Jazz was a cosmopolitan metaphor for Langston Hughes, a force for cultural convergence beyond the reach of words, or the limits of any one language.
It called up visual for him as well, most pointedly the surrealistic techniques of painterly collage and of the film editing developed in this country in the 1930s and 40s, which condensed time and space, conveyed to the viewer a great array of information in short compass, and which offered the possibility of suggesting expanded states of consciousness, chaotic remembrances of past events or dreams — through montage. “To me,” Hughes wrote, “jazz is a montage of a dream deferred. A great big dream — yet to come — and always yet to become ultimately and finally true.”
Ask Your Mama was dedicated to Louis Armstrong, “the greatest horn blower of them all,” and to those of whatever hue or culture of origin who welcomed being immersed in the mysteries, rituals, names, and nuances of black life not just in America but in the Caribbean, in Latin America, in Europe and Africa during the years of anti-colonial upheaval abroad and the rising Freedom Movement here at home. Not only the youthful Martin Luther King, Jr. but the independence leaders of Guinea and Nigeria and Ghana and Kenya and the Congo fill the chants and refrains of Hughes’s epic poem.
Life & Work
Bio:
Dr. Ronald C. McCurdy is Professor of Music at the USC Thornton School of Music where he served as chair of the Jazz Studies department for six years (2002-2008). Prior to his appointment at USC he served as Director of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz at USC (1999-2001). He has served as Professor of Music and chair of the Afro-African American Studies Department and served as Director of Jazz Studies at the University of Minnesota (1990-1999). In 1997, Dr. McCurdy served as Visiting Professor at Maria-Curie Sklodowska University in Lublin, Poland. In 2001 Dr. McCurdy received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Kansas.
Dr. McCurdy continues to tour the Langston Hughes Project, a multimedia presentation based on the Hughes’ poem, “Ask Your Mama.” This was Hughes’ social commentary on the struggle for freedom and equality among Africans and African Americans. In 2008 he premiered the orchestral version of The Langston Hughes Project, Ask Your Mama: 12 Mood for Jazz with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra with rapper and television actor, Ice-T. The multimedia presentation features jazz quartet, spoken-word and images from the Harlem Renaissance.
Dr. McCurdy’s latest CD is titled; April In Paris features his vocal, funk band called the Ron McCurdy Collective. His first CD, Once Again for the First Time on the INNOVA label enjoyed critical acclaim as well. He has also released a CD of the Langston Hughes Project, Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz.
Dr. McCurdy served a consultant to the Grammy Foundation educational programs including serving as director of the National Grammy Vocal Jazz Ensemble. He served as Director of the Walt Disney All-American Summer College Jazz Ensemble and Jazz Singers for twenty years. A few of the guest artists he has worked with include Joe Williams, Rosemary Clooney, Leslie Uggams, Arturo Sandoval, Diane Schuur, Ramsey Lewis, Mercer Ellington, Dr. Billy Taylor, Maynard Ferguson, Lionel Hampton, and Dianne Reeves, Ellis Marsalis, and many others. He has served as a member of the Jamey Aebersold Jazz Camp faculty. Dr. McCurdy is a performing artist for the Yamaha International Corporation.
Quotes, Notes & Etc.
Career Highlights:
Served as president of the International Association for Jazz Education 2000-2002
Served as Director of the Thelonious Monk Institute (1999-2001)
Letters From Zora (Hurston): In Her Own Words– Pasadena Playhouse (2011)
Langston Hughes Project performance at Disney Hall (2015)
Premiered Harlem South: A Few Through The Lens– Grammy Museum (2019)
Premiered Shanghai Jazz: A Cultural Mix– USC Visions and Voices (2019)
Honors, Awards & Competitions:
Jazz Educator of the Year 2005 (LA Jazz Society)
Distinguished Alumni, University of Kansas (2001)
Langston Hughes Project w/ guest Rapper Ice-T- Winner- Best “Live” Performance for FM Awards in London (2015)
Recordings:
Once Again for the First Time, INNOVA Records (2002)
April In Paris, McBop Records (2009)
The Langston Hughes Project- “Live” at the Huntington (2010)
Letters From Zora: In Her Own Words — Soundtrack (2011)
Compositions:
Once Again for the First Time
Madeleine’s Lullaby
And Your Point Would Be….?
Research Interests:
African and African American Culture and Music
Jazz & Leadership
Artist Entrepreneurship
Publications:
The Artist Entrepreneur: Finding Success in a New Arts Economy, Rowman & Litterfield Publication, 2019
Teaching Music in Performance Through Jazz: Vol. I, Gia Publication, 2008
African Americans and Popular Culture (Edited by Todd Boyd), 2007
Meet the Great Jazz Legends, Alfred Publishing, 2004
Approaching the Standards, Warner Bros., 2000
Academic degrees:
PhD, University of Kansas, 1983
MM, University of Kansas, 1978
BM, Florida A&M University, 1976
Studied with:
David Baker, Jamey Aebersold, Willie Thomas, John McNeil, Ken Slone, and Boyd Hood
The Recôncavo is an almost invisible center-of-gravity. Circumscribing the Bay of All Saints, this region was landing for more enslaved human beings than any other such throughout all of human history. Not unrelated, it is also birthplace of some of the most physically & spiritually uplifting music ever made. —Sparrow
"Dear Sparrow: I am thrilled to receive your email! Thank you for including me in this wonderful matrix."
—Susan Rogers: Personal recording engineer for Prince, inc. "Purple Rain", "Sign o' the Times", "Around the World in a Day"... Director of the Berklee Music Perception and Cognition Laboratory
I'm Pardal here in Brazil (that's "Sparrow" in English). The deep roots of this project are in Manhattan, where Allen Klein (managed the Beatles and The Rolling Stones) called me about royalties for the estate of Sam Cooke... where Jerry Ragovoy (co-wrote Time is On My Side, sung by the Stones; Piece of My Heart, Janis Joplin of course; and Pata Pata, sung by the great Miriam Makeba) called me looking for unpaid royalties... where I did contract and licensing for Carlinhos Brown's participation on Bahia Black with Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock...
...where I rescued unpaid royalties for Aretha Franklin (from Atlantic Records), Barbra Streisand (from CBS Records), Led Zeppelin, Mongo Santamaria, Gilberto Gil, Astrud Gilberto, Airto Moreira, Jim Hall, Wah Wah Watson (Melvin Ragin), Ray Barretto, Philip Glass, Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd for his interest in Bob Marley compositions, Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam and others...
...where I worked with Earl "Speedo" Carroll of the Cadillacs (who went from doo-wopping as a kid on Harlem streetcorners to top of the charts to working as a janitor at P.S. 87 in Manhattan without ever losing what it was that made him special in the first place), and with Jake and Zeke Carey of The Flamingos (I Only Have Eyes for You)... stuff like that.
Yeah this is Bob's first record contract, made with Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd of Studio One and co-signed by his aunt because he was under 21. I took it to Black Rock to argue with CBS' lawyers about the royalties they didn't want to pay. They paid.
MATRIX MUSICAL
The Matrix was built below among some of the world's most powerfully moving music, some of it made by people barely known beyond village borders. Or in the case of Sodré, his anthem A MASSA — a paean to Brazil's poor ("our pain is the pain of a timid boy, a calf stepped on...") — having blasted from every radio between the Amazon and Brazil's industrial south, before he was silenced. (that's me left, with David Dye & Kim Junod for U.S. National Public Radio) ... The Matrix started with Sodré, with João do Boi, with Roberto Mendes, with Bule Bule, with Roque Ferreira... music rooted in the sugarcane plantations of Bahia. Hence our logo (a cane cutter).