#My artist relatives and a few 'lessons' when I was in elementary school | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

alluringjae · 3 years

Text

queen of hearts - sjn

summary: for the first time, one of your star students hasn’t been fetched right after class. but when she finally does, you weren’t expecting such a fine man to be her father.

pairing: johnny x female reader

word count: 5.5k

genre: fluff, romance, comedy | ceo and single dad!johnny + ballerina!reader + modern day!au

warnings: mentions of an absent parent, johnny being an overthinker, sexual innuendos (ten saying dilf hehe), slight explicit language, technical terms of ballet, a mini reference to mean girls

author’s note: sooo i came in touch with my former dance life, which led me to write this. there are links for the variations i used; their names are underlined when they’re mentioned. i am going to get technical with ballet terms here (even when my ballet knowledge decreased), so to any dancers reading, i really did my best, so please don’t come for me or do correct me for any mistakes.

although one character and her dance background, plus the name of the setting, are real, everything else about it is still a work of fiction.

i miss dancing, no cap.

leave me some feedback, constructive criticism or hellos!

Ballet student and teacher by day, a soloist of the Korean National Ballet at night.

This was your daily routine, and it wasn’t the typical 8-5. But it’s debatable whether or not it was worse, because you’re always going overtime. That’s the thing when you’re an overachiever. Nonetheless, you loved what you do. It’s the lifestyle you gradually built since your preschool days.

Mornings on the weekdays were mostly vacant since all the kids were still in school. You’d start at 10 am for a warm-up class for the company. Before you delved into teaching and assisting, you’d train right after your lunch break. Partnering class, en pointe class, 1-on-1 sessions with choreographers, self-practice, then the company night class, that’s the organization of your week.

Now adding the teacher title, you mostly handled kindergartners to 5th graders in the academy aspect of the company. Your first teaching class would start at 1 pm. It’s when the younger students who finished their morning classes zoom into your assigned dance studio. One class would last an hour and a half, then you have a 30-minute break in between another class with the older kids. Their lesson repertoire was more strenuous due to the added across-the-floor lessons and jumps. Water was always your best friend, water refilling stations located everywhere in the company building.

You wouldn’t say you’re a strict teacher, but you weren’t shy to correct anyone from wherever you stood. You’d lightly align their arms or back properly so your students were working on the correct body parts. Compared to the other teachers, a lot of students enjoyed your kind yet frank approaches. Your former students, who’ve already gone to the higher levels, missed your lively presence and wished repeatedly that they want you back as their teacher.

“Teacher (Y/N), I miss you so much! Teacher Ten is so intense. I get the jitters especially when we’re en pointe on the floor.”

“Teacher (Y/N), Teacher Sicheng and Teacher Seulgi scare the heck out of me during partnering class. Especially when I tried to lift my partner, I keep losing focus because of Teacher Sicheng’s never-ending comments!”

Not to be sadistic, but you’d simply laugh at their minuscule complaints. Even if they’re struggling in the academy, those comments were directed to fix their techniques if they wanted to breakthrough.

“Kids, you’re going to be fine! They wouldn’t say or do those things just because they wanted to. They’re here to push you to the next level, like how I used to do with you. It’s a cut-throat industry after all.”

This was always your reply, bittersweet and truthful. Not everyone makes it, unfortunately, so if you’re really striving, you’d do whatever it takes. Throughout your career, you’re relatively impressed with how far you’ve come.

Trainee at 17, Corps de Ballet at 18, Demi-Soloist at 21, and Soloist at 23.

You’ve been a soloist for 4 years. The final stage, which was to become a principal dancer, is your running goal. Becoming a soloist was praiseworthy enough because you’ve seen so many give up in the Corps, but claiming a spot as a principal dancer has been the ultimate dream. Since you’ve watched Swan Lake for the first time at 4 years old with your parents, that’s where you found a passion for dancing and the stage. Here you are years later, practicing numerous variations daily, performing in opera houses, and mentoring all these gifted kids.

Your last class with elementary kids, which began around 5 pm, reached its end once all the students curtsied in front of you and scurried to their mothers or their nannies. The remaining plan on your agenda today was the company class at 7:30 pm, which exceeds the average hour and a half. It’s worse during show season. There have been times everyone went beyond midnight to polish every scene from head to toe.

Currently, there’s no upcoming show for the public, though the annual summer recital for the students was around the corner. Selected members of the company were chosen to perform individually in it, which was both exciting and intense. It’s also because it’s an evaluation on whether you’d get promoted in status or staying put. You’ve partaken in 3 recitals in the past, two of which elevated you from the corps and demi-soloist ranks. The recent one, however, didn’t change your soloist ranking.

It was a major first in your career in ballet, and after finding out the result of the latter, it emotionally pained you. Recalling how much soul you put into that piece, the rejection from your artistic director clenched your heart. Though in time, you moved on from it and viewed it as a stepping stone. Also, Sicheng and Ten personally stormed your apartment to pull yourself together with wine and pizza after going on a short leave.

Since you were trainees, Sicheng and Ten were your best friends in and outside the company. Working daily to occasional barhopping, that’s your youth summed up. It wasn’t because you didn’t like the girls you’ve worked with (though a lot of them were fake and bitchy), but these two were frank and humorous as hell. Together, you’d help each other with your goals rather than be competitive. Over time, Ten leveled up to a principal dancer for 2 years running while you and Sicheng were still soloists. The way you’d watch Ten take all the big roles, that’s where you want to be one day.

Back in your last teaching class, the entire dance room was vacant. Since it’s mainly used for ballet classes, you’d either run through anything you’ve practiced from the company classes and polish it or warm up a little bit more.

Except for today, this was the only free time to sew a new pair of pointe shoes because your current ones were dead. Dead in a sense that the hard shell turned soft, which won’t be able to support you when you’re up on your toes. You’re not taking any risks of minor injuries especially when you’re in the current lineup of company members performing for this upcoming recital again. You have to prove to everyone that you deserve a position as a principal dancer.

As your legs sprawled in a half middle split, your sewing equipment laid in front of you like you’re about to perform surgery, a tiny girl stood by the ajar studio doors. In her neat bun and holding on to her small duffel bag, you’re convinced everyone has gone home already since it’s quite late.

You may have your priorities as a company member, but she was still your student.

“Minji!” You shouted her name, speedily waving your hand. You’re not one to have favorites, though you couldn’t help wonder how extraordinary she was. She’s always taking charge in demonstrating the lessons to everyone and improving every session in the 3 years she’s joined the academy. “Come in! Come in!”

At age 7, she’s gotten taller through the years, above the average from how you see it. She must have amazing genetics. Her legs sauntered in seconds to you. Sitting down across you, she marveled at your setup. Specifically, at the fresh pointe shoes.

“Are those yours, Teacher (Y/N)?” She perked up, caressing its soft fabric and playing with the mini bows of the drawstrings.

“Yes, it is, Minji!” You answered while trying to insert the thin thread through the small eye of the needle. “Why are you still here? Is your nanny stuck in traffic or something?”

“My nanny went on sudden leave, so my dad’s the one fetching me. But I think he’s running late from his job.”

Oh, this was a first to know about her father. In all the years she’s been your student, you rarely caught sight of him, even in recitals. Maybe he sat in an unknown section, but you’re pretty much acquainted with all the parents of your students. Even if some were snobbier than the rest because they wanted their child to have more stage time, you still got to know them out of respect. Quite odd, if you said so yourself.

After deep concentration, the thread triumphantly passed through the eye so you tied the two ends of the thread in a double knot. Seeing as Minji attentively watched you, you tasked her to cut the ribbons of your shoes according to the trail of pencil marks. This was so she wouldn’t cut it too short or too long. While she did that, you hammered your shoes against the floor to soften the hard front, bending the shank back and forth so the arch of your feet could move without difficulty later.

Minji wasn’t expecting such loud sounds, her entire body shaken awake. Her facial expression was priceless, explaining to her, “Once you get your first pointe shoes in a few years, this is one of the basic things you need to do so your feet won’t hurt too much while dancing.”

“Will you be there to teach me how to make my pointe shoes?”

“Absolutely! Come to me first then I’ll mentor you all that I know.”

The process of sewing and breaking new pointe shoes engraved your mind since your adolescent years, with changes along the way. Inspired by some tricks from your former teachers, but there were some differing rituals you followed. There’s no definite process of it, just as long you’re comfortable to dance after.

With your feet, you stepped on the hard boxes of the shoes to soften it more, creating a popping sound. Followed by sewing your elastic bands in. For your ribbons, you liked to burn the edges with a lighter so the thread of it won’t run. Kindly asking your cute assistant for the lighter beside her, you scanned the edges back and forth the flame. In seconds, the edges had a distinct mark, fully closed. From there, you slid your feet to your shoes to make final sewing adjustments. Sewing your ribbons took you another few minutes, plus adding superglue inside the shoe so the shoe won’t collapse when it unstiffens and scratching the shank with a cutter so you won’t slip later while dancing.

Voila, the final product is done! Hopefully, it can last you a week at least.

“Wow, Teacher (Y/N), it looks pretty!” Minji applauded, collecting the mess you’ve both made to dispose of later. You, on the other hand, gave her your thanks once you applied some bandages on your big toes and put on your toe pads. Slipping inside the shoes and tying them, you rose up back to your feet and headed to the bar to break them in. From plies-relevésto forced arches, the shoes gave you the sensation that they were an extension of your feet. The ease flowed through, meaning you were ready to practice your variations.

While you stepped your shoes in rosin for friction, your curious student moved to the front where the mirror lied to watch what you’ve prepared.

“What variation are you dancing to?”

“This is the Gamzatti variation from La Bayadere.” You replied, tapping the play button on your phone and racing to your position on the side. Talking a short ballet walk, you strongly prepared your arms before the music of the orchestra takes off.

This variation consisted of a lot of jumps and turns. Grand jetés, attitude turns, chaîné turns, you needed a lot of core control and proper spotting so you won’t get dizzy. The thrilling music lessened your nerves because you enjoyed learning this piece from one of the principal dancers, smiling and letting the music guide your legs. Once you nailed 3 consecutive grand jetés, the variation ended with a sus-sous and the wrists of your hands flicking upwards.

Holding it for 5 more seconds, you landed back on your feet with heavy breathing and a need for water. But before you could, small claps and cheers from Minji in front erupted. Momentarily, you’ve forgotten her presence because dancing solo puts you in your own space. You’d never let anyone take you away from it.

“Teacher (Y/N), that was wonderful! Are you performing that in the summer recital?”

Yikes, she’s right but she wasn’t meant to see it yet. Solo performances from the company members for the recital were top secret, only unveiled during the production rehearsal. Well, you didn’t think this through, but you didn’t mind.

“Can you keep a secret?”

Time ticked a lot faster today, only 10 minutes left until the company class on the ground floor whereas you were in the second. Just a few steps down the stairs away, yet Minji was still here. You only presumed that within your hour break, her father could’ve made it already. But maybe he’s stuck in traffic or at work.

“Minji, my class starts soon. Have you contacted your father?”

“I already texted him earlier, but he hasn’t responded. This happens often, he’s a busy man.” She bowed in front of you suddenly. “I’m sorry, Teacher (Y/N) for the hassle.”

“Oh no, please!” You shook your hands so she’d stop. Because this situation was relatively new, you were unsure of how to handle it. Or that was until you remembered what Ten texted you earlier. “Minji, the blinds of the main studio are going to be lifted so anyone from the outside can view us practicing. Would you like to watch until your dad gets here?”

With her insistent nodding, she situated herself in one of the seats in the front row. When you entered the main studio, your two close companions already carried a metal barre to the center and leaned towards it while observing you walking to them in your flat shoes.

“I see we have a bit of an audience here.” Ten glimpsed at the young girl, astonished by the many dancers prepping and chatting away with their cliques from the glass barrier.

“Her dad isn’t here yet, and you did say the blinds were up today. Might as well give her a show while she waits, you know.” You lifted your right leg to the top barre, stretching it with your arms.

“Hmmm, shouldn’t her dad be more cautious though? It’s getting late and it’s a Thursday. Doesn’t she have school or something?” Sicheng pointed out, discarding his muscle tee to straighten out his leotard.

“That’s not my business though. She’s just my student, and since she’s still here, I have to entertain her while she waits.”

Before your friends said anything back, the artistic director of the ballet company strutted her way to the center of the room. It’s a common rule here that once she entered, everyone must be silent to listen and race to any free spot in the numerous barres spread out if they haven’t.

“Alright, everyone. We’ll do the typical barre, then before doing across the floor exercises, I’ll be requesting those performing solos already in the recital to dance any variation tonight as another evaluation on who deserves to perform twice.” She eyed the pianist directly beside her. “Proceed first with two demi-pliés then one grand plié. Don’t forget to do the port de bras of each position.”

As the live piano music played, your focus was divided. Partly properly executing the exercise while your artistic director roamed each barre area, partly thinking about what variation to perform. This was a first for the company, and everyone was just stunned to hear the breaking news. It’d be nice to get an extra opportunity to showcase to people your potential.

