Once again, thats a great Smith arrangement.

Rockin!

Harris the master on Drums.

Marcus Rashford.

My name is Jonathan White or Doctor Jonathan White.

Got my PhD from the University of Pittsburgh in 2020.

My dissertation centered on black jazz musicians in Pittsburgh in particular, looking at their transition from the segregated era to post segregation.

So Doctor Lawrence Glasgow, who's currently in the University of Pittsburgh history department, suggested that there was a story that needed to be written.

He said we had these elderly musicians, these seniors who were part of Pittsburgh's vibrant jazz scene, and they were all getting older.

People are dying and we need someone to tell this story.

Primarily, I wanted an oral history, and it took me actually maybe a year or two just to get to know them.

I'd sat down with them, gained their trust.

Just listening to them, it was such a strong sense of nostalgia and it was just the greatest.

The golden era, right?

They're talking about Pittsburgh primarily from 1940 to the late 1960s.

You know, there was a Black Musicians Union, local 471, established in 1908.

By the.

I love.

And with this union in 1941, the musicians club really became the hub of black activity where black jazz and Pittsburgh exploded.

We talked about just the glamor and how they dressed and presented themselves to the black community.

They talked about just challenging some of the greats who will come through and kind of measure measuring yourself against people who are nationally known.

They talked about the food, how good the food was.

And so it served multiple functions, as you said, the business of the union.

They would come to the musicians club to get hired for gigs, and then they had the place where they would learn and kind of get trained, mentored.

And then it was just the pure social aspect of it.

And one thing I learned from Mr.

Chuck Austin, because he was a side man, he could play it from anything to the Steelers band or just at a nightclub, and he would talk about how at times jazz artists can be kind of elitist, right?

Playing this kind of music that can go over the head of the masses, he said, no, we played with the people, wanted to hear.

They were working hard all week.

They want to come and have a good time.

So we played these popular tunes, right?

They wanted to dance to, you know Chloe, it's almost like even though we were in this segregated world, they felt they created a Paradise, right?

Local 471 was part of that.

We have our own.

Pittsburgh was known for his size to to really produce probably more innovators than any city.

You know, there was some great Pittsburgh artist.

You would get not only local artists, but artists from all over the country.

Right.

Because Pittsburgh is was considered kind of the crossroads between Chicago and New York.

One theory that has been suggested to explain the prominence of Pittsburgh in the jazz world attaches great importance to the fact that, geographically, Pittsburgh has been a convenient stopover for the artist traveling between the East Coast and Chicago.

This gave Pittsburgh musicians the opportunity to hear and occasionally perform with some of the country's outstanding jazz interpreters.

According to this theory, Pittsburgh musicians took the sophistication of the eastern musicians and combined it with the bluesy sound of the Midwestern shuffle.

This combination led to the development of a kind of sophisticated funk that later became characteristic of Pittsburgh jazz.

Finished the 1930s.

Earl Father Hines, who created a style of playing the piano that really became the trendsetter for what jazz was going.

Evidence for this can be found in the trumpet like piano lines of Earl Hines, who was featured in this selection called Nice Work if you can Get it.

Many Pittsburgh artists participated at Kenny Clarke's, for instance, in what was called bebop in the 40s, and that, you know, they were the ones who kind of developed their own Pittsburgh sound.

Local 471, as I said, was really responsible for helping Pittsburgh get the moniker Little Harlem.

Right.

Because in this time, big artists from other cities would come through there and they'd be like, wow, it was such a cosmopolitan feel.

You know, not only urban renewal destroyed many of these spots, but in 1968, the riots after the assassination of King, civil rights, the community from what many tell me, which is never the same.

The Hill district was really kind of the epicenter.

The Crawford Grill, Musicians Club, when they lost a lot of these places, there were many of the musicians who attributed their lack of opportunity to racism.

Right?

We just aren't getting a fair shake.

We don't get the same scale, which is how much you were getting paid, same opportunities to play, but sadly racism was a part of it.

But it was also things like by the 60s, jazz music wasn't the mainstream music like it was in the 40s still very popular.

But now we talk about soul, you know, the gospel coming.

It was technology was changing where live bands weren't always the main thing.

You have DJs who are playing music, playing records that people wanted to hear.

