Bang on a Can

The Tuskegee Airmen have been an obsession of mine for quite some time now. They were the first Black military pilots, and their successes led to the elimination of segregation and discrimination in the U.S. Military, many years before those laws were imposed upon civilians. My first album was dedicated to them (along with the victims of the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis experiment). When I first hit music school, I had never seen an African American clarinet player in any symphonic chair. I shrunk from having to be the first at something, from fighting the disbelief of the majority. Music was a spiritual thing for me, too spiritual to have to put out the kind of force field one needs to be the first Black person to do a thing. So I gathered the experiences I needed to improve my playing and writing completely outside the system, but I have never fully escaped the scenario of being "the first".

Just a few years ago, Black quarterbacks were said to be incapable of being NFL quarterbacks. That's how the NY Knicks ended up with Heisman Trophy Winner Charlie Ward as their point guard. That's how Doug Williams could win a Super Bowl one season and be unemployed the next. It's through the efforts of the Airmen, under galling conditions that all Black folks can understand, that we live in a highly improved, but still imperfect world. They carried the hopes and dreams of a people on their backs, and fought with pride and patriotism for the country that made their lives so much more difficult than need be.