30-40 minutes flew by quickly. As the guys carried the bars to the side to clear out the floor and the girls changed to their pointe shoes, the artistic director ordered all the performers of the recitals to stand in a line in front of her. Everyone else was seated around the room, so the interested eyes of everyone were on you. There were 10 performers, half are from the corps and the other half are either demi-soloists or soloists. You and Sicheng stood beside each other, internally shaking with nerves under the intimidating eyes of the artistic director. She used to be a principal dancer for the Stuttgart Ballet in Germany before moving back to Seoul, making her undeniably capable of leading all of you.

“Okay,” From her seated position observing the 10 performers, her finger pointed at you directly. “Ms. (Y/L/N) (Y/N), you perform first.”

Your nerves intensified and more sweat streamed out your upper body. Even if going first felt more relieving, no one was ever brave enough to perform individually in front of the esteemed artistic director. Principal dancers aside from Ten that you’re close with were intimidated when they have 1-on-1 or partnering sessions with her. But anyhow, in less than 2 minutes, you’d be done. This wasn’t the first time she’s had your full attention either, so you’ll treat it like the other individual performances you’ve had.

You smiled to yourself when the other soloists left you alone, while you gave the name of the variation you’re dancing to the pianist. Running to the side to put on a practice tutu, the artistic director asked, “What will you be dancing for us tonight, (Y/N)?”

“I’ll be dancing Queen of the Dryads from Don Quixote.”

The last time you did this variation was 3 years ago during the recital that didn’t change your position as a soloist. Even if this variation hurt to think about for a while, it was still one of your favorites to watch and do. Moving on, you could only muse how powerful and beautiful you felt at that time. This isn’t an easy piece to perform in your opinion. Yet according to the members of the company, this was their favorite solo of yours.

As the starting notes unfolded, you took a deep breath and elegantly walked into the frame. You only wished you wore your fake crown again for this. Minimal smiling and light arms, you imagined yourself as an actual queen who captured the eyes of many. In this case, your fellow seniors and juniors held their breaths at the captivating sight of you.

Off you go into a series of glissade jeté developpé on relevé at elevating heights, then a fouetté arabesque and another arabesque on relevé before ballet walking again to the side to dance across the stage. Sissonne to the front, right developpé to the front on relevé, pique to prepare for a single pirouette, you gracefully did a chassé to the front twice and stood on your toes with a sus-sous.

Doing it a few more times, the climax of the entire variation was nearing. Returning to the center, you took another deep breath and lifted your left leg for the Italian fouettés. Spotting to the front and back while maintaining your balance, the variation approached its end with lame duck turns, posing with your arms were positioned at a 45-degree angle, your back slightly arched and your left leg doing a tendu derriére. Your eyes reflected at the mirror in front, surveying your alignment. Once your 5-second hold was finished, you properly put your arms down and closed your back leg into 5th position.

The applause from everyone in the room roared, Ten and Sicheng wolf-whistling even for more support. It’s a usual thing every time any of you perform individually, and no one minded it. The artistic director grinned, giving a quiet clap from the front before calling out the next performer, who was from the corps. Bowing to everyone hastily, you paid more attention to spot your student by the window. She was smiling ear to ear, waving both hands at you.

“You did amazing, Teacher!” She mouthed. Hearing words of praise from members was one thing, but hearing them from students was another. You’re so used to watching them and giving them your compliments that you often forget that you’re a dancer first before a teacher. Seeing them all delighted, saying that it motivates them more, showed that you’re doing a great job teaching them. You’re a reflection of what you pass down, and all you want was for them to be the best they could be.

From her jolly expression, a tall masculine silhouette hovered a part of the window. Her instinct of giving a brighter smile when the hand of said silhouette patted her head then carried her duffel bag again, that could only mean one thing. Excusing yourself to the artistic director, you stepped out to bid your goodbye and maybe meet her father. Minji and the tall man were about to leave the building if it weren’t for your breathy voice calling them out.

“Seo Minji and Mr. Seo?”

They stopped their tracks. Minji was fast to react, familiar with your voice and racing towards you for a sweaty hug. Meanwhile, your focus shifted once the masculine silhouette came into full view. You finally understood why Minji’s growth spurt spiked up, noticing that he was taller than Sicheng.

The top buttons of his shirt were off, yet he kept his formal blazer on. His hair was a bit tousled, some strands falling in front of his forehead. He must’ve run here. Peeking through were some roots of his scruff growing. His eyebags were almost as dark as his brown hair. Yet by the way his Rolex remained spotless, you blatantly assumed that he was more than well-off. Especially when the ballet academy was one of the most prestigious ones in Seoul.

Out of all the parents you’ve met, none of them appeared youthful like him.

“Teacher (Y/N)?” Thanks to Minji, you moved your staring eyes away from him. This was another first, since meeting only the fathers of your students wasn’t your norm. Meeting young-looking fathers, to be specific.

“O-Oh,” You ate your words, suddenly blanking out. “You’re leaving me without saying goodbye, Minji? Not polite of you.”

“My father was rushing right after watching your performance, and I don’t know why.” She responded, her finger scratching the top of her head in confusion. Speaking of said father, his strong presence appeared right in front of you. The wrinkles of his forehead creased while his eyes barely looked at yours.

“Uhm,” His fingers toyed with his Rolex. “I apologize for my tardiness. I got caught up in work and all, plus her nanny le-”

“Mr. Seo.” You halted his rambling, already aware of the situation. Like father, like daughter. “It’s fine. Minji loved watching us practice while waiting, and she wasn’t a bother either. You have nothing to worry about.”

“Phew.” He swiped an imaginative bead of sweat from his forehead, displaying his relief with his playful nature.

At age 23, Johnny Seo started his own company in the fashion scene and it grew internationally in the coming years. Then when Minji unexpectedly joined the picture, he’s been multi-tasking to make ends meet. Lately, as a CEO, he has had meetings and conferences on a daily. So, his position as a single father was always tested. It worsened when he rarely has proper time to spend any time with Minji unless it’s the weekend or late in the evening. Breaking it down, it wasn’t because he didn’t want to meet you. It was more like he couldn’t when his schedules were packed from head to toe.

Having the guilt of taking your precious time, “Seriously though, I am sorry for being late. Her nanny resigned suddenly, and I have no time to find her replacement.”

“Mr. Seo, again, don’t worry about it. As her teacher and a company member, I am practically here 24/7 so it won’t be a nuisance at all if this happens again.”

“Thank you so much, Teacher (Y/N). That is your name, right?” He planted his palm on his forehead, stressed. “Being a single parent is hard. I am always forgetting things.”

A part of you couldn’t restrain from feeling sorry for his struggle. Taking care of a child should be the work of both the mother and father, not one of them being absent. You’ve feared this would harm Minji, but she’s a strong girl.

“The fact you didn’t forget to fetch Minji despite the late time is still something to be happy over. I’m not a parent or anything, but parenting, in general, is a challenge.” You added an insight, patting the head of the young girl beside you. “Cut yourself some slack, Mr. Seo. I’m sure Minji still loves you, right?”

Minji shouted a big yes, now clinging to the leg of her father. “It’s okay, dad. Really.”

Over the years, Johnny has been doubtful of his parenting skills. He was an only child, and he struggled to ask for guidance from his own parents due to the shame of having a kid at a young age. So, he’d ask for help from his other friends and co-workers. No matter how many times they’ve reassured him that he’s doing well, he’s an overthinker who always reflected on the bad scenarios. There’s also that pressure to find someone who can fill that absent position not just for Minji, but for himself too. No matter how many girls he’s asked out or been set up with, he failed in the love department badly.

It’s the soothing way you voiced out your truth that made all these negative thoughts running through his head freeze briefly. Over the past 3 years since Minji started ballet, she always had a great story about you to share. One of them was how ballet made her a lot happier because of your influence. If he had at least an hour of his day to meet any of his daughter’s mentors, it would’ve been you.

“Do feel free to call me Johnny instead.” He casually introduced himself, taking his hand out for you to shake. “Mr. Seo makes me feel like I’m at work right now.”

Despite his informal approach, you understood his intentions and returned the action with a promising smile. “Pleasure to finally meet you, Johnny.”

“Pleasure is all mine, Teacher (Y/N).”

Earlier, the nerves from performing in front of the artistic director died down fast. But for some reason, they rose back up when you’ve spoken to this man in a matter of minutes. As someone whose feelings don’t flourish in a single glance, why did this man specifically deliver you such a strong effect?

If it weren’t for Ten calling for your name by the door, you would’ve held on to Johnny’s hand longer, which would’ve been inappropriate. Letting go first, this was your cue to return to your class.

“I must head back inside, Johnny. Don’t sweat on fetching your daughter late, though she is still a student with school the following day. Right, Minji?”

Minji nodded as Johnny kept that mind, knowing where he has to improve next. “Yes, Teacher (Y/N). Thank you again, sincerely. I’ll definitely see you again in the coming days until Minji has a new nanny.”

“That’s no problem with me at all, Johnny.”

Soon as Johnny held his daughter’s hand to exit the studio and you were re-entering the studio with an impatient Ten, he swerved swiftly as if he forgot something.

“Oh by the way Teacher (Y/N), I saw your whole performance awhile ago. I was blown away, you deserved the applause.”

Although you could only distinguish his silhouette, you didn’t suppose he watched you from head to toe. Most parents or nannies would’ve dragged their kids out of the studio once they find them like they were on a tight schedule, so this was novel to experience. That performance showed your prime too.

“Thank you, Johnny. See you again soon.”

Giving a final nod, you led yourself back to the studio, not bothering to acknowledge the erupting heat on your cheeks and entire body. Not to sound narcissistic, but compliments weren’t foreign to you. You’re conscious of the hard work that you put in your talent and if they pointed out your greatness, why would you deny it? However, receiving one from Johnny was like gearing your engine with new fuel.

Before you could try to reject these harboring feelings, Ten was fast to pick up on it. You cannot hide anything from this man at all because body language was like another language he’s fluent in (aside from the other 5). Unlucky for you, the saga continued.

“You’re so into dilfs, (Y/N)!” He shrieked in your ear, nudging your shoulder repetitively. He placed things in his own way, yet they always shocked you because it was so inappropriate. Typical Ten for you.

“Shut up, Ten!” You objected, watching the other performers. You’ve improved in ignoring his remarks over time. That was until Sicheng sat down beside you after his solo and got up in your business. That placed you in the middle of boys from the water sign clan of astrology. They just loved getting down to your love life, going raunchy and whatnot.

“Who’s into dilfs, Ten?”

“A Miss (Y/N) beside you, who met Minji’s dad awhile ago, was basically eye-fucking him.” Ten elaborated, planting his elbows on your leg and gave you a sneaky glare. “Minji’s dad is fine as fuck, guys! I’m telling you, like a literal god! I’m surprised this is the first time he showed up here after 2-3 years?”

“How come (Y/N) is always getting students with good-looking parents? Especially the single moms.” Sicheng slumped his shoulders, attempting to get your attention too. “Is he that hot, (Y/N)?”

“Yah.” Sighing with annoyance, you’ve given up trying to appreciate one of the corps dancers with her rendition of Dulcinea from Don Quixote. “Don’t speak of Johnny like that. You barely know the man, yet you talk about him so unprofessionally."

“Oh, Johnny is his name, huh?” Sicheng sing-songed, bobbing his head. He’s certainly going to stalk him later on social media, you felt it in your chest. Like it was ESPN or something.

“Talking about being unprofessional, yet you’re here referring him as Johnny, not Mr. Seo.” Ten barked back, his lips pursed and one eyebrow lifted.

Just as soon as you could retaliate, the artistic director’s velvety voice boomed the room.

“Alright, thank you to the performers. I will deliberate with the staff and principal dancers over the weekend, and let you know the results on Monday. Now please, let’s proceed to the center.”

Everyone began to spread out on the wide floor, snatching a good position so they could monitor themselves in the mirror. Maybe you’ll defend yourself later after class because now, you needed to beat everyone else and have a crystal-clear view of yourself doing these following exercises.

In the meantime, Johnny was in the middle of driving Minji home. He had a designated chauffeur, but he gave him the night off because he wanted to spend time with Minji. Around this time, she’d be sleeping soundly, but instead, she’s boosting with so much life. She hasn’t even eaten dinner yet, which was the first thing on Johnny’s agenda now.

Playing Coldplay in the car, Minji belted some lyrics from her favorite songs while Johnny smiled to himself while listening to her attentively. Taking a breath, her thoughts reverted to her fantastic ballet teacher and shared them with her father.

“Dad! Don’t you just think Teacher (Y/N) is so cool? Ugh, I want to be just like her when I grow up.”

“Oh, to become a ballerina like her, you have to work hard every day and memorize lessons fast. Are you up for it, Minji?”

“Absolutely, dad! I want to pull off perfect jumps and turns like her one day!”