You had, now with integrated unions, sometimes bandleaders or club owners wanted people to play specific stuff.

You had to be able to read music.

Many black artists were used to improvise, and so when they had to kind of fit into this integrated world, it felt almost constricting to them.

Integration was a was difficult for many artists, and it affected the Hill district.

And people's perception of it is kind of like we had something that the city took away from us in this urban renewal when they tore down, kind of like gentrification, right?

You took something from us.

Turn the lights on, so its good.

Then can you clap?

Check one, two, three.

Can you catch me?

Good.

I mean, a ton of big name people that came out of Pittsburgh.

For example, Georgie Benson, great jazz guitarist.

Right.

He started right here in the Hill district, you know, and he actually was a child performer.

He recorded his first record at nine and got some record deals.

But then once he became bigger, you moved to New York or you moved to LA, you know, and that's what happened.

So a lot of them think they're from New York or they're from LA and they're not.

A lot of cities looked at us like we were not something big, but we were I mean, you see some of the names that come out of here as a just totally amazing, you know what I mean?

Like Chuck Jackson and Tommy Hunt and the Skyliners and the Vogues and Marcel's and the Letterman, and it just goes on and on and on and on, and but people didn't really take us seriously.

It was like it was a steel town.

It was a smoky city.

It wasn't a beautiful city like it is now.

At one point, you could stand on the one bank of our river, and on a decent day you could barely see across the other shore, you know, from the coal dust and the smoke and all that stuff.

And so we were considered that kind of a town, you know, with a lot of music, a lot of music background.

But one thing I'll say about Pittsburgh is it didn't matter where you came from, what race you were, what religion you were, whatever, if you could sing or you could play, you were accepted and it has this great bond.

So as a young man, I didn't do anything but soul music, you know, and I was accepted in the black culture very quickly.

And, and I was very blessed because when you'll see, when you go through my museum, 90% of my heroes growing up were black artists, you know, some of my best friends in the world, Eddie Holman.

Hey there, Lonely Girl, Caesar Bary from the times.

So in love.

I mean, we keep in touch.

We talk a lot.

Mary Wilson and I were friends until she passed away.

We were putting together a show.

The color barrier was.

It was not there for the musician.

It was there for the rest of the world.

And the rest of the world separated it.

They kept kept everyone apart.

There was a black station and a white station.

You didn't see many black artists on television except for a few they saw, you know, they didnt see with their heart they saw with their eyes.

You know what I mean?

Book right there is a green book.

Green book is the book they used to give the black artist and tell them where there were allowed to eat, and they could sleep.

Have you ever seen the movie?

If you don't haven't seen it, you should watch it.

It's amazing.

That's the way it was.

You know, you could be headlining the biggest theater in the country, but you couldn't stay across the street in the hotel and you couldn't eat dinner there.

It was just ridiculous.

Totally ridiculous.

So I'm blessed.

I mean, I'm very lucky.

I got to work with all my heroes, and if I had to do over again, I probably would have taken the same path it was.

I love this music.

I mean, it's it does something to you that just like I'm sure people that like hard rock or, you know, punk or whatever, it does something to them and that's why they grasp it, you know?

But to me, soul music just touched my inner soul and it's like if doesn't have soul, Im not interested in listening to it.

Well, there's a rose in a fisted glove and the eagles flies with the dove.

And if you can't be with the one you love.

Its all right.

Go on and love the one, love the one, love the one you will.

Love the one, love the one, love the one you with.

And I saw it as the music completely changing and clubs were starting to fold.

And you didn't see as many clubs, especially in the 80s and then the 90s, and then in 2000 there was hardly anything.

I mean, it was like clubs were almost extinct.

I mean, you didn't have clubs like they used to have in Pittsburgh.

To make ends meet.

Away my car.

Lennon landslide with him guitar Scott say hello.

Hello, this is Dave Wescott.

He plays drums.

Hello, this is Darren.

He plays lead guitar and my name is T.J.

and I'm vocals and percussion.

The song is called your Love to Me is like Voodoo.

My grandfather was a jazz musician here a long time ago.

And he played in The Hill, and he died when I was young and I remember wanting his trumpet.

Many, many years later, I ended up inheriting all of his jazz collection.

And so I get to listen to his music that like, I'm like, this guy was 30 years ahead of the game.

