The Harlem Cultural Festival – six Sundays of free concerts in the summer of 1969 – was the largest African American musical event. It took place a month before the highly celebrated Woodstock, already documented in 1970 by the homonymous documentary by Michael Wadleigh in which Martin Scorsese collaborated. But – despite the 300,000 spectators and black stars like BBKing on stage. Mahalia Jackson, Gladys Knight, Nina Simone and a very young Steve Wonder – fell into oblivion. Because in the 1960s African Americans were fighting for civil rights, against racism and discrimination, their radical leaders like Malcolm X and even moderate ones like Martin Luther King were killed. And the United States lived in a sort of cultural apartheid, especially since the order service of the Harlem Cultural Festival was organized by the Black Panther, the most radical organization considered terrorist by the FBI which, a few months after the festival, killed the leaders during a raid on the party headquarters in Chicago.
A scene from Summer of Soul
However, the television director Hal Tulchin had filmed the whole festival and, after his death, Ahmir Khalib Thompson – writer, music producer and percussionist of the band The Roots – better known by the stage name of QuestLove took the trouble to transform 40 hours of recording in Summer of Soul, the most successful documentary made in the USA of 2021. After being awarded by the Sundance Film Festival and the Critic’s Choice Documentary Award, it is now in the smell of an Oscar. In Italy it is broadcast by Disney +.
Summer of Soul is the excuse to discover the musical face of the most famous African American neighborhood in New York. Between gospel rites and Harlem jazz music in which sacred monsters of black music such as Louis Armstrong, Ray Charles, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis played. Because if New Orleans was the cradle of jazz, the fiery jam sessions and theaters of Harlem were the springboard for jazz to the world. For this reason Harlem hosts The Jazz National Museum at 58 West 129th Street, almost at the corner with Lenox Avenue, the artery full of shops and clubs that cuts the neighborhood from north to south. Founded in 1997 by Leonard Garment and jazz saxophonist Abraham Sofaer, the museum presents, preserves and disseminates jazz, its history and its cultural message through photos, objects, musical instruments and – above all – an extraordinary collection of films (which can also be enjoyed online) and with over one hundred hours of radio broadcasting, recorded between 1934 and 1941, with live recordings by Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, Fats Waller, Coleman Hawkins. Open Thursday to Saturday from 12 to 17.
Harlem The National Jazz Museum
The other musical cornerstone of Harlem is the Apollo Theater at 253 West of 125th Street, the main street of the district full of shops, bars and clubs. Inaugurated in 1934, it is the cradle of African American music and culture, where many of the most famous black artists have performed, all those who have achieved world fame, in jazz as in rock: Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Ray Charles, Marvin Gaye, Jimi Hendrix, Billie Holiday, Michael Jackson (made his debut here) and rapper Jay-Z. His Amateur Night on Wednesday, a singing competition in which the public also actively participates, was the launching pad for many musicians.
Among the hottest live jazz venues in the black district in uptown Manhattan is Minton’s Playhouse, opened in 1938 by saxophonist Henry Minton, is a jazz club with bar located on the first floor of the Cecil Hotel at 210 West 118th Street .
Finally, the gospel, the ancient and spiritual soul of black music, the son of chains and slavery, the music born in the southern plantations to alleviate suffering and keep hope alive. Collective rite adopted by the Protestant Christian Baptist church with spectacular services sung by crowded choirs lasting from two to three hours and usually starting on Sunday morning at 11am. Admission is often free but the more famous and crowded churches can charge a fee. ticket. Silence and the usual visiting rules must be respected during religious services. Gospel masses take place every Sunday in the following Harlem churches. Abyssinian Baptist Church (132 West 138th Street), one of the oldest in the neighborhood, with a separate section for tourists. Canaan Baptist Church (132 West 116th Street). First Corinthian Baptist Church (1912 Adam Clayton Powell Jr Boulevard). Greater Hood Memorial AME Zion Church (160 West 146th Street). Convent Avenue Baptist Church (420 West 145th Street). There are gospel masses even in less famous small churches. And a pleasant alternative can be to attend choir rehearsals held in many Baptist temples on Wednesday afternoons.
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