In the other after-school activities Johnny enrolled Minji in the past, none of them compared to the passion she had for ballet. Her work ethic was alike to Johnny’s: if they want something, they’ll do whatever it takes to make it possible.

Aside from being a star student in her school, she’s aiming to be a star ballerina. Being the supportive father he is, Johnny was on board to do what it takes to make it happen. Unlike his parents trying to mold him into the next heir of their company, he’s all ears to the dreams of his daughter. His only dream for her was to be live long and happy, not to merely pass on anything.

Johnny lost so much in his young life, so he doesn’t want to lose Minji in any way. As much as he loves his profession, he wanted to be an active father as much as time allowed it. He mostly received complaints from others that he’s not prioritizing his time well, but after hearing your kind words, this heavy weight on his shoulders decreased. All this doubt started to vanish after meeting you for the first time.

“Dad! Isn’t Teacher (Y/N) so beautiful?” Minji honored whilst gazing at the twinkling night sky. “She loves what she does and shines at it.”

Johnny was accustomed to his female co-workers throwing themselves at him due to his attractiveness, more than flattered even to have them feeling weak for him. Yes, there were times he used it to his advantage, some he frankly turned down.

However, the radiance you carried whether you’re dancing or not was something Johnny couldn’t cease wondering about. Unknown to him, he’s the one getting weak. Behold, an unlocked first for the confident CEO.

“Yes, Minji. I do think Teacher (Y/N) is absolutely beautiful.”

470 notes · View notes

ambersky0319 · 4 years

Note

Me projecting through Dukexiety? Never. Anyway, uh, Vi's secret bf Remus who Virgil's parents think is just his friend gets invited to a movie with Virgil and his family. But Vi is outwardly a good, rule-abiding kid and Re? Definitely not. But because of the theater being so crowded, Re and Vi sit away from Virgil's family and Vi doesn't panic too much at his parents and Re's first meeting. The movie is nice, but Virgil can't focus too well on it, not when Remus is leaning in for a kiss. -H anon

Hope you enjoy! This was a lot of fun to write!!

Masterpost

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Virgil was almost panicking as his parents drove down the foreign neighborhood, watching the houses for the address Remus had given them. Virgil had asked Remus, his boyfriend of almost a year now, if he had wanted to go to the movies. He had said yes, but that his parents couldn’t drive since they were going to be helping the elementary school make sure the kindergarten play went well.

Remus’s parents, however, knew about Virgil and Remus being together. Virgil’s parents did not. And Virgil wanted to keep it that way for the time being, not ready to come out to his parents yet.

His dad honked, beaming as he looked at Virgil through the mirror. “You alright kid?”

Virgil forced the best smile he could. “Yeah Dad. Fine.” Virgil glanced to the side as he saw Remus finally leaving the house. He shouted something back inside, presumably an insult at Roman, before closing the door and walking briskly to the car.

Virgil was surprised to see Remus wearing a band t-shirt and just jeans, and he winked at Virgil slightly. Normally, Remus wore crop tops and extremely short shorts, often with fishnets and knee-high boots. Virgil was grateful he toned it down for today, though.

“Mr. and Mrs. Shay,” Remus greeted as he slipped into the seat beside Virgil. Remus held a polite smile. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you!” Virgil almost burst out laughing, he sounded so much like Roman right now. Perhaps Remus had asked for lessons on behaving in front of your boyfriend’s parents.

Virgil’s mom smiled, glancing over her shoulder as Remus buckled in. “I’m surprised we haven’t met you sooner, normally Virgil introduces us to his friends not long after meeting them.”

Remus shrugged. “Thank you for taking us to the movies, by the way.”

“It’s not a problem!” Virgil’s dad exclaimed as he pulled out of the neighborhood and onto the main road. Virgil relaxed in his seat. He didn’t take Remus’s hand, which was close to him, but he laced their pinkies as he listened to his parents ask Remus all sorts of things.

The movie they were seeing had only recently come out, and so the theatre was almost packed already. Virgil half expected his parents to find some way to sit near him and Remus, but to his surprise they sat much closer to the front. Not that Virgil was complaining.

After getting their food and drinks, they made their way into the theatre they needed to and found their seats.

“Your parents are really nice,” Remus stated as the previews began. He spared a glance at Virgil, smiling as Virgil looked away in embarrassment.

“Wish they knew about us, though. Then maybe you wouldn’t have had to refrain from completely being yourself.” Virgil mumbled, though Remus still heard. He took Virgil’s hand and squeezed it lightly.

“Hey, none of that. If you’re unsure how they’ll react, don’t make yourself feel guilty over it. Besides, I’m an actor, as good as Roman! I can pretend, babe.” Virgil turned his hand in Remus’s to interlace their fingers, still feeling a bit apologetic.

“You’re sure you’re okay with it?”

Remus grinned, his signature smile a comfort to Virgil. “For you, Vee, anything.”

The lights dimmed further, and a hush fell over everyone as the movie began.

Virgil was enjoying the movie, his guilt and his worry over how his parents thought of Remus subsiding. The movie itself was okay, a horror movie with a relatively weak plot and not as much gore for Virgil’s liking. But that made it very easy to follow, especially when Virgil was suddenly getting quite distracted.

He had caught Remus’s gaze a few moments earlier, and a blush creeped up his cheeks as Remus leaned into his personal space. He didn’t get uncomfortably close, leaving room for Virgil to pull away if he wanted.

Virgil glanced at the people around them. Some had fallen asleep, and the rest were eagerly looking at the massive screen below. Taking a shaky breath, Virgil turned back to Remus and closed the gap. Remus grinned into the kiss, tracing his fingers over Virgil’s own hand slowly, sending shivers down Virgil’s spine.

They pulled apart and Remus shuffled slightly so he could rest his head against Virgil’s shoulder. Virgil laughed silently, maneuvering his arm to wrap around Remus’s waist as his attention turned back to the movie, just as the nerdy kid kicked the bucket.

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hulga-joy · 4 years

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Schools Closed? Are You Freaking Out? Some Unsolicited Advice From a Homeschool Mom

Hello! I have six kids, ages 3 to 15, and I’ve been home schooling for ten years.

Judging from social media (always dangerous), it seems like a lot of you are distressed and overwhelmed at having to deal with your kids’ schools being shut down for weeks or even months due to COVID-19 concerns. I would like to offer some encouragement and support.

Remember it’s only temporary.

I’ve seen a lot of Instagram influencer types throw up daily learning schedules, and this is a great idea to keep you from going crazy. But also: be gracious and gentle with yourself and your kids if the schedule doesn’t get executed perfectly or at all. This is an incredibly disruptive time for everyone. Just keep going. You aren’t going to singlehandedly ruin their entire education with a few weeks of trial and error.

You do NOT have to replicate what your kids would get in a formal classroom. You do NOT have to replicate what your kids would get in a formal classroom. You do NOT have to replicate what your kids would get in a formal classroom. You can’t. You don’t have a classroom, you don’t have an education degree, you don’t have years of experience wrangling large groups of learners. But you don’t need those things to make sure your children are still learning.

If your district is offering e-learning alternatives, take advantage of them! If not, don’t panic. Here are some resources which may help. I’ve tried to list only resources which are very cheap or free, and which can be done independently by students or give very specific guidance to parents and instructors so you don’t have to come up with a lesson plan:

Math-- Khan Academy and Prodigy (prodigygame.com) are free and excellent resources. Prodigy does offer the option of a paid membership but you don’t need it to get access to the math. (Math Mammoth) is extremely inexpensive (especially the e-books) and great for focused review and support of specific math concepts.

Science-- TOPS Science units are short (usually 4 weeks or so), thorough lab guides for a range of grades from early elementary through high school. The authors work very hard to make sure all the experiments work and can be done using common household items, and they give very specific instructions on what to say and do with your students. These have been my favorite homeschool science resource, hands down. The e-book options are less than $20 each, many much less.

Reading/ Writing/ Grammar-- Bravewriter makes great literature guides that combine grammar, writing mechanics, and literary analysis over the course of 4 weeks, each on a single book. If you’re not sure which level is right for your kids, the BW community offers tons of support. And the guides are very much open and go-- you do NOT have to be an experienced teacher to do this. $10-$12 on one guide will last you a month. Read aloud to your kids every day. Even your older kids. Even your teenagers. My husband is currently reading Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels to our 13yo and 15yo every evening. They voluntarily turn off screens and come running when he announces it’s time.

Critical Thinking-- Do logic puzzles together. Pick an interesting looking documentary on Netflix and watch it together. Do you agree with what the filmmaker is saying? Do you think they have their facts correct? Why or why not? How could you find out for sure?

History-- Pick a place and time period. Find age appropriate library books (if your library is physically closed, use their online resources like Overdrive/Libby, Hoopla, and Scholastic) about that place and time. Read them (together or independently) then draw a picture/ act out a story/ write a paragraph about what you learned. What would it be like to live in that time? What would be exciting? What would you be afraid of? What would the laws be like? What would you eat and drink and wear? What would you do for fun? If it’s something from recent history, call or FaceTime an older friend or relative and ask about their experience of it.

PE-- Do yard work together. Take long walks together. Go to the park. Find Youtube videos demonstrating kids’ yoga or bodyweight exercise and do those. Play Just Dance.

Art-- gather up all your crayons and colored pencils and markers and play-doh (or make some, there are hundreds of recipes for home made play-doh online) and put them all in the middle of a clean table with some blank paper. The kids will do the rest. OR find some high-res images of great works of art online and look at them together. Look at them quietly for a really long time. What’s going on here? What do you think the artist is trying to do? Look for little details that help tell the story in the picture. How many can you find?

Finally, and most importantly:

Remember that you love your kids and they love you. Trust me, as an introvert with lots of kids, I have definitely had days when I was ready for a neat bourbon at 4pm 3pm right after at lunch. But on those days what has helped is letting go of my need for solitude and learning to slow down and really observe and attend to these interesting, complex, thoughtful human beings that are my kids. You might even have fun spending this unexpected time together as a family. Or at least not hate it as much as you think you are going to. ;)

#coronavirus #covid-19 #emergency home school #mommy needs a drink #School closings #what do i do with these kids

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blackkudos · 4 years

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Alberta Hunter

Alberta Hunter (April 1, 1895 – October 17, 1984) was an American jazz singer and songwriter who had a successful career from the early 1920s to the late 1950s, and then stopped performing. After twenty years of working as a nurse, in 1977 Hunter successfully resumed her popular singing career until her death.

Early life

Hunter was born in Memphis, Tennessee, to Laura Peterson, who worked as a maid in a Memphis brothel, and Charles Hunter, a Pullman porter. Hunter said she never knew her father. She attended Grant Elementary School, off Auction Street, which she called Auction School, in Memphis. She attended school until around age 15.

Hunter had a difficult childhood. Her father left when she was a child, and to support the family her mother worked as a servant in a brothel in Memphis, although she married again in 1906. Hunter was not happy with her new family and left for Chicago, Illinois, around the age of 11, in the hopes of becoming a paid singer; she had heard that it paid 10 dollars per week. Instead of finding a job as a singer she had to earn money by working at a boardinghouse that paid six dollars a week as well as room and board. Hunter's mother left Memphis and moved in with her soon afterwards.

Career

Early years: 1910s–1940s

Hunter began her singing career in a bordello and soon moved to clubs that appealed to men, black and white alike. By 1914 she was receiving lessons from a prominent jazz pianist, Tony Jackson, who helped her to expand her repertoire and compose her own songs.

She was still in her early teens when she settled in Chicago. Part of her early career was spent singing at Dago Frank's, a brothel. She then sang at Hugh Hoskin's saloon and, eventually, in many Chicago bars.

One of her first notable experiences as an artist was at the Panama Club, a white-owned club with a white-only clientele that had a chain in Chicago, New York and other large cities. Hunter's first act was in an upstairs room, far from the main event; thus, she began developing as an artist in front of a cabaret crowd. "The crowd wouldn't stay downstairs. They'd go upstairs to hear us sing the blues. That's where I would stand and make up verses and sing as I go along." Many claim her appeal was based on her gift for improvising lyrics to satisfy the audience. Her big break came when she was booked at Dreamland Cafe, singing with King Oliver and his band.

She peeled potatoes by day and hounded club owners by night, determined to land a singing job. Her persistence paid off, and Hunter began a climb from some of the city's lowest dives to a headlining job at its most prestigious venue for black entertainers, the Dreamland ballroom. She had a five-year association with the Dreamland, beginning in 1917, and her salary rose to $35 a week.

She first toured Europe in 1917, performing in Paris and London. The Europeans treated her as an artist, showing her respect and even reverence, which made a great impression on her.

Her career as singer and songwriter flourished in the 1920s and 1930s, and she appeared in clubs and on stage in musicals in both New York and London. The songs she wrote include the critically acclaimed "Downhearted Blues" (1922).

She recorded several records with Perry Bradford from 1922 to 1927.

