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The Jazz of Black Art

By Rev. Donald L. Perryman, Ph.D.
The Truth Contributor

   You could remove the white elements…and the music would still recognizably be jazz. But if you removed the black elements – the emphasis on improvisation, the complex rhythms, not to mention the all-important attitude that music was part of daily life – the remainder would not be jazz.
                     
-  Laurence Bergreen


Rev. Donald L. Perryman, D.Min.

In the mid 1960s, a group of young, gifted, and Black artists came together to form Toledo’s Black Arts Movement. The group, known as the Confederation of Black Artists (COBA), and later, the Creative Workshop, consisted of visual artists, poets and creative writers, choreographers, musicians, and dramatists. The group’s goal was to provide a creative space to communicate the Black cultural experience at the highest level of artistic excellence.

There is, perhaps, no greater danger that confronts a community than to have its cultural memories, values, and heroes either erased or forgotten.

White pushback on Nikole Hanna Jones’ Pulitzer Prize-winning 1619 Project and its adoption into educational curricula bears me out. As does the White backlash surrounding freedom of Black cultural expression in Black History Month celebrations at Toledo’s St. John’s Jesuit High School. Numerous other protests are occurring throughout America over inclusion of history’s cold, hard facts of racial injustice in schools’ educational curricula.

I spoke with internationally-acclaimed artist Johäna, co-founder of Toledo’s Confederation of Black Artists (COBA) between 1968 and 1975. This article is the conclusion of our two-part conversation on his award-winning cultural expressions and Toledo’s Black Arts heritage.

Perryman: When did you first know that you wanted to be an artist?

Johäna: At Pickett School in Toledo, the teacher gave us some tempera paint. I did two pieces from drapery or curtains, and he hung them on the boards along with the other students’ work. From there, it grew on me, and I knew I wanted to be an artist at nine or 10 years old.  I would get myself a little odd job helping people in the neighborhood and get about a quarter to do some small tasks. I would buy a pack of paper for 20 cents and use the other nickel to buy me some candy or cookies. 

By the time I got to high school, we had an excellent art department and a whole school of artists, so I elevated my work.  Then, in the 11th or the 12th grade, my pastor opened an account for me downtown at the art store so I could go down and get art supplies to take home. 

Perryman: You have done so many inspiring Black cultural pieces, including the African Odyssey collection you painted or exhibited in Cameroon. My favorite work of that series is the watercolor called “Marketplace.” The Black Madonna is a religious gem that you did earlier in your career. However, my absolute favorite is the series you did of the legendary American jazz saxophonist John Coltrane. Please tell me about your Coltrane series and how it came about.  

Johäna: Former U.S. Representative John Conyers came to Cincinnati to see the Coltrane series. I was in Africa at the time, so I couldn’t oblige him.  When I got back, an article in the newspaper said that he personally came to town to see the series because he had strongly followed John Coltrane. 

Most of the work I do emerges from interests, situations, or previous experiences. That’s the same thing with Coltrane. I’ve always liked his music and that of Miles Davis, Pharaoh Sanders, and all those guys. That interest developed as a result of my association with jazz musicians, especially the progressive types.

The series emerged from my involvement at the Creative Arts Workshop in Toledo and listening to jazz to the extent that I was at the time. It grew to a point where I decided to do a tribute to John Coltrane as an appreciation for his work. I liked him because he had a progressive side to his music. When you create from a source as I did with Coltrane, your source becomes the basis of energy, and it pushes or forces you to respond in a way that you wouldn’t if you just sat down at a desk.  That was the idea behind the Coltrane Series and other ones as well; it was a push. 

There was a musician, and he’s a writer and music critic also, who was saying that when he first saw Pharaoh Sanders playing with Coltrane, his first impression was that Pharaoh Sanders was trying to outplay John Coltrane. Then, later, he realized Sanders wasn’t trying to outperform Coltrane. Instead, he learned that Coltrane put together musicians.  All the musicians in his group were there to push the other musicians.  It’s like Miles (Davis), in Stanley Nelson’s Grammy-nominated film Birth of the Cool. Miles brought Herbie Hancock and other guys. They were ages 22 and 26, and another guy in the group was 17. Miles told them, ‘I’m not paying you to play what you know. I want you to play what you don’t know!’