There's a deep, rich history here and the venues in Oakland.

Do you know anything about those Decade Oakland hotspot All the big acts played there before U2 played their frequency very.

Vaughan played there used to be like a history that there was a dead body under the stage.

Oakland used to.

Oakland used to be the hotspot.

It had all the the great venues we had.

The graffiti, we had Laga, you had the upstage and it just brought this.

It was like the cultural hub of the city.

I wish people now knew how like Great Oakland was.

And that's where like your, your favorite band would be before you knew they were your favorite band.

So there's a deep history, even like being in a strip.

I'm like, that used to be whiskey dicks.

That used to be this.

This used to be.

I'm like, and no one knows.

I know except for the people who know.

You know.

We recorded some demo cassette tapes four track cassette tapes.

And at the time at the University of Pittsburgh, I was taking African drumming ensemble and jazz guitar and jazz voice.

And so I was in the music building a lot.

And so I took this tape around to a couple of people who I thought might be interested, and one of them was Jim Donovan, who ended up being the drummer of Rusted Root.

At first we played smaller places.

We played a place called The Artery, which was in Shady Side.

It's now soba restaurant is where it is.

We really kind of had to make our own places, like we played at the Beehive Coffee shop.

There was another place in the south side called the Birmingham Lofts, which was basically just like a warehouse, and they would do art shows and stuff there.

Well, we would like rent this place out and bring a sound system in and play concerts at the Birmingham Lofts.

Used to really pack that.

So I would say that was kind of like the bridge between, like playing at the beehive, to be able to do the graffiti where we would play just opening for bands.

But then as it grew, we got to the point where we were selling out the graffiti for like three days in a weekend.

So it would be a Friday, Saturday, Sunday.

Its the very first Mr.

Smalls t shirt that was made by our son.

And when we built our first recording studio, when we were trying to decide what to name it, I was on the road with Rusted Root.

Just a bunch of dudes hanging out with this tiny baby, right?

And they all had nicknames.

And, you know, our friend with the dreadlocks was Mr.

Freaky Big and the nanny was Mr.

Handler, and the baby was Mr.

Smalls.

He made this t shirt.

Oh my gosh.

Oh my gosh.

And backwards.

Oh yeah.

And there is really nothing that compares to just like being in a room and experiencing music with other people.

That's very true.

It's a communal experience.

Yeah.

And I think during the pandemic that was illustrated very starkly to the world, I think the world realized, you know, not only are we stuck here by ourselves, but we have like, have no sense of community, you know, and it really it really got to the to a crisis point during the pandemic that like, you know, venues were going to be wiped out.

It was it was very like we were on the verge of losing 90% of the venues in this country.

I don't know if people realize that.

I have a screenshot of our bank account with like $0.05 in it.

My gosh.

Yeah.

And so the support that came in, the donations, people were, you know, buying gift cards that they'll never use just because they wanted to find a way to get some money to us.

Wow.

And those things really made it different.

I just I don't know if you can express it through this film, but like, we need to express to, like the public that if they care about live music, you got to support the people that are playing it in your town.

Those people are the future.

You know, the thing that we're experiencing now is really interesting.

What happened during the pandemic is that, you know, there's a trajectory for artists.

They play small, they get medium, they get bigger, they get bigger, they get bigger.

For a band in Pittsburgh would be first.

You would play Club Cafe, then you would play the Funhouse at Mr.

Smalls, then you would play Thunderbird Music Hall, then the Rex Theater on the South Side, and then Mr.

Smalls Theater, and then Stage AE and then Roxian.

So that's the growth pattern, right?

What's going on now is because you took a two year chunk out of the development growth of these bands is that the middle is missing.

So the bands that used to sell out Mr.

Smalls Theater, they like there aren't any.

There aren't as many.

So these are analog tape machines.

This is a 16 track and Studer and this is a 24 track Studer.

And so basically it's two inch thick tape.

And so 24 tracks get recorded onto that tape and then mix down through the board.

Yeah, I guess what I wanted to touch on just being a, being a woman in, in like the music, the music industry.

And it was really hard for me to find women to talk to for my documentary.

So I guess if you would speak on that a little bit or.

Like what?

What your thoughts?

Being a woman in the music industry is very daunting.

I've been at it for a really long time.