Hunter recorded prolifically during the 1920s, starting with sessions for Black Swan in 1921, Paramount in 1922–1924, Gennett in 1924, OKeh in 1925–1926, Victor in 1927 and Columbia in 1929. While still working for Paramount, she also recorded for Harmograph Records under the pseudonym May Alix.

Hunter wrote "Downhearted Blues" with Lovie Austin and recorded the track for Ink Williams at Paramount Records. She received only $368 in royalties. Williams had secretly sold the recording rights to Columbia Records in a deal in which all royalties were paid to him. The song became a big hit for Columbia, with Bessie Smith as the vocalist. This record sold almost 1 million copies. Hunter learned what Williams had done and stopped recording for him.

In 1928, Hunter played Queenie opposite Paul Robeson in the first London production of Show Boat at Drury Lane. She subsequently performed in nightclubs throughout Europe and appeared for the 1934 winter season with Jack Jackson's society orchestra at the Dorchester, in London. One of her recordings with Jackson is "Miss Otis Regrets".

While at the Dorchester, she made several HMV recordings with the orchestra and appeared in Radio Parade of 1935 (1934), the first British theatrical film to feature the short-lived Dufaycolor, but only Hunter's segment was in color. She spent the late 1930s fulfilling engagements on both sides of the Atlantic and the early 1940s performing at home.

Hunter eventually moved to New York City. She performed with Bricktop and recorded with Louis Armstrong and Sidney Bechet. She continued to perform on both sides of the Atlantic, and as the head of the U.S.O.'s first black show, until her mother's death.

In 1944, she took a U.S.O. troupe to Casablanca and continued entertaining troops in both theatres of war for the duration of World War II and into the early postwar period. In the 1950s, she led U.S.O. troupes in Korea, but her mother's death in 1957 led her to seek a radical career change.

Retirement: late 1950s–1970s

Hunter said that when her mother died in 1957, because they had been partners and were so close, the appeal of performing ended for her. She reduced her age, "invented" a high school diploma, and enrolled in nursing school, embarking on a career in health care, in which she worked for 20 years at Roosevelt Island's Goldwater Memorial Hospital.

The hospital forced Hunter to retire because it believed she was 70 years old. Hunter—who was actually 82 years old—decided to return to singing. She had already made a brief return by performing on two albums in the early 1960s, but now she had a regular engagement at a Greenwich Village club, becoming an attraction there until her death, in October 1984.

Comeback: 1970s–1980s

In the summer of 1976, Hunter attended a party for her long-time friend Mabel Mercer, hosted by Bobby Short; music public relations agent Charles Bourgeois asked Hunter to sing and connected her with the owner of Cafe Society, Barney Josephson. Josephson offered Hunter a limited engagement at his Greenwich Village club, The Cookery. Her two-week appearance there was a huge success, turning into a six-year engagement and a revival of her career in music.

Impressed with the attention paid her by the press, John Hammond signed Hunter to Columbia Records. He had not previously shown interest in Hunter, but he had been a close associate of Barney Josephson decades earlier, when the latter ran the Café Society Uptown and Downtown clubs. Her Columbia albums, The Glory of Alberta Hunter, Amtrak Blues (on which she sang the jazz classic "Darktown Strutters' Ball"), and Look For the Silver Lining, did not sell as well as expected, but sales were nevertheless healthy. There were also numerous appearances on television programs, including To Tell the Truth (in which panelist Kitty Carlisle had to recuse herself, the two having known each other in Hunter's heyday). She also had a walk-on role in Remember My Name, a 1978 film by the producer Robert Altman, for which he commissioned her to write and to perform the soundtrack music.

Personal life

In 1919, Hunter married Willard Saxby Townsend, a former soldier who later became a labor leader for baggage handlers via the International Brotherhood of Red Caps, was short-lived. They separated within months, as Hunter did not want to quit her career. They were divorced in 1923.

Hunter was a lesbian but kept her sexuality relatively private. In August 1927, she sailed for France, accompanied by Lottie Tyler, the niece of the well-known comedian Bert Williams. Hunter and Tyler had met in Chicago a few years earlier. Their relationship lasted until Tyler's death, many years later.

Hunter is buried in the Ferncliff Cemetery and Mausoleum in Hartsdale, Westchester County, New York (Elmwood section, plot 1411), the location of many celebrity graves.

Hunter's life was documented in Alberta Hunter: My Castle's Rockin' (1988 TV movie), a documentary written by Chris Albertson and narrated by the pianist Billy Taylor, and in Cookin' at the Cookery, a biographical musical by Marion J. Caffey, which has toured the United States in recent years with Ernestine Jackson as Hunter. Hunter's life and relationship with Lottie Tyler are represented in the play Leaving the Blues by Jewelle Gomez, produced by the TOSOS theatre company in New York City in 2020.

Hunter was inducted to the Blues Hall of Fame in 2011 and the Memphis Music Hall of Fame in 2015. Hunter's comeback album, Amtrak Blues, was honored by the Blues Hall of Fame in 2009.

Discography

Early work: 1921–1946

Hunter, Alberta. Complete Recorded Works in Chronological Order. Volume 1: May 1921 to February 1923. Vienna, Austria: Document Records, 1996. DOCD-5422. OCLC 35186454.

Hunter, Alberta. Complete Recorded Works in Chronological Order. Volume 2: February 1923 to November 1924. Vienna, Austria: Document Records, 1996. DOCD-5423. OCLC 35186490.

Hunter, Alberta. Complete Recorded Works in Chronological Order. Volume 3: 6 November 1924 to 26 February 1927. Vienna, Austria: Document Records, 1996. DOCD-5424. OCLC 37591743.

Hunter, Alberta. Volume 5: The Alternate Takes. 1921–1925. Vienna, Austria: Document Records, 1997. DOCD-1006. OCLC 38880479.

Hunter, Alberta, and Jack Jackson. The Legendary Alberta Hunter. The London Sessions with Jack Jackson & His Orchestra. New York: DRG, 1981. Recorded at the Dorchester Hotel, September–November 1934. OCLC 178720357.

Featuring Fletcher Henderson, Eubie Blake, Jimmy Lytell, Phil Napoleon, Elmer Chambers, Don Redman, Frank Signorelli

Featuring Fletcher Henderson, Joe Smith, Fats Waller, Tommy Ladnier, Jimmy O'Bryant, Lovie Austin, Elkins-Payne Jubilee Quartette

Featuring Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet, Buster Bailey, Charlie Irvis, Perry Bradford, Clarence Williams, Mike Jackson

Featuring Ray's Dreamland Orchestra, Eubie Blake, Original Memphis Five, Fletcher Henderson, Paramount Boys, Lovie Austin

Collaborations: 1961

1961: Chicago: The Living Legends. Alberta Hunter with Lovie Austin's Blues Serenaders (Riverside), recorded September 1, 1961, in Chicago.

1961: Songs We Taught Your Mother: Alberta Hunter, Lucille Hegamin, Victoria Spivey (Bluesville/Original Blues Classics), recorded by Rudy Van Gelder, August 16, 1961, in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.

Comeback: 1978–1983

1978: Remember My Name, the soundtrack recording of the Robert Altman film Remember My Name (Columbia), OCLC 894368622

1980: Amtrak Blues (Columbia), OCLC 191945612

1981: Downhearted Blues: Live at the Cookery, a concert from the documentary Alberta Hunter: My Castle's Rockin, recorded December 1981 at the Cookery, New York (Varèse Sarabande), OCLC 74155365

1982: The Glory of Alberta Hunter (Columbia)

1983: Look for the Silver Lining (Columbia)

78 RPM Singles - Black Swan Records

78 RPM Singles - Paramount Records

78 RPM Singles - Gennett Records

78 RPM Singles - Harmograph Records

78 RPM Singles - Okeh Records

78 RPM Singles - Victor Records

78 RPM Singles - Columbia Records

#04/01 #10/17

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theseadagiodays · 4 years

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April 20, 2020

No more muzzling my words

OK, so I’m just going to say it. There are times when this really stinks. And it actually feels good to give myself permission to admit that.

One of my favorite novelists, Anne Patchett, author of Bel Canto, also wrote a memoir called Truth & Beauty about her lifelong best friendship with someone who struggled with cancer since childhood. What I remember most is her friend’s very unusual way of enduring horrific hardships that included having her jaw surgically removed, (no less in the middle of self-conscious adolescence). To feel better about her own situation, she would regularly re-read The Diary of Anne Frank in a sort of schadenfreude effort to remember that there were people who’d had it far worse than herself. However, these contrived gestures only took her so far.

I guess the truth is, there is only so much glass-half-full thinking any of us can exercise. Realizing this, I was relieved to hear Brene Brown’s recent podcast about Comparitive Suffering,

https://brenebrown.com/podcast/brene-on-comparative-suffering-the-50-50-myth-and-settling-the-ball/

Here, she recognizes that while the daily news barrages us with crises much greater than our own (lost jobs, health, and even loved ones), many of us feel guilty for bemoaning our own losses at this time, because we think we should be grateful for what we have. Certainly, this universal suffering has allowed us to gain some clearer perspective on our lives and our blessings. And the fact that the entire world is experiencing some similar aspects of this reality has enabled us to build real global empathy. However, it is also true that each micro-loss deserves its own relative mouring period. So, I am going to give myself a little license to acknowledge what I am grieving at this time. But I wanted to find a creative way to do this. So, I am going to write a love letter to the time before COVID, identifying the things I truly miss. This idea came out of an exercise we led with my non-profit’s Women Rock group. They are co-writing songs to express the myriad of feelings they are having during this period. In one song, they plan to write about the solace that nature brings them right now. But they also want a vehicle to communicate their challenges. In other words, they want somewhere to “deposit the negative,” because this can actually be very healing: to name what’s wrong, genuinely feel the impact of it in your life, and then let it go. The etymological root of the word de-posit means to put (poner), away (-de). Ironically, this is similar to the origin of the word positive, which is to formally lay down (or to state absolutely). So, perhaps by absoluting stating what we feel bad about, we leave room to feel good about what’s left.

But in case this is just a little too sad for some people to read, try imagining the theme song to Jimmy Fallon’s regular Thank You Notes segment, for a bit of comic relief while you read. Here he is in his At-Home Edition, writing some with his daughters:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6x2UgPVYJs

Vancouver Mural Festival on Main St

Dear pre-COVID days,

I remember how good it felt to walk down Main St and hug everyone from my neighbor, to my colleague, to the barista. You were so open in the way you invited human touch on a daily basis.

I was so grateful that you allowed me the opportunity to interact with people from all different walks of life. You let me work in so many different environments, from elementary schools, to prisons, to seniors centres, where I was privileged to hear people’s stories as they found their own creative voices.

I loved being free to spend time with my family even though they live far away. You made it possible to see my parents in Arizona, and my brother in NY, and my uncle in Colorado, and my in-laws in Ontario, every year, despite the distance.

I enjoyed all of the opportunities you gave me to experience live art. You animated my world and made it technicolor, with concerts, dance clubs, galleries, theatre performances, and different arts festivals every week.

I loved how healthy I felt running around the tennis courts at Queen Elizabeth Park. You made it so easy to exercise my lungs, my legs, my arms, my focus, my flexibility and my stamina all at the same time.

I felt so much passion for the adventures that you brought me to. You generously satisfied my infinite curiosities with music projects in Zambia, and holidays in Hawaii, and cultural immersions in Guatemala.

I miss all of the the ways you let me love and live and work and play freely. And I long for the day you return,

Laura

April 21, 2020

Neighborhood Art

There are so many signs that we are all missing connection and stimulation during quarantine. But the human spirit is extremely buoyant. So, we’ve found remarkable ways to share artistic moments through the walls of COVID.

In Rome, locals are projecting classic films against their apartment building facades: https://www.wantedinrome.com/news/lockdown-rome-lights-up-with-cinema-by-night.html

In Berlin, neighbors are displaying art installations from their balconies:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/berlin-artists-turn-their-balconies-mini-galleries-180974677/

An art installation by Raul Walch, created for the “Life, art, pandemic and proximity” project

In Ohio, kids play cello duets for an elderly neighbor:

And right here in Vancouver, people lead streetside Zumba classes as seniors home residents dance along:

https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1716406851557

April 22, 2020

Earth Day in Isolation

I am hardly the first to note that while this virus has taken so much from mankind, it has also given Mother Earth the long-awaited rest she so deserves. There have been plenty of photos of Himalayan mountain tops viewed from Indian cities for the first time in decades, or Orcas returning to Vancouver’s shores to prove this.

In another gift to our planet, appropriately on Earth Day here in BC, where it has oddly not rained for 30 days, it appears that Gaia is being showered with much needed rain for her day of celebration. And even a sun-worshipper like me has been doing rain dances lately, to ensure that our city will not be shrouded in smoke from a fire-ravaged province, as we have been for the past two summers.

On a different note, a more distorted personification of nature has been touted by many a cynical observer in recent weeks, citing Covid as retribution against humans from a vengeful Mother Earth. I do not subscribe to such punitive thinking. But I do believe there are environmental lessons to be learned from this crisis if we listen closely enough.