He brought them on stage to play during the performance, not playing or practicing in advance.  They were all put together to push each other because it often pulls you to do things that logically you wouldn’t do.

In doing Coltrane, I knew the basics and hadn’t had a lot of experience, but working from Coltrane’s music, would force you to step out there and do things that, if you have to think about, may not happen. That was the idea about the John Coltrane Series apart from the appreciation for his music and everything. It also served to push me beyond that creative zone that I was familiar with.

Perryman: How would you describe the style of your Coltrane series?

Johäna: To a degree, the series is a form of abstract expressionism. I have evolved to become a little bit more of a lyrical abstractionist now. So, I guess you could call it lyrical abstraction because it responds to Coltrane’s compositions. 

Perryman: Black Art icons such as Jacob Lawrence used a dynamic cubism style. Romare Bearden was a master of abstract collages.

Johäna: Lawrence’s style is much more analytical. He breaks the composition down into shapes and forms. He uses color, movement, and space in relation to the subject in a very well-thought-out or analytical way.

Bearden is also analytical. You have paper and stuff all over the studio floor, and Bearden would look at it and figure how he wanted to use it in a composition. That requires a lot of meditation, thought, and imagination to take what’s before you and then use it to create a statement or work of art out of it.

I created the Coltrane series differently. When I’m creating, I can put down 2 or 3 strokes of color on a canvas, and it begins to dictate what the next move is going to be. What I do is just work with it. I don’t try to make it into something. I work with what the dictates are.

Perryman: How many pieces make up the Coltrane Collection?

Johäna:  There are about 22 pieces, including the pair you have. Your canvases are approximately 3x4 each and put together make a 4x6. The remaining 20 paintings are each 4 feet wide by 5 feet high.

Perryman: Marvin Vines was also one of Toledo’s great Black artists. How would you describe Vines’ style and art?

Johäna:  Marvin was a very dedicated artist with a realistic style, probably influenced by his experience as a mathematician and math teacher. He was very exacting anatomically. Vines was a magnificent artist, and that was the realm in which he worked.

 In later works, he got heavily into Maxwell and emphasized using decorative patterns in his paintings.  Part of that, though, was inspired by me. 

Perryman: Please elaborate.

Johäna: I painted Coretta King at Martin Luther King’s funeral using a technique with Elmer’s glue to create some exciting patterns in her veil and the image. I gave it to Marvin and his wife as a wedding present, and he really liked it.  We were good friends, and he said, “Johana, you don’t mind if I use your patterns and paint technique?”  I said, “No, Marvin go ahead, man.” He got married back in about ’71-’72, and he got into those patterns, and kept those.  He didn’t use the same technique as the pattern itself, but he incorporated those patterns. 

A lot of his work from that point on, you can find that the execution or the image is very realistic.  Sometimes they were realistic. Yet, he would also use a variety of different colors in his paintings. So, he could be somewhat impressionistic too, because he used a lot of different colors. Vines used simple colors and then would incorporate patterns in a lot of images as well.  He was a good friend. I met Marvin in ’66, and we had been friends ever since. 

Perryman: You have painted several works for churches and community institutions also. Haven’t you?

Johäna: I did a series, Religious Crisis in Social Ministry at Jerusalem Baptist and I painted one of Christ for the Ascension Lutheran Church.  Then Imani Temple in DC, Archbishop Stallings, he has a piece there in DC.  Then there’s a 6’x8’ piece that sits right above the baptismal pool one in Arkansas at New Hope Baptist Church. I also did a social commentary years ago for the Economic Opportunity Planning Association.

Perryman: Thank you for helping to preserve these historical memories about our cultural identity.

In 1980 Johäna was nominated for the Corbett Award for work done by an individual artist. In 1981 he was honored by the NAACP for artistic contributions and with a feature in the Black Art International Magazine. In 1987 he was a finalist for a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship. In 1988 he was nominated for an Award in the Visual Arts (AVA).

Contact Rev. Donald Perryman, D.Min, at drdlperryman@centerofhopebaptist.org

  

Copyright © 2019 by [The Sojourner's Truth]. All rights reserved.
Revised: 03/04/21 13:33:19 -0500.

 

 


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