And, you know, if I think back through my development from the beginning to where I am now, and I think about those early years of, you know, I learned to play the guitar, I learned to write some songs.

I got into a band with a bunch of guys.

There were skill sets that I didn't have, and I didn't know what they were, and I didn't know how to ask for guidance or for help.

I didn't feel worthy of anyone's attention to help me figure it out.

And I think that's what happens with women.

Women don't feel worthy.

Women don't feel like they should be prioritized, and men tend to just do what they do on their agendas, which is their prerogative.

But there is not an awareness of like, you know, lifting other people up.

And I think that that awareness is what needs to happen to really, truly build some equality within the music industry.

I've had real skills, but they were never really seen or appreciated by the male collaborators around me as valuable, whether it be because they were in competition with their ideas or they just didn't think that, you know, I was like as talented, didn't value my contributions.

And so there was a lot of just very like systematic, repetitive rejection, rejection, rejection.

And I tried and I tried and I tried and I tried.

And at a certain point, you, you know, you just can't keep banging your head against the wall, you know.

And so by this point, you know, the, the band that I was in, Rusted Root was my livelihood.

And it got to a point where I had to just kind of submit and be in the position I was in and accept that that was my job, became a day job.

I still have love and passion for it.

I still love performing.

I still loved the music was just I was in a certain box with like a glass ceiling and like, this is my position in this situation.

And I had to make the choice to stay in, in that situation so that I could raise my child, and so that my husband and I could build Mr.

Smalls together and, you know, rusted my money from rusted root really like, helped support the development of Mr.

Smalls and at a lot of times was the only thing preventing from Mr.

Smalls from crumbling.

And so I had to really just keep myself in this glass box for 30 years.

Wow.

That was a cry.

That was really beautiful.

That was a really beautiful answer.

Yeah, I guess like, what advice would you have for young female musicians who are trying to trying to make it now?

I guess my advice for young female musicians, I have one of my songs or my solo project.

It's called ask, and I call it my personal Declaration of Independence, and the lyrics go, I can't believe it.

You mean all I had to do was ask.

And you can say a prayer for what you really want.

You can say it all night long.

But if you never get your feet marching out the door and start walking, walk towards your life.

Don't take that as reality.

All of that is an illusion.

Wherever you are, whatever skills you have, are your gifts, and the limitations that you have, you can build tools and find tools to work in spite of them or with them.

They can be your strengths, but the thing that you have to do is know that you are worthy of asking for assistance.

Even if you don't know what to ask for, you're worthy of like, targeting a person that you admire and asking them for insight.

Want to say to the people who are skilled and capable, whether they be male or female, is be aware of those people because there are some geniuses in among those people that will never see the light of the day.

And I would ask those people to take some responsibility, to guide those people and to share with those people what you have, the gifts that you have, and to really try to watch them and try to really see what it is they might need and and try to share that with them.

Wow, yeah.

Wow that's great.

That's great.

I don't think.

Now Im crying.

I've had a great experience here.

Like it's it's a great place to like get your chops together and learn.

And you can really make a name for yourself and then go out and do it.

You can grow your craft, and it's not so big that it's like the little guy never makes it to the next tier.

You know, everyone's kind of connected in some capacity.

So you can kind of navigate your way into growing into who you want to become.

It's a sneaky, like low key.

There's a lot of hotness going on.

Yeah.

Being in Pittsburgh, it's big enough that you have like some bigger city amenities and culture and opportunities and talent without, like, the sprawling, overwhelming metropolis of like a New York or LA.

Its super welcoming.

There's definitely like a strong sense of community.

Like I said, it's like a small enough city that everyone, everyone kind of knows each other.

And you don't have to be involved in the music scene for too long until, you know, you can kind of show up anywhere where music is happening and you're like, oh, I know you from this, or I know you from this, and you kind of can build a network really quickly.

And Eli, the bass player of Wild Blue Yonder, was here on Monday when I was sitting in with a different band, and he was like, hey, we're playing on Thursday if you want to come sit in and play some tunes.

And so I said, yeah, cool, I'll come play.

And so here I am.

Everyone kind of knows each other.

But then also that's not true because like, there will just be this random band that you see one night that you play with or like, wow, like, how have I never stumbled across these people?

So it's like kind of like you think you know everyone, but you actually don't.