Writer Kristin Flyntz makes this point more beautifully than I ever could, in her Greatful Web post: https://www.gratefulweb.com/articles/imagined-letter-covid-19-humans Here, instead of a love letter to pre-Covid days, she has imagined the letter that Covid might write to humans. The tone is intentional and generous but also insistent. It is spoken as if from a friend not an enemy. And it proposes that we ask the hard questions: “As the health of a tree, a river, the sky tells you about the quality of your own health, what might the quality of your health tell you about the health of the rivers, the trees, the sky, and all of us who share this planet with you?”

Another letter, falsely attributed to Bill Gates, whose proven himself to be a true leader of responsiveness in this critical time, also had similar things to say. The anonymous writer claims that this time: “is reminding us that this Earth is sick. It is reminding us that we need to look at the rate of deforestation just as urgently as we look at the speed at which toilet rolls are disappearing off of shelves. We are sick because our home is sick.”

And as usual, artists are responding too. The NY-based NGO, Earth Celebrations has postponed their Virtual Earth Day Pageant for May 9th in the interest of garnering more public participation, with a callout for anyone who wants to craft a costume, mask, puppet, etc. All are welcome. And more details can be found here: https://earthcelebrations.com/?fbclid=IwAR30nj7NtS52E-RLjpvz739L-3fcp-DtnJ1YeVE8Roln4vJXPC7bzBLxew0

April 23

Virtual Festivals

If you’re looking for an alternative to Netflix and chillin’, there are endless arts festivals that have moved content online, for your streaming pleasure. So, I thought I’d recommend a few interesting ones here.

If it’s efficiency you’re after, when browsing thru infinite entertainment options, the Social Distancing Festival does all the work for you, by scouring the globe to curate the best livestreamed events they can find. Links include everything from modern dance to virtual gallery tours to musical theatre:

https://www.socialdistancingfestival.com

Myseum of Toronto’s Art in the Time of Covid - work by Evgeni Tcherkassk

For some lighter fare, this Edmonton Series hosts nightly cabaret, music, and comedy acts performed by local artists from their homes.

https://www.citadeltheatre.com/2019-2020/stuckinthehouse?utm_source=Citadel+Theatre&utm_campaign=67600c620f-Stuck-in-the-House&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_482a5c3fca-67600c620f-80741247

And if you’re looking for a bit more sophistication, Toronto’s Festival of Literary Diversity has managed to move online, and it starts next Thursday. Their line-up features many of Canada’s finest emerging and established voices. My personal favorite, Mona Awad will be reading from her new novel, Bunny, which was the funniest read I’ve had in ages. In this high art version of Mean Girls, she nails the pretentious banter of grad school writing cliques with a dash of magical realism. https://thefoldcanada.org

April 23

Creative Gratitude

Florida police thank-you

Our shared appreciation for front line workers has become a true muse for collective community creativity.

Clockwise: Navajo muralist Ivan Lee; local Vancouver sidewalk; Long Island artist, Kara Hoblin

But this one takes the cake for audacity!

https://gfycat.com/magnificentabsolutegosling-health-workers-coronavirus-thank-you-meme

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hardcollectionblaze-love-blog · 6 years

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A Personal Narrative Sean Carroll_1

A Personal Narrative

I was very pleased to learn that I’m among this year’s recipients of a Guggenheim Fellowship. The Fellowships are mid-career awards, meant “to further the development of scholars and artists by assisting them to engage in research in any field of knowledge and creation in any of the arts, under the freest possible conditions and irrespective of race, color, or creed.” This year 173 Fellowships were awarded, chosen from 3,100 applications. About half of the winners are in the creative arts, and the majority of those remaining are in the humanities and social sciences, leaving eighteen slots for natural scientists. Only two physicists were chosen, so it’s up to Philip Phillips and me to uphold the honor of our discipline.

The Guggenheim application includes a “Career Narrative” as well as a separate research proposal. I don’t like to share my research proposals around, mostly because I’m a theoretical physicist and what I actually end up doing rarely bears much resemblance to what I had previously planned to do. But I thought I could post my career narrative, if only on the chance that it might be useful to future fellowship applicants (or young students embarking on their own research careers). Be warned that it’s more personal than most things I write on the blog here, not to mention that it’s beastly long. Also, keep in mind that the purpose of the document was to convince people to give me money — as such, it falls pretty heavily on the side of grandiosity and self-justification. Be assured that in real life I remain meek and humble.

Sean M. Carroll: Career Narrative

Reading over applications for graduate school in theoretical physics, one cannot help but be struck by a certain common theme: everyone wants to discover the fundamental laws of nature, quantize gravity, and find a unified theory of everything. That was certainly what interested me, ever since I first became enamored with physics when I was about ten years old. It’s an ambitious goal, worthy of pursuing, and I’ve been fortunate enough to contribute to the quest in my own small way over the course of my research career, especially in gravitational physics and cosmology.

But when a goal is this far-reaching, it’s important to keep in mind different routes to the ultimate end. In recent years I have become increasingly convinced that there is important progress to be made by focusing on emergence: how the deepest levels of reality are connected to the many higher levels of behavior we observe. How do spacetime and classical reality arise from an underlying quantum description? What is complexity, and how does it evolve over time, and how is that evolution driven by the increase of entropy? What do we mean when we talk about “causes” and “purposes” if the underlying laws are perfectly reversible? What role does information play in the structure of reality? All of these questions are thoroughly interdisciplinary in nature, and can be addressed with a wide variety of different techniques. I strongly believe that the time is right for groundbreaking work in this area, and a Guggenheim fellowship would help me develop the relevant expertise and start stimulating new collaborations.

University, Villanova and Harvard: 1984-1993

There is no question I am a physicist. The topics that first sparked my interest in science – the Big Bang, black holes, elementary particles – are the ones that I think about today, and they lie squarely within the purview of physics. So it is somewhat curious that I have no degrees in physics. For a variety of reasons (including questionable guidance), both my undergraduate degree from Villanova and my Ph.D. from Harvard are in astronomy and astrophysics. I would like to say that this was a clever choice based on a desire for interdisciplinary engagement, but it was more of an accident of history (and a seeming insistence on doing things the hard way). Villanova offered me a full-tuition academic scholarship (rare at the time), and I financed my graduate education through fellowships from NASA and the National Science Foundation.

Nevertheless, my education was extremely rewarding. As an undergraduate at a very small but research-oriented department, I got a start in doing real science at an early age, taking photometric data on variable stars and building models based on their light curves [Carroll, Guinan, McCook and Donahue, 1991]. In graduate school I was surrounded by incredible resources in the Cambridge area, and made an effort to take advantage of them. My advisor, George Field, was a well-established theoretical astrophysicist, specializing in magnetohydrodynamics and the interstellar medium. He wasn’t an expert in the area that I wanted to study, the particle physics/cosmology connection, but he was curious about it. So we essentially learned things together, writing papers on alternatives to general relativity, the origin of intergalactic magnetic fields, and inflationary cosmology, including one of the first studies of a non-Lorentz-invariant modification of electromagnetism [Carroll, Field, and Jackiw 1990]. George also encouraged me to work with others, and I collaborated with fellow graduate students on topics in mathematical physics and topological defects, as well as with Edward Farhi and Alan Guth from MIT on closed timelike curves (what people on the street call “time machines”) in general relativity [Carroll, Farhi, and Guth 1992].

Setting a pattern that would continue to be followed down the line, I didn’t limit my studies to physics alone. In particular, my time at Villanova ignited an interest in philosophy that remains strong to this day. I received a B.A. degree in “General Honors” as well as my B.S. in Astronomy and Astrophysics, and also picked up a philosophy minor. At Harvard, I sat in on courses with John Rawls, Robert Nozick, and Barbara Johnson. While science was my first love and remains my primary passion, the philosophical desire to dig deep and ask fundamental questions continues to resonate strongly with me, and I’m convinced that familiarity with modern philosophy of science can be invaluable to physicists trying to tackle questions at the foundations of the discipline.

Postdoctoral, MIT and ITP: 1993-1999

For my first postdoctoral fellowship, in 1993 I moved just a bit down the road, from Harvard to MIT; three years later I would fly across the country to the prestigious Institute for Theoretical Physics at UC Santa Barbara. At both places I continued to do research in a somewhat scattershot fashion, working on a potpourri of topics in gravitation and field theory, usually in collaboration with other physicists my age rather than with the senior professors. I had great fun, writing papers on supergravity (the supersymmetric version of general relativity), topological defects, perturbations of the cosmic microwave background radiation, two-dimensional quantum gravity, interacting dark matter, and tests of the large-scale isotropy of the universe.

Although I was slow to catch on, the academic ground was shifting beneath me. The late 80’s and early 90’s, when I was a graduate student, were a sluggish time in particle physics and cosmology. There were few new experimental results; the string theory revolution, which generated so much excitement in the early 80’s, had not lived up to its initial promise; and astronomers continued to grapple with the difficulties in measuring properties of the universe with any precision. In such an environment, my disjointed research style was enough to get by. But as I was graduating with my Ph.D., things were changing. In 1992, results from the COBE satellite showed us for the first time the tiny temperature variations in the cosmic background radiation, representing primordial density fluctuations that gradually grew into galaxies and large-scale structure. In 1994-95, a series of theoretical breakthroughs launched the second superstring revolution. Suddenly, it was no longer good enough just to be considered smart and do random interesting things. Theoretical cosmologists dived into work on the microwave background, or at least models of inflation that made predictions for it; field theorists and string theorists were concentrating on dualities, D-branes, and the other shiny new toys that the latest revolution had brought them. In 1993 I was a hot property on the postdoctoral job market, with multiple offers from the very best places; by 1996 those offers had largely dried up, and I was very fortunate to be offered a position at a place as good as ITP.

Of course, nobody actually told me this in so many words, and it took me a while to figure it out. It’s a valuable lesson that I still take to heart – it’s not good enough to do work on things you think are interesting, you have to make real contributions that others recognize as interesting, as well. I don’t see this as merely a cynical strategy for academic career success. As enjoyable and stimulating as it may be to bounce from topic to topic, the chances of make a true and lasting contribution are larger for people who focus on an area with sufficient intensity to master it in all of its nuance.

What I needed was a topic that I personally found fascinating enough to investigate in real detail, and which the rest of the community recognized as being of central importance. Happily, the universe obligingly provided just the thing. In 1998, two teams of astronomers, one led by Saul Perlmutter and the other by Brian Schmidt and Adam Riess, announced an amazing result: our universe is not only expanding, it’s accelerating. Although in retrospect there were clues that this might have been the case, it took most of the community by complete surprise, and certainly stands as the most important discovery that has happened during my own career. Perlmutter, Schmidt, and Riess shared the Nobel Prize in 2011.

Like many other physicists, my imagination was immediately captured by the question of why the universe is accelerating. Through no planning of my own, I was perfectly placed to dive into the problem. Schmidt and Riess had both been fellow graduate students of mine while I was at Harvard (Brian was my officemate), and I had consulted with Perlmutter’s group early on in their investigations, so I was very familiar with the observations of Type Ia supernovae on which the discovery was based. The most obvious explanation for universal acceleration is that empty space itself carries a fixed energy density, what Einstein had labeled the “cosmological constant”; I happened to be a co-author, with Bill Press and Ed Turner, on a 1992 review article on the subject that had become a standard reference in the field [Carroll, Press, and Turner 1992], and which hundreds of scientists were now hurriedly re-reading. In 1997 Greg Anderson and I had proposed a model in which dark-matter particles would interact with an ambient field, growing in mass as the universe expands [Anderson and Carroll 1997]; this kind of model natural leads to cosmic acceleration, and was an early idea for what is now known as “dark energy” (as well as for the more intriguing possibility that there may be a variety of interactions within a rich “dark sector”).

With that serendipitous preparation, I was able to throw myself into the questions of dark energy and the acceleration of the universe. After the discovery was announced, models were quickly proposed in which the dark energy was a dynamically-evolving field, rather than a constant energy density. I realized that most such models were subject to severe experimental constraints, because they would lead to new long-range forces and cause particle-physics parameters to slowly vary with time. I wrote a paper [Carroll 1998] pointing out these features, as well as suggesting symmetries that could help avoid them. I also collaborated with the Schmidt/Riess group on a pioneering paper [Garnavich et al. 1998] that placed limits on the rate at which the density of dark energy could change as the universe expands. With this expertise and these papers, I was suddenly a hot property on the job market once again; in 1999 I accepted a junior-faculty position at the University of Chicago.

