I didn’t know about Juneteenth until the late 1970s or early 1980s when Eddie Knowles invited me to his annual Juneteenth party. And even then I’m not sure I knew what Juneteenth was, a celebration of the ending of slavery, “the day when Major General Gordon Granger ordered the final enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation in Texas at the end of the American Civil War.” To me, on that day in, say 1980 or 1981, perhaps 1979, I don’t really recall the exact year, to me it was a big party in Eddie Knowles’ back yard where there were a lot of black people, Eddie’s friends and family, a bunch of drums, played by some of those black people, piña coladas, barbecue, and one white trumpet player, me.
At that time I was on the faculty of the Language, Literature, and Communications Department of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, New York. Eddie was an Assistant Dean for Minority Affairs, I think that was the title, but I’m not sure. But he was also a percussionist who had performed all over the world with Gil Scott-Heron, collaborated with The Last Poets, and knew many expatriate African Drummers, including Yacub Addy. That’s how I knew him. I was a trumpet player who hadn’t played all over the world with anyone. But I’d studied improvisation with Frank Foster, who’d been with Count Basie for a decade back in the 1950s and then played with and arranged for all sort of musicians, Sarah Vaughan, Elvin Jones, Dizzy Gillespie, George Coleman, Diane Schuur, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, George Benson, and who knows how else. And I’d taken lessons with Harold Rehrig, who’d spent much of his career with the Philadelphia Symphony. I knew my way around the trumpet and Eddie, also known as “Ade,” knew his way around congas, the djembe, bells, and other percussion instruments.
We met by chance. I was with some friends in a club in Troy listening to a local jazz group, Doc Scanlon. I sat in with them on a number, I forget what. But I noticed Eddie Knowles sitting at a table with some of his colleagues from RPI. After I’d had my turn on stage (actually, it was just the floor), I went over and introduced myself. “You’re Eddie Knowles, aren’t you, played with Gil Scott-Heron?” He acknowledged that I’d smoked him out and I told him who I was. At the end of the evening he and his fiancé, Druis, came over to me and invited me to play with Ade as he played drums of a class Druis was teaching in African Dance.
That’s how it started. I accompanied Ade on both trumpet and flugelhorn in those dance classes. In time the three of decided to form a musical group. We started out as the AfroEurasian Connection (AEC) and in time became the New African Music Collective. We performed locally – including opening for Dizzy Gillespie in a large outdoor gig in ‘84, took a trip out to Western New York to play a gig at Afred University, and had a residency in the Schenectady Public Schools. Depending on this and that Druis’s sister Fonda would join us, Kahinde Donaldson, a percussionist friend of Ade’s, and bass player whose name escapes me. We had a nice little thing going for a few years.
But I don’t think we’d actually formed the group when I went to that first Juneteenth party. Druis, Eddie, and I were just doing her African dance class. I forget just how I felt that time. I was certainly aware that I was the only white person there, at least I think I was, I don’t remember anyone else. I didn’t feel at all uneasy. No, I felt right at home. As the years went by, more white people showed up, mostly colleagues of Ade’s from RPI.
Things would start slowly. People showing up, saying “hi,” chatting about this and that. Sipping drinks. Maybe Eddie’d start barbecuing some chicken. Once things got going, then the drums came out. Four, Five, Six, Seven, perhaps more, guys on the lawn or the back porch, playing drums. Though some would play bells. I’m sure Druis did. I probably did too. And I’d play my trumpet. We had a blast.
I remember on one occasion a guy named Zola Kobas came up to me and exclaimed, “A white black man, you’re a white black man.” Zola was from South Africa, a political fugitive. And me, I was a trumpet player raised in Johnstown, Pa., educated in Baltimore and Buffalo, and a white black man on Juneteenth sometime in the mid-1980s in Troy, New York.
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