It's kind of like a nice, like in between.

An incubator.

It's a big enough pond that you can grow.

I don't feel like we've outgrown it just yet.

I'm of the mind that I'd like the Pittsburgh music scene to continue to grow and support artists so that people don't feel like they get to a certain level and have to leave.

You know, there are cities that aren't that big that do big things for their, like, artist community.

There's so many good artists and performers here that I think if we build like an infrastructure to keep people here, the sky's the limit.

I love like the indie venues here.

I think that's something that Pittsburgh does really well.

Bottle rocket is a great example of a place that's like brand new and that like, hit the scene super hard.

And they just like book book book, book book local talent.

We just turned a year old a week or two ago, so we've been open for a year.

It's an independent arts venue, so music, comedy, movies, whatever else.

I think we just hit a nerve of something independent and authentic and like original, which is kind of lacking in this area nowadays.

I feel like or not, not the city, but just like the industry.

So it's important to you to keep the old spirit of like, music shows in Pittsburgh alive?

Definitely.

I definitely think that there's like, you know, those are venues that were independent and they were like their own thing, you know, and they became legendary because of that.

And, you know, you look now and I think venues are very corporatized.

They've just kind of lost that original spirit.

And really venues.

Now sometimes they feel like they're almost like a blank shell.

There's not a lot of character.

And I think those places are iconic because they had so much character.

You know, last week we had Jogers Yeck Even and here we had like a really young audience seeing this 75 year old dude, like Rock out.

It was very, very cool at the decade he played like once a week or, you know, multiple times a week at the same venue.

And it was just like, I go there and I listen to music.

I have a good time every time.

And that's that doesn't really exist at all anymore.

It's nice to be able to do something that you're good at, that like brings joy into the world.

I think a lot of capitalistic talents you get like commoditized and then you're just there to like drive value for other people.

I'd rather do something that I think is like positive and brings genuine joy and light into the world, as opposed to like being a transactional cost on some business deal.

You can't really build anything new if you don't recognize the past, but I don't think we should stay in the past.

I think now we're seeing a lot too, of like musician and just like artist, treatment is getting a lot better compared to like, you know, the stories of what you would hear at the electric banana with, like, somebody waving a gun around and, you know, threatening musicians and stuff.

I think that we've kind of moved on past that, which is good for everybody.

I mean, the number one thing would just be like an actual independent music venue in Oakland.

And like, I spent a lot of time in the last year trying to, like, make that happen.

That's the most important part about live music.

Live music will not exist if people do not come see it.

As long as people want to have a good time, venues will still thrive.

You know, like I think now there's a lot of talk about like virtual reality and, you know, people don't want to go out as much anymore and that type of stuff.

But I think that that is there's something so primal about wanting to be around people, wanting to dance, wanting to listen to music that although, like the music they're listening to may change the way we're listening to it may change the the primal need to go to a bar, a dark place and just experience music I don't think is ever going to go away.

And I think sometimes we we forget that it wasn't like an opera.

I'm going to sit in here and kind of be quiet.

It was like, no, people want to dance.

They want to release.

I get lost when I come in here because this is the way life used to be, and I miss the way it used to be.

I think that the world is moving way, way, way too fast.

And I think we have to get back to enjoying family and and the things that are really important, not the things that make you a you know what I mean?

That's not really life, you know?

But I think as an artist playing for people's like the number one thing, like every artist will tell you like nothing surpasses that.

Music is hands down like the most freeing thing that I've found.

I think that we all have, you know, just like some part in us that just wants to, like, do whatever it wants to do.

So music is definitely just, like, nurtured my soul.

Wow.

The Pittsburgh music community is here, and it's like it's more than just one place.

I'm like, growing and growing, and I'm incredibly grateful for all the opportunities that the city has given us.

And I just want to continue to play for more and more people Where does like funk and soul, have a home like everywhere and nowhere, maybe.

And it'd be cool if it was here.

People also said to me and that people just want to dance like people are there just to like, feel the music and like, feel it with other people.

And that's at the end of the day.

That's all it is.

You know, you want to make people feel good with music.

That's what the best music does.

Man come on, have a good time to get out of life.

Way too many ways to be able to pull the other way.

Oh, my.

I've asked.

And on and on we pray.

So pick up your pieces.

Go your own way.