University of Chicago: 1999-2006

While I was a postdoc, for the most part my intellectual energies were devoted completely to research. As a new faculty member, I had the responsibility and opportunity to expand my reach in a variety of ways. I had always loved teaching, and took to it with gusto, pioneering new courses (undergraduate general relativity, graduate cosmology), and winning a “Spherical Cow” teaching award from the physics graduate students. I developed my lecture notes for a graduate course in general relativity into a textbook, Spacetime and Geometry, which is now used widely in universities around the world. I helped organize a major international conference (Cosmo-02), served on a number of national committees (including the roadmap team for NASA’s Beyond Einstein program), and was a founding member and leader of the theory group at Chicago’s Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics. I was successful at bringing in money, including fellowships from the Sloan and Packard Foundations. I made connections with professors in other departments, and started to work with Project Exploration, an outreach nonprofit led by Gabrielle Lyon and Chicago paleontologist Paul Sereno. With Classics professor Shadi Bartsch, I taught an undergraduate humanities course on the history of atheism. I became involved in the local theatre community, helping advise companies that were performing plays with scientific themes (Arcadia, Proof, Humble Boy). And in 2004 I took up blogging at my site Preposterous Universe, a fun and stimulating pastime that I continue to this day.

Research, of course, was still central, and I continued to concentrate on the challenge posed by the accelerating universe, especially in a series of papers with Mark Trodden (then at Syracuse, now at U. Penn.) and other collaborators. Among the more speculative ideas that had been proposed was “phantom energy,” a form of dark energy whose density actually increases as the universe expands. In one paper [Carroll, Hoffman, and Trodden 2003] we showed that such theories tended to be catastrophically unstable, and in another [Carroll, De Felice, and Trodden 2004] we showed that more complex models could nevertheless trick observers into concluding that the dark energy was phantom-like.

Our most influential work proposed a simple idea: that there isn’t any dark energy at all, but rather that general relativity breaks down on cosmological scales, where new dynamics can kick in [Carroll, Duvvuri, Trodden, and Turner 2004]. This became an extremely popular scenario within the theoretical cosmology community, launching a great deal of work devoted to investigating these “f(R) theories.” (The name refers to the fact that the dynamical equations are based on an arbitrary function of R, a quantity that measures the curvature of spacetime.) This work included papers by our group looking at long-term cosmological evolution in such models [Carroll et al. 2004], and studying the formation of structure in theories designed to be compatible with observational constraints on modified gravity [Carroll, Sawicki, Silvestri, and Trodden 2006].

Being of restless temperament, I couldn’t confine myself to only thinking about dark energy and modified gravity. I published on a number of topics at the interface of cosmology, field theory, and gravitation: observational constraints on alternative cosmologies, large extra dimensions of spacetime, supersymmetric topological defects, violations of fundamental symmetries, the origin of the matter/antimatter asymmetry, the connection between cosmology and the arrow of time. I found the last of these especially intriguing. To physicists, all of the manifold ways in which the past is different from the future (we age toward the future, we can remember the past, we can make choices toward the future) ultimately come back to the celebrated Second Law of Thermodynamics: in closed systems, entropy tends to increase over time. Back in the 19th century, Ludwig Boltzmann and others explained why entropy increases toward the future; what remains as a problem is why the entropy was ever so low in the past. That’s a question for cosmology, and presents a significant challenge to current models of the early universe. With graduate student Jennifer Chen, I proposed a novel scenario in which the Big Bang is not the beginning of the universe, but simply one event among many; in the larger multiverse, entropy increases without bound both toward the distant future and also in the very distant past [Carroll and Chen 2004, 2005]. Our picture was speculative, to say the least, but it serves as a paradigmatic example of attempts to find a purely dynamical basis for the Second Law, and continues to attract attention from both physicists and philosophers.

In May, 2005, I was informed that I had been denied tenure. This came as a complete shock, in part because I had been given no warning that any trouble was brewing. I will never know precisely what was said at the relevant faculty meetings, and the explanations I received from different colleagues were notable mostly for the lack of any consistent narrative. But one thing that came through clearly was that my interest in doing things other than research had counted substantially against me. I was told that I came across as “more interested in writing textbooks,” and that perhaps I would be happier at a university that placed a “greater emphasis on pedagogy.”

An experience like that cannot help but inspire some self-examination, and I thought hard about what my next steps should be. I recognized that, if I wanted to continue in academia, my best chance of being considered successful would be to focus my energies as intently as possible in a single area of research, and cut down non-research activities to a minimum.

After a great deal of contemplation, I decided that such a strategy was exactly what I didn’t want to do. I would remain true to my own intellectual passions, and let the chips fall where they may.

Caltech and Beyond: 2006-

After the Chicago decision I was again very fortunate, when the physics department at Caltech quickly offered me a position as a research faculty member. It was a great opportunity, offering both a topflight research environment and an extraordinary amount of personal freedom. I took the job with two goals in mind: to expand my outreach and non-academic efforts even further, and to do innovative interdisciplinary research that would represent a true and lasting contribution.

To be brutally honest, since I arrived here in 2006 I have been much more successful at the former than at the latter (although I feel this is beginning to change). I’ve written two popular-level books: From Eternity to Here, on cosmology and the arrow of time, and The Particle at the End of the Universe, on the search for the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider. Both were well-received, with Particle winning the Winton Prize from the Royal Society, the world’s most prestigious award for popular science books. I have produced two lecture courses for The Teaching Company, given countless public talks, and appeared on numerous TV programs, up to and including The Colbert Report. Living in Los Angeles, I’ve had the pleasure of serving as a science consultant on various films and TV shows, working with people such as Ron Howard, Kenneth Branagh, and Ridley Scott. My talk from TEDxCaltech, “Distant time and the hint of a multiverse,” recently passed a million total views. I helped organize a major interdisciplinary conference on the nature of time, as well as a much smaller workshop on philosophical naturalism that attracted some of the best people in the field (such as Steven Weinberg, Daniel Dennett, and Richard Dawkins). I was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society and won the Gemant Award from the American Institute of Physics.

More substantively, I’ve developed my longstanding interest in philosophy in productive directions. https://www.the-essays.com/case-study of the physics questions that I find most interesting, such as the arrow of time or the measurement problem in quantum mechanics, are ones where philosophers have made a significant impact, and I have begun interacting and collaborating with several of the best in the business. In recent years the subject called “philosophy of cosmology” has become a new and exciting field, and I’ve had the pleasure of being at the center of many activities in the area; a conference next month has set aside a discussion session to examine the implications of the approach to the arrow of time that Jennifer Chen and I put forward a decade ago. My first major work in philosophy of science, a paper with graduate student Charles Sebens on how to derive the Born Rule in the many-worlds approach to quantum mechanics, was recently accepted into one of the leading journals in the field [Sebens and Carroll 2014]. I’ve also published invited articles on the implications of modern cosmology for religion, and participated in a number of popular debates on naturalism vs. theism.

At the same time, my research efforts have been productive but somewhat meandering. As usual, I have worked on a variety of interesting topics, including the use of effective field theory to understand the growth of large-scale structure, the dynamics of Lorentz-violating “aether” fields, how new forces can interact with dark matter, black hole entropy, novel approaches to dark-matter abundance, cosmological implications of a decaying Higgs field, and the role of rare fluctuations in the long-term evolution of universe. Some of my work over these years includes papers of which I am quite proud; these include investigations of dynamical compactification of dimensions of space [Carroll, Johnson, and Randall 2009], possible preferred directions in the universe [Ackerman, Carroll, and Wise 2007; Erickcek, Kamionkowski, and Carroll 2008a, b], the prospect of a force similar to electromagnetism interacting with dark matter [Ackerman et al. 2008], and quantitative investigations of fine- tuning of cosmological evolution [Carroll and Tam 2010; Remmen and Carroll 2013, 2014; Carroll 2014]. Almost none of this work has been on my previous specialty, dark energy and the accelerating universe. After having put a great amount of effort into thinking about this (undoubtedly important) problem, I have become pessimistic about the prospect for an imminent theoretical breakthrough, at least until we have a better understanding of the basic principles of quantum gravity. This helps explain the disjointed nature of my research over the past few years, but has also driven home to me the need to find a new direction and tackle it with determination.

Very recently I’ve found such a focus, and in some sense I have finally started to do the research I was born to do. It has resulted from a confluence of my interests in cosmology, quantum mechanics, and philosophy, along with a curiosity about complexity theory that I have long nurtured but never really acted upon. This is the turn toward “emergence” that I mentioned at the beginning of this narrative, and elaborate on in my research plan. I go into greater detail there, but the basic point is that we need to construct a more reliable framework in which to connect the very foundations of physics – quantum mechanics, field theory, spacetime – to a multitude of higher-level phenomena, from statistical mechanics to organized structures. A substantial amount of work has already been put into such issues, but a number of very basic questions remain unanswered.

This represents an evolution of my research focus rather than a sudden break with my earlier work; many topics in cosmology and quantum gravity are intimately tied to issues of emergence, and I’ve already begun investigating some of these questions in different ways. One prominent theme is the emergence of the classical world out of an underlying quantum description. My papers with Sebens on the many-worlds approach are complementary to a recent paper I wrote with two graduate students on the nature of quantum fluctuations [Boddy, Carroll, and Pollack 2014]. There, we argued that configurations don’t actually “fluctuate into existence” in stationary quantum states, since there is no process of decoherence; this has important implications for cosmology in both the early and late universe. In another paper [Aaronson, Carroll, and Ouellette 2014], my collaborators and I investigated the relationship between entropy (which always increases in closed systems) and complexity (which first increases, then decreases as the system approaches equilibrium). Since the very notion of complexity does not have a universally-agreed-upon definition, any progress we can make in understanding its basic features is potentially very important.

I am optimistic that this new research direction will continue to expand and flourish, and that there is a substantial possibility of making important breakthroughs in the field. (My papers on the Born Rule and quantum fluctuations have already attracted considerable attention from influential physicists and philosophers – they don’t always agree with our unconventional conclusions, but I choose to believe that it’s just a matter of time.) I am diving into these new waters headfirst, including taking online courses (complexity theory from Santa Fe, programming and computer science from MIT) that will help me add skills that weren’t part of my education as a cosmologist. A Guggenheim Fellowship will be invaluable in aiding me in this effort.

My ten-year-old self was right: there is nothing more exciting than trying to figure out how nature works at a deep level. Having hit upon a promising new way of doing it, I can’t wait to see where it goes.

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alhorner · 7 years

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How Alicia Keys arrived Here – cover feature and short film

Every day is a near-death experience in Alicia Keys’ “dark, desolate, beautiful” New York. It was in an elementary school car park that the revelation struck. “I’d just dropped my son off for class this one time, and I read the illest article. So, the average American lives 76 years. But break that down to days, and that’s only 28,000 days on this earth,” she grins, slowing those last few words to a crawl for impact. 76 years sounds like an eternity. 28,000 days? That seems far more fleeting. “Time, man,” she laughs. “Time is not to be fucked with.”

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This epiphany lit a fire within the R&B icon, who wrote a song about it, presumed by many to be the first single from and blueprint for her upcoming sixth studio album. Instead, the fiery, danceable gospel of Here, released this week, is as much fueled by fury at the thought of those never given a chance to make it to that number – the men, women and children not allowed anywhere near 28,000 days on this earth. From soulful single ‘Hallelujah’, about the refugee crisis in Syria, to tracks informed by war, police brutality and the “school-to-prison pipeline” for young black males, it’s a record on which Alicia, for the first time, feels “ready to speak on what’s happening” in a divided election-time America and beyond. There’s happiness, hope and healing on Here too. But make no mistake – this is an infectiously fired-up Alicia Keys unlike we’ve seen before, whose frustration at the systems ending lives before they really begin can no longer be contained.

“My sister asked me if I was ready to be the Nina I was born to be, the Bob I was born to be, the Lennon I was born to be. Because the time is now. We’re living through it. The world is fucked up,” she says, her voice crackling with anger. “It’s backwards, and it’s getting more backwards, blatantly backwards, than I think it’s ever been before. But it’s actually a good thing I think, in a strange way.” Until recently “the world and especially America did a really good job at covering up and hiding” the kind of racism currently living out in the open, she suggests. “But now that the veil is gone, there’s no hiding anymore. We can actually attack it.”

Keys may talk up this new release as coinciding with something of a personal political awakening. But dig beneath the tabloid headlines – her marriage to rap producer Swizz Beatz, her Nietzsche-referencing speech at the launch of Tidal in 2014, and most recently, her public decision to stop wearing makeup – and she’s always appeared awake to the horrors of the world. The 35-year-old spent her son's sixth birthday in 2014 outside the Nigerian consulate in New York, protesting the Boko Haram kidnappings in Nigeria. Last year, she raised $3.8m for AIDS awareness in one night at her 12th annual Black Ball in Manhattan. In 2008 she was hailed by black rights groups for telling an interviewer that Tupac and Notorious BIG were "essentially assassinated, their beefs stoked by the government and the media, to stop another great black leader from existing”, though she later claimed the comments had been misinterpreted. For someone so plugged in to and outspoken about human rights issues, Here is the first time that hunger for change has spilled explicitly out into her music, on an album that doubles up as a return to her hip-hop-infused New York roots. She says it collects the sounds, stories, struggles and sunshine of a place she likens to “an electric painting... this explosion of people, accents, sounds and smells of people the cooking in the street. Those dudes with the pretzels! Oh man, I love the pretzels.”

