We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

Lewis Family Tree

by Hakim Be

/
  • Streaming + Download

    Includes high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more. Paying supporters also get unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app.
    Purchasable with gift card

      name your price

     

about

Commissioned for the City of Albuquerque's 3rd Annual John Lewis Celebration at the New Mexico Jazz Festival.

lyrics

Lewis Family Tree - by hakim bellamy

“Lewis has pointed the way toward the use of classical forms - the fugue, the rondo, and episode - while maintaining, through some memorable improvisations and a frequent use of the blues, direct contact with the fundamentals of jazz.”

- Whitney Balliett, Jazz Critic for the New Yorker

For as far back
as anyone can remember
he has always had Africa at his fingertips
and Albuquerque in his heart.

Father,
all heartstrings and handwork,
Mom,
famous for her vocal chords
and open lungs…

See, Johnny was born
to break the sound barrier,
Jackie Robinson of the Cool.

Son of an optometrist
No wonder he could see his future
Son of a woman
who never held her breath…

This music in his blood
was a cacophony
of Indian drum circle drums
and Black Gospel hymnals hummed
that he would one day tickle
into a symphony.

But the day the music died…
he was only 4 years old.
Orphaned to a world
that made it difficult to play anymore…

But Edith English
was a caterer
more than a grandmother
she was a godsend,
and even if “musical genius” wasn’t on the menu
she knew how to make a man, a masterpiece,
from scratch.

How to improvise, a family.
And it was in that kitchen
that Johnny really learned how to cook.

I’d be lying
if I told you that anyone,
except Aunt Laura knew
that lil Johnny would one day be famous
for bringing together
Jazz and Classical music
like the different colored keys
on a piano…

But first things, first
our hero needed to learn
the blues.

And a few years after his parents left him,
Aunt Laura started Johnny on lessons,
about the same time he started at Eugene Field Elementary,
then Lincoln Junior High School,
then Albuquerque High, Class of ’38.

But it was in high school
that he gave the blues a break…
Johnny started his own Swing Band
at a time when Black students still weren’t allowed
to go to the high school dance…

back when Black faces still
weren’t allowed in the yearbook…

but Johnny was finished with blue
and graduating to blew up.

Knew Newsweek would one day
put him in the same sentence as Ellington,
Mingus, Monk and Russell.

That classmates of all colors
would find it impossible to avoid his image
on national television and newspaper covers…

But John had bridge in his bones,
chose cool over cold
from the school of Count Basie,
Diz’N Bird, he became a Lobo
went to University of New Mexico
to learn some new notes.

Bach, Mozart, Hadyn
he became classically trained in
fugue, episode, toccata
immersed himself in a brand new language
like he was going for Baroque.

Like he knew what he was doing…
Like Afrofuturism, a head of its time,
Like the jazz purist,
who would say his music is “not quite,”
and the classical critics
who would say his music is “not yet”

Johnny was used to being in between
holding everything and everyone together,
until he found himself in the middle of World War II.

Played music there too
Met a drummer boy in the music branch
that would help him found MJQ.

And in ’45
he came home to the life of the 45s
to New York City to join Dizzy Gillespie’s tribe
to tour Europe and arrange a few tunes for Miles,
and go on tour with Ella for a lil’ while…

But saw a future beyond
Big Band and Bop where they traded Zoot Suits
for tuxedos and jazz clubs
for concert halls…

saw compositions mingle with improvisations
a collection of solos under one groove…
where the composers ‘pose
and the players play…

So Johnny, Kenny, Milt and Percy became
the Modern Jazz Quartet.

22 years his family, brothers
before he fell in love with a Yugoslavian harpsichordist
and gave birth Nina & Sasha Alexander
before he bought Mirjana a castle
in the South of France

Before being optioned for AT & T commercials,
before the 7 years it took to finally finish Django.

Before his agent
was the husband of Dihanna Carroll

Before he scored Harry Belafonte’s “Odds Against Tomorrow”
and even after then, when Harry came to see Johnny conduct
a 30-piece orchestra.

Before a 23 year stint as the Musical Director of the Monterrey Jazz Fest.
Before becoming the President of Atlantic Records.
And before all the rest…

Johnny was a New Mexican.

1971
when he performed with the Albuquerque Symphony Orchestra
In Memorian of his UNM piano teacher Walter Keller
at Popejoy Hall…

after he hadn’t seen him in 20 years,
and they ran into each other in Barcelona
a month before Keller died.

1957
when he held a special concert
in Carlisle Gym
for Grandma English…

The woman
who raised him
on a steady diet
of mixed blood
and confidence.

At home anywhere
and everywhere in between
especially behind the wheel of a piano
all the way from Broadway
to I-25…

Johnny was a natural
his compositions
a blank mesa
treble clefs and petroglyphs
‘cross the page.

Standing out like a yucca,
in his morticians uniform,
sore thumb on Kennedy Center
and Carnegie Hall stages,
like a one note samba,
just like
us.

Born mix and masa
Rondo rojo y
verde Vendome

Christmas ‘round midnight
‘round the way
‘round here…

Just a man,
and his gift
under the Lewis Family Tree
at 721 Walter SE.

© Hakim Bellamy July 14th, 2015.

credits

released July 14, 2016
Lyrics by Hakim Bellamy
Music by Modern Jazz Quartet (Django)

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Hakim Be Albuquerque, New Mexico

contact / help

Contact Hakim Be

Streaming and
Download help

Report this track or account

If you like Hakim Be, you may also like: