begins, others join the fun in progress and a few stay over well after it's done. A revival and carnival in one, the Days is a refreshing, relaxing antidote to mainstream Omaha's uptight ways.
North Omaha bars, clubs and restaurants bustle with the influx of out-of-towners mixing with family and old friends. North 24th Street is a river of traffic as people drive the drag to see old sites and relive old times. Neighborhoods jump to the beat of hip-hop, R&B and soul resounding from house parties and family gatherings under way. Even staid Joslyn Art Museum and its stodgy Jazz on the Green take on a new earthy, urban vibe from the added black presence. As one member of the sponsoring Native Omahans Club said of the festival, "this is our Mardi Gras."
Shirley Stapleton-Odems is typical of those making the pilgrimage. Born and raised in Omaha — a graduate of Howard Kennedy Elementary School and Technical High School — Stapleton-Odems is a small business owner in Milwaukee who wouldn't miss the Days for anything. "Every two years I come back…and it's hard sometimes for me to do, but no matter what I make it happen," she said. "I have friends who come from all over the country to this, and I see some people I haven't seen in years. We all meet here. We're so happy to see each other. It's a reunion thing. It's like no matter how long you're gone, this is still home to us."
As Omaha jazz-blues guru Preston Love, a former Basie sideman and Motown band leader and the author of the acclaimed book A Thousand Honey Creeks Later, observed, "Omahans are clannish" by nature. "There's a certain kindredness. Once you're Omaha, you're Omaha." Or, as David Deal, whose Skeets Ribs & Chicken has been a fixture on 24th Street since 1952, puts it, "People that moved away, they're not out-of-towners, they're still Omahans — they just live someplace else." Deal sees many benefits from the summer migration. "It's an opportunity for people to come back to see who's still here and who's passed on. It's an economic boost to businesses in North Omaha."
Homecoming returnees like Stapleton-Odems feel as if they are taking part in something unique. She said, "I don't know of any place in the country where they have something like this where so many people over so many generations come together." Ironically, the fest' was inspired by long-standing Los Angeles and Chicago galas where transplanted black Nebraskans celebrate their roots. Locals who've attended the L.A. gig say it doesn't compare with Omaha's, which goes to the hilt in welcoming back natives.
Perhaps the most symbolic event of the week is the mammoth Saturday parade that courses down historic North 24th Street. It is an impressionistic scene of commerce and culture straight out of a Spike Lee film. On a hot August day, thousands of spectators line either side of the street, everyone insinuating their bodies into whatever patch of shade they can find. Hand-held fans provide the only breeze.
Vendors, selling everything from paintings to CDs to jewelry to hot foods and cold beverages to fresh fruits and vegetables, pitch their products under tents staked out in parking lots and grassy knolls. Grills and smokers work overtime, wafting the hickory-scented aroma of barbecue through the air. Interspersed at regular intervals between the caravan of decorated floats festooned with signs hawking various local car dealerships, beauty shops, fraternal associations and family trees are the funky drill teams, whose dancers shake their booties and grind their hips to the precise, rhythmic snaring of whirling dervish drummers. Paraders variously hand-out or toss everything from beads to suckers to grab-bags full of goodies.
A miked DJ "narrates" the action from an abandoned gas station, at one point mimicking the staccato sound of the drilling. A man bedecked in Civil War-era Union garb marches with a giant placard held overhead emblazoned with freedom slogans, barking into a bullhorn his diatribe against war mongers. A woman hands out spiritual messages.
Long the crux of the black community, 24th Street or "Deuce Four" as denizens know it, is where spectators not only take in the parade as it passes familiar landmarks but where they greet familiar figures with How ya' all doin'? embraces and engage in free-flowing reminiscences about days gone by. Everywhere, a reunion of some sort unfolds around you. Love is in the air.
The parade had a celebrity this time — Omaha native actress Gabrielle Union (Deliver Us From Eva). Looking fabulous in a cap, blouse and shorts, she sat atop the back seat of a convertible sedan sponsored by her father's family, the Abrams, whose reunion concided with the fest'. "This is just all about the people of north Omaha showing pride for the community and reaching out to each other and committing to a sense of togetherness," said Union, also a member of the Bryant-Fisher family, which has a large stake in and presence at the Days. "It's basically like a renewal. Each generation comes down and everyone sits around and talks. It's like a passing of oral history, which is…a staple of our community and our culture. It's kind of cool being part of it."
She said being back in the hood evokes many memories. "It's funny because I see the same faces I used to hang out with here, so a lot of mischievous memories are coming back. It's like, Do you remember the time? So, a lot of good times. A lot of times we probably shouldn't of been having as young kids. But basically it's just a lot of good memories and a lot of lessons learned right here on 24th."
The three-mile parade is aptly launched at 24th and Burdette. There, Charles Hall's now closed Fair Deal Cafe, once called "the black city hall," provided a forum for community leaders to debate pressing issues and to map-out social action plans. Back in the day, Hall was known to give away food during the parade, which ends at Kountze Park, long a popular gathering spot in north Omaha. Across the street is Skeets, one of many soul food eateries in the area. Just down the road a piece is the Omaha Star, where legendary publisher Mildred Brown held court from the offices of her crusading black newspaper. Across the street is the Jewell Building, where James Jewell's Dreamland Ballroom hosted black music greats from Armstrong to Basie to Ellington to Holiday, and a little further north, at 24th and Lake, is where hep cat juke joints like the M & M Lounge and McGill's Blue Room made hay, hosting red hot jam sessions.
Recalling when, as one brother put it, "it was real," is part and parcel of the Days. It's all about "remembering how 24th and Lake was…the hot spot for the black community," said Native Omahans Club member Ann Ventry. "We had everything out here," added NOC member Vera Johnson, who along with Bettie McDonald is credited with forming the club and originating the festival. "We had cleaners, barber shops, beauty parlors, bakeries, grocery stores, ice cream stores, restaurants, theaters, clothing stores, taxi companies, doctors' offices. You name it, we had it. We really didn't have to go out of the neighborhood for anything," Johnson said. Many businesses were black-owned, too. North O was, as lifelong resident Charles Carter describes it, "it's own entity. That was the lifestyle."
For James Wightman, a 1973 North High and 1978 UNL grad, the homecoming is more than a chance to rejoin old friends, it's a matter of paying homage to a legacy. "Another reason we come back and go down 24th Street is to honor where we grew up. I grew up at the Omaha Boys Club and I played ball at the Bryant Center. There was so much to do down on the north side and your parents let you walk there. Kids can't do that anymore." Noting its rich history of jazz and athletics, Wightman alluded to some of the notables produced by north Omaha, including major league baseball Hall of Famer Bob Gibson, Heisman winner Johnny Rodgers, jazzman Preston Love, social activist Malcolm X, actor John Beasley and Radio One founder and CEO Catherine Liggins Hughes.
For Helen McMillan Caraway, an Omaha native living in Los Angeles, sauntering down 24th Street brings back memories of the music lessons she took from Florentine Kingston, whose apartment was above a bakery on the strip. "After my music lesson I'd go downstairs and get a brownie or something," she said. "I had to steer clear of the other side of the street, where there was a bar called McGill's that my father, Dr. Aaron McMillan, told me, 'Don't go near.'" Being in Omaha again makes the Central High graduate think of "the good times we used to have at Carter Lake and all the football games. I loved that. I had a good time growing up here."
For native Omahan Terry Goodwin Miller, now residing in Dallas, being back on 24th Street or "out on the stem," as natives refer to it, means remembering where she and her best girlfriend from Omaha, Jonice Houston Isom, also of Dallas, got their first hair cut. It was at the old Tuxedo Barbershop, whose nattily attired proprietors, Marcus "Mac" McGee and James Bailey, ran a tight ship in the street level shop they ran in the Jewell Building, right next to a pool hall and directly below the Dreamland. Being in Omaha means stopping at favorite haunts, like Time Out Foods, Joe Tess Place and Bronco's or having a last drink at the now closed Backstreet Lounge. It means, Goodwin Miller said, "renewing friendships…and talking about our lives and seeing family." It means dressing to the nines and flashing bling-bling at the big dance and, when it's over, feeling like "we don't want to go home and grabbing something to eat and coming back to 24th Street to sit around and wait for people to come by that we know."
Goodwin Miller said the allure of renewing Omaha relationships is so strong that despite the fact she and Houston Isom live in Dallas now, "we don't see each other there, but when we come here we're together the whole time."
Skeets' David Deal knows the territory well. From his restaurant, which serves till 2 a.m., he sees native Omahans drawn, at all hours, to their old stomping grounds. He's no different. "We're just coming down here to have a good time and seeing people we haven't seen in years." Sometimes, it's as simple as "sitting around and watching the cars go by, just like we used to back in the good old days."
North Omaha. More than a geographic sector, it is the traditional, cultural heart of the local black community encompassing the social-historical reality of the African-American experience. Despite four decades of federally-mandated civil rights, equal opportunity, fair housing and affirmative action measures the black community here is still a largely separate, unequal minority in both economic and political terms and suffers a lingering perception problem — born out of racism — that unfairly paints the entire near northside as a crime and poverty-ridden ghetto. Pockets of despair do exist, but in fact north Omaha is a mostly stable area undergoing regentrification. There is the 24-square block Miami Heights housing-commercial development going up between 30th and 36th Streets and Miami and Lake Streets, near the new Salem Baptist Church. There is the now under construction North Omaha Love's Jazz, Cultural Arts and Humanities Complex, named for Preston Love, on the northwest corner of 24th and Lake. The same sense of community infusing Native Omaha Days seems to be driving this latest surge of progress, which finds black professionals like attorney Brenda Council moving back to their roots.
Former NU football player James Wightman (1975-1978) has been coming back for the Days the past eight years, first from Seattle and now L.A., and he said, "I'm pretty pleased with what's going on now in terms of the development. When I lived here there was a stampede of everybody getting out of Omaha because there weren't as many opportunities. I look at Omaha's growth and I see we're a rich, thriving community now." During the Days he stays, as many do, with family and hooks up with ex-jocks like Dennis Forrest (Central High) and Bobby Bass (Omaha Benson) to just kick it around. "We're spread out in different locations now but we all come back and it's like we never missed a beat." The idea of a black pride week generating goodwill and dollars in the black community appeals to Wightman, who said, "I came to spend my money on the north side. And I'll be back in two years."
Wightman feels the Days can serve as a beacon of hope to today's disenfranchised inner city youth. "I think it sends a message to the youth that there are good things happening. That people still come back because they feel a sense of family, friendship and connection that a lot of young people don't have today. All my friends are in town for their school-family reunions and we all love each other. There's none of this rival Bloods-Crips stuff. We talk about making a difference. It's not just about a party, it's a statement that we can all get along with each other."
"It just shows there's a lot of good around here," said Omaha City Councilman Frank Brown, who represents largely black District 2, "but unfortunately it's not told by the news media." Scanning the jam-packed parade route, a beaming Brown said, "This is a four-hour event and there's thousands of people of all ages here and they're smiling and enjoying themselves and there's no problems. When you walk around you see people hugging each other. There's tears in some of their eyes because they haven't seen their friends, who've become their family."
Family is a recurring theme of the Days. "My family all lives here." said John Welchen, a 1973 Tech High grad now living in Inglewood, Calif. For him, the event also "means family" in the larger sense. "To me, all of the friends I grew up with and everyone I've become acquainted with over the years is my extended family. It's getting a chance to just see some great friends from the past and hear a lot of old stories and enjoy a lot of laughter."
Native Omahans living in the rush-rush-rush of impersonal big cities look forward to getting back to the slower pace and gentler ways of the Midwest. "From the time I get off the plane here I notice a difference," said Houston Odems, who flies into Omaha from Dallas. "People are polite…kind. To me, you just can't beat it. I tell people all the time it's a wonderful place to have grown-up. I mean, I still know the people who sold me my first car and the people who dry-cleaned my clothes."
Although the Days traces its start back to 1977, when the Native Omahans Club threw the first event, celebrations commemorating the ties that bind black Omahans go back well before then. As a young girl in the '50s, Stapleton-Odems was a majorette in an Elks drill team that strutted their stuff during 24th Street parades. "It's a gathering that's been gong on since I can remember," she said.
Old-timers say the first few Native Omaha Days featured more of a 24/7, open-air, street-party atmosphere. "We were out in the middle of the street all night long just enjoying each other," said Billy Melton, a lifelong Omahan and self-styled authority on the north side. "There was live entertainment — bands playing — every six blocks. Guys set up tents in the parks to just get with liquor. After the dances let out people would go up and down the streets till six in the morning. Everybody dressed. Everybody looking like a star. It was a party town and we knew how to party. It was something to see. No crime…nothing. Oh, yeah…there was a time when we were like that, and I'm glad to have lived in that era."
According to Melton, an original member of the Native Omahans Club, "some people would come a week early to start bar hopping. They didn't wait for Native Omaha Days. If certain people didn't come here, there was no party."
Charles Carter is no old-timer, but he recalls the stroll down memory lane that was part of past fests. "They used to have a walk with a continuous stream of people on either side of the street. What they were doing was reenacting the old days when at nighttime 24th Street was alive. There were so many people you couldn't find a place to walk, much less park. It was unbelievable. A lot of people are like me and hold onto the thought this is the way north Omaha was at one time and it's unfortunate our children can't see it because there's so much rich history there."
Then there was the huge bash Billy Melton and his wife Martha threw at their house. "It started early in the morning and lasted all night. It was quite a thing. Music, liquor, all kinds of food. It was a big affair," Melton said. "I had my jukebox in the backyard and we'd have dancing on the basketball court. Endless conversations. That's what it's all about."
Since the emergence of gang street violence in the mid-80s, observers like Melton and Carter say the fest is more subdued, with nighttime doings confined to formal, scheduled events like the gospel night at Salem and the dance at Mancuso Hall and the 24th Street rag relegated to the North Omahans Club or other indoor venues.
A reunion ultimately means saying goodbye, hence the close of the Days is dubbed Blue Monday. Most out-of-towners have left by then, but the few stalwarts that remain mix with die-hard residents for a final round or two at various drinking holes, toasting fat times together and getting high to make the parting less painful. After a week of carousing, out-of-town revelers wear their exhaustion like a badge of honor. "You're supposed to be tired from all this," Houston Isom said. "There's no such thing as sleeping during this week. I can't even take a nap because I'll be worried I might be missing something." Goodwin Miller builds in recovery time, saying, "When I go home I take a day off before I go back to work." She and the others can't wait to do it all over again two years from now.
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