It has been fifty years since I heard from my well-intentioned liberal and forgotten classmates. It has proved my father’s pleas about attending a Historically Black College and University (HBCU) so that my college experience would net me lifelong friends.
My law career began with an early passion for politics, in service to Kathy Whitmire, the first female mayor of Houston, and support for the then-Democratic leadership in Texas. Feeling like a big fish in a small pond, I decided to relocate to Los Angeles to be closer to my family. I continued working in real estate for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.
Since retiring, I have followed my interest in music and travel and the arts. My wanderlust began at Carleton with my first trip to West Africa, where I contracted malaria. Before the pandemic, I pursued a bucket list of destinations, including the Cuba Art Triennial, Art Basel Miami, Zona Maco in Mexico City and museums in NYC, Istanbul, and Vienna. I traveled with friends to celebrate birthdays in Marrakech, Barcelona, San Miguel de Allende, and Cartagena. I got my travel mojo back in December with a trip to London to meet up with my Carleton roomie and long-term friend, Maybelle Hu. It has been telling that so-called Carleton “Friends,” with whom I have remained connected over the last 50 years, have been persons of color. I never married and have no children, having loved and lost many men and women along the way. So, friends are everything.
I often reminisce about the radio show on KARL at Carleton where I indulged my wildly disconnected music taste, playing everything from Coltrane, Motown, and Stravinsky to the Fugs. After KARL, I did a stint at Pacifica radio in Houston. Later I became a longtime board member of the Cultural Arts Council of Houston, now the Houston Arts Alliance, distributing hotel-motel tax receipts to arts non-profits.
I am currently a trustee serving on the board of New Music USA. I have been instrumental in shifting this organization toward more diverse offerings, including Reel Change, which features a young composer, Kris Bowers, who I met as a high school student at the Colburn Conservatory in LA. I had the pleasure of introducing him to New Music USA. He was the force behind an Oscar-nominated short documentary called A Concerto is a Conversation directed by Ava Duvernay and the recipient of an Oscar nomination for the film Green Book; the organization wasted no time in sweeping him up.
Another initiative of mine, Next Jazz Legacy, will support women improvisers to promote their careers. I created this program in collaboration with Terri Lynne Carrington, drummer/educator and founder of the Berklee Gender Justice Institute for Women and Jazz. The Mellon Foundation gave us $1.25M to support our effort this year, and our first group of grantees will be announced soon. In early January, I will be supporting the Disney Hall performance of Nathalie Joachim, another young person I met during my tenure as a board member of the Eighth Blackbird Music Ensemble organization. Joachim is a Haitian American flutist whose first album received a Grammy nomination for Best World Music Album.
Time flies. Twenty years ago, I began studying jazz music at Colburn Conservatory and small bands. Before the pandemic, I played my flute weekly with a group at the Los Angeles Athletic Club. And, while the nation was on lockdown, I began playing the clarinet again (my childhood instrument), with which I hope to slay my band members with some Benny Goodman licks when live music returns.