“There’s a kind of magic here,” Keys explains of her hometown, on a relatively quiet Thursday afternoon. It’s the sixth anniversary of her wedding to Swizz Beatz this weekend, and after our interview she’s away on a “kinda romantic getaway,” she blushes. Swizz is one of the “perfect team” around her who worked on Here, which she describes as “this collision of sounds that’s about to start the illest conversations.” Though she’s hesitant to discuss exact artists she looked to when shaping its sound, she calls it “diverse…. like a thunderbolt struck it.”

Here – geographically speaking – has pretty much always been New York for Keys. The daughter of a powerhouse Italian-Irish mother, Terri Augello, and absent flight attendant father, Craig Cook, she grew up in Hell’s Kitchen, in an apartment on 43rd and 10th. Inspired by her dynamo mother, a legal aid and actor, she threw herself into her studies at a performing arts school after writing her first song aged 13 about the death of her grandfather. By 21, she’d sold 12 million copies of her debut album Songs In A Minor. By 22, she had five Grammys to her name. By 24, her Diary of Alicia Keys album had become the sixth biggest-selling album by a female artist of all time. 15 years later, a decade and a half since the heart-melting piano waltz of ‘Fallin’ first rung out on radios, she remains one of the biggest and most influential names in pop, called on by Barack Obama to perform at his second Presidential inauguration and now with 35 million album sales behind her.

Though her success has taken her all over the world, Keys insists that spiritually she’s never strayed far from her roots. She still lives in Hell’s Kitchen, where her children attend piano lessons at the same school that she learned to play at. “It’s kind of crazy every time I walk in. On one hand it’s a community and I feel very protected. On the other, I feel like I’m trapped in the Twilight Zone, all those memories,” she laughs. It’s a very different place now to the one she grew up in though, the slow-creep of gentrification having turned a neighbourhood that she once used to carry a pocket knife around in for protection into a safer space. “It was totally the place for the most disenfranchised,” remembers Keys. “It was pornography and X-rated stores, pimps and prostitutes, needles and drugs but also Broadway and theatre and promise and possibility and dreams and broken dreams. That definitely reflects in my music, now and forever.”

25 people were killed by police in New York last year, seven of which were unarmed black males. Last night, Keys was in Philadelphia, where she dedicated a performance at the Democratic National Convention to the Mothers Of The Movement – a group including the mothers of black police brutality victims Trayvon Martin, Jordan Davis and New Yorker Eric Garner. “It’s outrageous and devastating to me as a mother,” she says of the long-lasting epidemic of police violence towards POC that saw a total 1,134 black men killed by US law officials in 2015. “America can we see it’s out of control. The whole world can see it’s out of control. You’ve gotta be blind to not see it’s out of control. I have babies. Those were someone’s babies too. Those babies went outside and were killed and now they’re never gonna come back. Why? Because they’re black? Because they’re doing nothing but wearing a hoodie or reaching for their wallet?”

Learning to not be afraid to embrace your individuality is one of the key themes of Here, says Alicia. “I think a lot about my son. So what if my son wants to paint his own fingernails? So what. What do we do to our boys when we say ‘don’t cry! Boys don’t cry. Hold it in, man up, toughen up?’” That lesson about individualism extends to female body image, too. “Some of us wear business suits and have tough faces and wrinkles that speak to years of struggle and pain and strife to be recognised and appreciated. Then some of us are so glorious and big with our beautiful booties so huge, swaying in the summer sun,” she beams. “We’re so unbashful and glad to be ourselves and different from everyone else.” There’s a pause, and she smiles. “That’s a beautiful thing.”

Here arrives four years after Keys’ last album, 2012’s Girl On Fire, but “not reeeeeally four years,” she says playfully, nodding to her newborn baby Genesis. “You put out a record, then you promo a tour a record, and that itself it a two year process. So by the time you go back and actually engage in the process of what you’re going to build next, that’s another year, you’re up to three. Oh and throw a baby into the mix? Pshhh, there goes four!” Alicia wrote over 100 songs for Here, which she says is “so many things. A dialogue, a conversation about who we are. What are we living through? What are the stereotypes we’re battling to break out of?”

“I’m ready right now, I’m in my zone right now. I’m accessing a part of myself I’ve never been ready to access before,” she adds confidently. “I want people to find themselves to it, relate to it, identify with it, feel feel it, get lost to it, cry to it, laugh to it, dance to it, pray to it, grow to it… If you feel it, and if you lived it, and if you believed it, and you gotta say it because you can’t hold it back, then that’s soul music, you know what I mean?” You only get 28,000 days on earth, and that’s if you’re lucky. Alicia Keys is using hers wisely.

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blackkudos · 4 years

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Ben Webster

Benjamin Francis Webster (March 27, 1909 – September 20, 1973) was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. He is considered one of the three most important "swing tenors" along with Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young. Known affectionately as "The Brute" or "Frog", he had a tough, raspy, and brutal tone on stomps (with growls), yet on ballads he played with warmth and sentiment. He was indebted to alto saxophonist Johnny Hodges, who, he said, taught him to play his instrument.

Early life and career

Born in Kansas City, Missouri, United States, he studied violin in elementary and taught himself piano with the help of his neighbor Pete Johnson, who taught him the blues. In 1927-1928 he played for silent movies in Kansas City and in Amarillo, Texas.

Once Budd Johnson showed him some basics on the saxophone, Webster began to focus on that instrument, playing in the Young Family Band (which at the time included Lester Young), although he did return to the piano from time to time, even recording on the instrument occasionally.

In his first biography (‘Ben Webster / In A mellow Tone’, Van Gennep/The Netherlands, 1992, published as ‘Ben Webster / His Life and Music’ with Berkeley Hills Books/USA in 2001), author Jeroen de Valk (assisted by Ben’s cousin Harley W. Robinson) traces back his ancestry to his great-great grandmother, a woman from Guinea who reportedly was brought to America as a slave in the early 19th century. Her son managed to escape from slavery. Ben’s father, who worked as a porter on Pullman trains, separated from his mother before his son was born. Ben was raised by his grand-aunt, Agnes Johnson, to whom he referred as his ‘grandmother’. His mother Mayme worked as a school teacher. He had to play the violin as a kid but hated the instrument, as other kids called him ‘sissy with the violin’. He had his first piano lessons by his second cousin, Joyce Cockrell. He changed to the tenor saxophone after hearing Frankie Trumbauer’s solo on the C-Melody saxophone in 'Singing The Blues', but soon Coleman Hawkins became a major influence. Webster was married for a couple of years in the early 40s to Eudora Williams. He never had a family of his own and lived with his mother and grand-aunt off and on until their passing in 1963.

Kansas City was a melting pot from which emerged some of the biggest names in 1930s jazz. Webster joined Bennie Moten's band in 1932, a grouping which also included Count Basie, Hot Lips and Walter Page. This era was recreated in Robert Altman's film Kansas City.

Webster spent time with quite a few orchestras in the 1930s, including Andy Kirk, the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra in 1934, then Benny Carter, Willie Bryant, Cab Calloway, and the short-lived Teddy Wilson big band.

With Ellington

Ben Webster played with Duke Ellington's orchestra for the first time in 1935, and by 1940 was performing with it full-time as the band's first major tenor soloist. He credited Johnny Hodges, Ellington's alto soloist, as a major influence on his playing. During the next three years, he played on many recordings, including "Cotton Tail" and "All Too Soon"; his contributions (together with that of bassist Jimmy Blanton) were so important that Ellington's orchestra during that period is known as the Blanton–Webster band. Webster left the band in 1943 after an angry altercation during which he allegedly cut up one of Ellington's suits. Another version of Webster's leaving Ellington came from Clark Terry, a longtime Ellington player, who said that, in a dispute, Webster slapped Ellington, upon which the latter gave him two weeks notice.

After Ellington

After leaving Ellington in 1943, Webster worked on 52nd Street in New York City, where he recorded frequently as both a leader and a sideman. During this time he had short periods with Raymond Scott, John Kirby, Bill DeArango, and Sid Catlett, as well as with Jay McShann's band, which also featured blues shouter Jimmy Witherspoon. For a few months in 1948, he returned briefly to Ellington's orchestra.

In 1953, he recorded King of the Tenors with pianist Oscar Peterson, who would be an important collaborator with Webster throughout the decade in his recordings for the various labels of Norman Granz. Along with Peterson, trumpeter Harry 'Sweets' Edison and others, he was touring and recording with Granz's Jazz at the Philharmonic package. In 1956, he recorded a classic set with pianist Art Tatum, supported by bassist Red Callender and drummer Bill Douglass. Coleman Hawkins Encounters Ben Webster with fellow tenor saxophonist Coleman Hawkins was recorded on December 16, 1957, along with Peterson, Herb Ellis (guitar), Ray Brown (bass), and Alvin Stoller (drums). The Hawkins and Webster recording is a jazz classic, the coming together of two giants of the tenor saxophone, who had first met back in Kansas City.

In the late 1950s, he formed a quintet with Gerry Mulligan and played frequently at a Los Angeles club called Renaissance. It was there that the Webster-Mulligan group backed up blues singer Jimmy Witherspoon on an album recorded live for Hi-Fi Jazz Records. That same year, 1959, the quintet, with pianist Jimmy Rowles, bassist Leroy Vinnegar, and drummer Mel Lewis, also recorded "Gerry Mulligan Meets Ben Webster" for Verve Records (MG V-8343).

In Europe

Webster generally worked steadily, but in late 1964 he moved permanently to Europe, working with other American jazz musicians based there as well as local musicians. He played when he pleased during his last decade. He lived in London and several locations in Scandinavia for one year, followed by three years in Amsterdam and made his last home in Copenhagen in 1969. Webster appeared as a sax player in a low-rent cabaret club in the 1970 Danish blue film titled Quiet Days in Clichy. In 1971, Webster reunited with Duke Ellington and his orchestra for a couple of shows at the Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen; he also recorded "live" in France with Earl Hines. He also recorded or performed with Buck Clayton, Bill Coleman and Teddy Wilson.

Webster suffered a cerebral bleed in Amsterdam in September 1973, following a performance at the Twee Spieghels in Leiden, and died on 20 September. His body was cremated in Copenhagen and his ashes were buried in the Assistens Cemetery in the Nørrebro section of the city.

Legacy

After Webster's death, Billy Moore Jr., together with the trustee of Webster's estate, created the Ben Webster Foundation. Since Webster's only legal heir, Harley Robinson of Los Angeles, gladly assigned his rights to the foundation, the Ben Webster Foundation was confirmed by the Queen of Denmark's Seal in 1976. In the Foundation's trust deed, one of the initial paragraphs reads: "to support the dissemination of jazz in Denmark". The trust is a beneficial foundation which channels Webster's annual royalties to musicians in both Denmark and the U.S. An annual Ben Webster Prize is awarded to a young outstanding musician. The prize is not large, but is considered highly prestigious. Over the years, several American musicians have visited Denmark with the help of the Foundation, and concerts, a few recordings, and other jazz-related events have been supported.

Webster's private collection of jazz recordings and memorabilia is archived in the jazz collections at the University Library of Southern Denmark, Odense.

Ben Webster used the same Saxophone from 1938 until his death in 1973. Ben left instructions that the horn was never to be played again. It is on display in the Jazz Institute at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ.

Ben Webster has a street named after him in southern Copenhagen, "Ben Websters Vej".

On June 25, 2019, The New York Times Magazine listed Ben Webster among hundreds of artists whose material was reportedly destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.

Discography

As leader / co-leader

King of the Tenors [AKA The Consummate Artistry of Ben Webster] (Norgran, MGN-1001, 1953)

1953: An Exceptional Encounter [live] (The Jazz Factory, 1953) – with Modern Jazz Quartet

Music for Loving (Norgran MGN-1018, 1954) AKA Sophisticated Lady (Verve, 1956), and Music With Feeling (Norgran MGN-1039, 1955) – reissued as a 2-CD set: Ben Webster With Strings (Verve 527774, 1995; which also includes as a bonus: Harry Carney With Strings, Clef MGC-640, 1954)

The Art Tatum - Ben Webster Quartet (Verve, 1956 [1958]) – with Art Tatum

Soulville (Verve, 1957)

The Soul of Ben Webster (Verve, 1958)

Ben Webster and Associates (Verve, 1959)

Gerry Mulligan Meets Ben Webster (Verve, 1959)

Ben Webster Meets Oscar Peterson (Verve, 1959)

Ben Webster at the Renaissance (Contemporary, 1960)

The Warm Moods (Reprise, 1961)

Wanted to Do One Together (Columbia, 1962) – with Harry Edison

Soulmates (Riverside, 1963) – with Joe Zawinul

See You at the Fair (Impulse!, 1964)

Stormy Weather (Black Lion, 1965) – recorded at The Jazzhus Montmartre, Copenhagen

Gone With The Wind (Black Lion, 1965) – recorded at The Jazzhus Montmartre, Copenhagen

Meets Bill Coleman (Black Lion, 1967)

Big Ben Time (Ben Webster in London 1967) (Philips, 1968)

Webster's Dictionary (Philips, 1970)

No Fool, No Fun [The Rehearsal Sessions, 1970 with The Danish Radio Jazz Orchestra] (Storyville Records STCD 8304, 1999)

Ben Webster Plays Ballads [recordings from Danish Radio 1967–1971] (Storyville SLP-4118, 1988)

Autumn Leaves (with Georges Arvanitas trio) (Futura Swing 05, 1972)

Gentle Ben (with Tete Montoliu Trio) (Ensayo, 1973)

My Man: Live at Montmartre 1973 (Steeplechase, 1973)

Ballads by Ben Webster (Verve, Recorded 1953-1959, released 1974, 2xLP)

As a sideman

With Count Basie

String Along with Basie (Roulette, 1960)

With Buddy Bregman

Swinging Kicks (Verve, 1957)

With Benny Carter

Jazz Giant (Contemporary, 1958)

BBB & Co. (Swingville, 1962) with Barney Bigard

With Harry Edison

Sweets (Clef, 1956)

Gee Baby, Ain't I Good to You (Verve, 1957)

With Duke Ellington

Never No Lament: The Blanton-Webster Band (RCA, 1940–1942 [rel. 2003])

With Dizzy Gillespie

The Complete RCA Victor Recordings (Bluebird, 1937–1949 [rel. 1995])

With Lionel Hampton

You Better Know It!!! (Impulse, 1965)

With Coleman Hawkins

Rainbow Mist (Delmark, 1944 [1992]) compilation of Apollo recordings

Coleman Hawkins Encounters Ben Webster (Verve, 1957)

Coleman Hawkins and Confrères (Verve, 1958)

With Woody Herman

Songs for Hip Lovers (Verve, 1957)

With Johnny Hodges

The Blues (Norgran, 1952–1954, [rel. 1955])

Blues-a-Plenty (Verve, 1958)

Not So Dukish (Verve, 1958)

With Richard "Groove" Holmes

"Groove" (Pacific Jazz, 1961) – with Les McCann

Tell It Like It Tis (Pacific Jazz, 1961 [rel. 1966])

With Illinois Jacquet

The Kid and the Brute (Clef, 1955)

With Barney Kessel

Let's Cook! (Contemporary, 1957 [rel. 1962])

With Mundell Lowe

Porgy & Bess (RCA Camden, 1958)

With Les McCann

Les McCann Sings (Pacific Jazz, 1961)

With Carmen McRae

Birds of a Feather (Decca, 1958)

With Oliver Nelson

More Blues and the Abstract Truth (Impulse!, 1964)

With Buddy Rich

The Wailing Buddy Rich (Norgran, 1955)

With Art Tatum

The Tatum Group Masterpieces, Volume Eight (Pablo, 1956)

With Clark Terry

The Happy Horns of Clark Terry (Impulse!, 1964)

With Joe Williams

At Newport '63 (RCA Victor, 1963)

#03/27 #09/20

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blackkudos · 7 years

Text

Alberta Hunter

Alberta Hunter (April 1, 1895 – October 17, 1984) was an internationally known African-American jazz singer and songwriter who had a successful career from the early 1920s to the late 1950s (she was a contemporary of Ethel Waters and Bessie Smith) and then stopped performing. After 20 years of working as a nurse, in 1977 Hunter successfully resumed her popular singing career until her death.

Early life

Hunter had a difficult childhood. Her father left when she was a child, and to support the family her mother worked as a servant in a brothel in Memphis, although she married again in 1906. Hunter was not happy with her new family and left for Chicago, Illinois, around the age of 11, in the hopes of becoming a paid singer; she had heard that it paid 10 dollars an hour. Instead of finding a job as a singer she had to earn money by working at a boardinghouse that paid six dollars a week as well as room and board. Hunter's mother left Memphis and moved in with her soon afterwards.

Career

Early years: 1910s–1940s

She was still in her early teens when she settled in Chicago. Part of her early career was spent singing at Dago Frank's, a whorehouse. She then sang at Hugh Hoskin's saloon, eventually singing in many Chicago bars.

One of her first notable experiences as an artist was at the Panama Club, a white-owned club with a white-only clientele that had a chain residing in Chicago, New York and other large cities. Hunter's first act was in an upstairs room, far from the main event; thus, she began developing as an artist in front of a cabaret crowd. "The crowd wouldn't stay downstairs. They'd go upstairs to hear us sing the blues. That's where I would stand and make up verses and sing as I go along." Many claim her appeal was based on her gift for improvising lyrics to satisfy the audience she was in front of. Her big break was when she got booked at Dreamland Cafe, singing with King Oliver and his band.

She first toured Europe in 1917, performing in Paris and London. The Europeans treated her as an artist, showing her respect and even reverence, which made a great impression on her.

She recorded several records with Perry Bradford from 1922 to 1927.

Hunter wrote "Downhearted Blues" with Lovie Austin and recorded the track for Ink Williams at Paramount Records. Hunter received only $368 in royalties. Williams had secretly sold the recording rights to Columbia Records in a deal where all royalties were paid to Williams. The song became a big hit for Columbia, with Bessie Smith as the vocalist. This record would almost 1 million records. Hunter learned what Williams had done and stopped recording for him.

In 1928, Hunter played Queenie opposite Paul Robeson in the first London production of Show Boat at Drury Lane. She subsequently performed in nightclubs throughout Europe and appeared for the 1934 winter season with Jack Jackson's society orchestra at London's Dorchester Hotel. One of her recordings with Jackson is "Miss Otis Regrets".

Retirement: late 1950s–1970s

Hunter said that when her mother died in 1957, because they had been partners and were so close, the appeal of performing ended for her. She reduced her age, "invented" a high school diploma, and enrolled in nursing school, embarking on a career in health care, working for 20 years at Roosevelt Island's Goldwater Memorial Hospital.

Comeback: 1970s–1980s

Hunter was still working at Goldwater Memorial Hospital in 1961 when she was persuaded to participate in two recording sessions. In 1971 she was videotaped for a segment of a Danish television program, and she taped an interview for the Smithsonian Institution. That same year record producer Chris Albertson asked her to break an 11-year absence from the recording studio. The result was her participation (four songs) on a Prestige Bluesville Records album, Songs We Taught Your Mother. The following month, Albertson recorded her again, this time for Riverside Records, reuniting her with Lil Armstrong and Lovie Austin, both of whom she had performed with in the 1920s. Hunter enjoyed these outings but had no plans to return to a career as a singer. She was prepared to devote the rest of her life to nursing, but the hospital retired her in 1977, when it believed she had reached retirement age (she was then 82).

In the summer of 1976, Hunter attended a party for her long-time friend Mabel Mercer, hosted by Bobby Short. Music public relations agent Charles Bourgeois asked Hunter to sing and connected her with the legendary owner of Cafe Society, Barney Josephson. Josephson offered Hunter a limited engagement at his Greenwich Village club, The Cookery. Her two-week appearance there was a huge success, turning into a six-year engagement and a revival of her career in music.

Impressed with the attention paid her by the press, John Hammond signed Hunter to Columbia Records. He had not previously shown interest in Hunter, but he had been a close associate of Barney Josephson decades earlier, when the latter ran the Café Society Uptown and Downtown clubs. Her Columbia albums, The Glory of Alberta Hunter, Amtrak Blues (on which she sang the jazz classic "The Darktown Strutters' Ball"), and Look For the Silver Lining, did not sell as well as expected, but sales were nevertheless healthy. There were also numerous appearances on television programs, including To Tell the Truth (in which panelist Kitty Carlisle had to recuse herself, the two having known each other in Hunter's heyday). She also had a walk-on role in Remember My Name, a 1978 film by the director Alan Rudolph, for which he commissioned her to write and to perform the soundtrack music.

As capacity audiences continued to fill The Cookery nightly, concert offers came from Brazil to Berlin, and there was an invitation for her to sing at the White House. At first, she turned it down, because, she explained, "they wanted me there on my day off," but the White House amended its schedule to suit the veteran artist. During that time, there was also a visit from former First Lady turned book editor Jackie Onassis, who wanted to sign her for an autobiography but was unhappy with the co-author assigned to the project. The book was eventually done for another publisher, with the help of writer Frank Taylor.

Hunter's comeback lasted six years. She toured in Europe and South America, made more television appearances, and enjoyed her renewed recording career as well as the fact that record catalogs now once again contained her old recordings, going back to her 1921 debut on the Black Swan label.

Personal life

Hunter was a lesbian, though she kept her sexuality relatively private. In August 1927, she sailed for France, accompanied by Lottie Tyler, the niece of well known comedian Bert Williams. Hunter and Tyler had met in Chicago a few years earlier. Their relationship lasted until Ms. Tyler's death, many years later.

Hunter is buried in the Ferncliff Cemetery and Mausoleum located in Hartsdale, Westchester County, New York (Elmwood section; plot 1411), the location of many celebrity burials.

Hunter's life was documented in Alberta Hunter: My Castle's Rockin' (1988 TV movie), a documentary written by Chris Albertson and narrated by pianist Billy Taylor, and in Cookin' at the Cookery, a biographical musical by Marion J. Caffey that has toured the United States in recent years with Ernestine Jackson as Hunter.

Hunter was inducted to the Blues Hall of Fame in 2011 and the Memphis Music Hall of Fame in 2015. Hunter's comeback album,Amtrak Blues, was honored by the Blues Hall of Fame in 2009.

Discography

Early work: 1921–46

Hunter, Alberta. Complete Recorded Works in Chronological Order. Volume 1: May 1921 to February 1923. Vienna, Austria: Document Records, 1996. DOCD-5422. OCLC 35186454.

Hunter, Alberta. Complete Recorded Works in Chronological Order. Volume 2: February 1923 to November 1924. Vienna, Austria: Document Records, 1996. DOCD-5423. OCLC 35186490.

Hunter, Alberta. Complete Recorded Works in Chronological Order. Volume 3: 6 November 1924 to 26 February 1927. Vienna, Austria: Document Records, 1996. DOCD-5424. OCLC 37591743.

Hunter, Alberta. Volume 5: The Alternate Takes. 1921–1925. Vienna, Austria: Document Records, 1997. DOCD-1006. OCLC 38880479.

Hunter, Alberta, and Jack Jackson. The Legendary Alberta Hunter. The London Sessions with Jack Jackson & His Orchestra.New York: DRG, 1981. Recorded at the Dorchester Hotel, September–November 1934. OCLC 178720357.

Featuring Fletcher Henderson, Eubie Blake, Jimmy Lytell, Phil Napoleon, Elmer Chambers, Don Redman, Frank Signorelli

Featuring Fletcher Henderson, Joe Smith, Fats Waller, Tommy Ladnier, Jimmy O'Bryant, Lovie Austin, Elkins-Payne Jubilee Quartette

Featuring Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet, Buster Bailey, Charlie Irvis, Perry Bradford, Clarence Williams, Mike Jackson

Featuring Ray's Dreamland Orchestra, Eubie Blake, Original Memphis Five, Fletcher Henderson, Paramount Boys, Lovie Austin

Collaborations: 1961

1961: Chicago: The Living Legends. Alberta Hunter with Lovie Austin's Blues Serenaders (Riverside), recorded September 1, 1961, in Chicago.

1961: Songs We Taught Your Mother: Alberta Hunter, Lucille Hegamin, Victoria Spivey (Bluesville/Original Blues Classics), recorded by Rudy Van Gelder on August 16, 1961, in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.

Comeback: 1978–83

1978: Remember My Name, the original soundtrack recording of the Robert Altman film Remember My Name, (Columbia), OCLC 894368622

1980: Amtrak Blues (Columbia), OCLC 191945612

1981: Downhearted Blues: Live at the Cookery, a concert from the documentary Alberta Hunter: My Castle's Rockin, recorded in December 1981 at The Cookery, New York (Varèse Sarabande), OCLC 74155365

1982: The Glory of Alberta Hunter (Columbia)

1983: Look for the Silver Lining (Columbia)

Filmography

Santee, Clark, Delia Gravel Santee, Willis Conover, Alberta Hunter, and Gary Allen. Alberta Hunter Jazz at the Smithsonian.United States: Shanachie Entertaintment, 2005. Live performance at the Smithsonian Institution's Baird Auditorium on November 29, 1981. ISBN 978-1-561-27270-9. OCLC 58996219.

Goldman, Stuart A., Chris Albertson, Billy Taylor, Alberta Hunter, Jack Churchill, Robert M. Cohen, and Mary Alfier. Alberta Hunter: My Castle's Rockin'. New York: View Video, 2001. 1988 performance documentary. ISBN 978-0-803-02331-4. OCLC 49503904.

Wikipedia

#Alberta Hunter #04-01 #10-17

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