#Black Disco “Discovery 1975-1976”

[nofomoartworld]

Hyperallergic: How the 1960s and ’70s Counterculture Queered Fashion

“Hippie Royalty on the Rocks” (1969) (photo by Karl Ferris, featuring crocheted designs by 100% Birgitta)

It’s not often that a fashion exhibition in New York City presents vintage garments against a backdrop of faux-wood laminate paneling, or accessorizes select pieces with clusters of hanging plants in macramé holders. But Counter-Couture: Handmade Fashion in an American Counterculture, now on view at the Museum of Arts and Design, takes aim at the contested territory that separates DIY practice from luxury craftsmanship. The stretch of time between the late 1960s and early 1970s is a rich moment in which to examine this theme. Though steeped in protest, the fashions and fads of this era were also frilly and decadent, luxuriant in materials and elaborate in construction — a sartorial mode that deftly underscores the exhibition’s “queerness,” both in the broad, countercultural sense, and in the more specific sense of sexual identity.

Mary Ann Schildknecht, “Embroidered Skirt and Top Ensemble” *c. 1972), cotton and velvet (courtesy of Mary Ann Schildknecht; photo by Rex Rystedt; courtesy of the Bellevue Arts Museum)

Some of the works on view could have been runway looks, had the powers-that-be at the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture decided on a whim that studded denim was suddenly an acceptable medium. The broad message of the exhibition seems to be that do-it-yourself doesn’t have to mean making something sloppy or shoddy. Contrary to the punk aesthetic, which valorizes a certain duct-taped, improvised nonchalance, many of the garments and accessories displayed in Counter-Couture are exquisite, even obsessive in their design and fabrication, like the embroidered ensemble that Mary Ann Schildknecht created while serving time in an Italian prison, where skilled nuns taught her to stitch. These pieces may be labors of love, but they don’t say “amateur hour.”

Counter-Couture premiered at the Bellevue Arts Museum in Washington in the fall of 2015. It was organized by guest curator Michael Cepress, a Seattle-based fashion designer who specializes in menswear. Quoted in the exhibit’s press release, Cepress points to his discovery at age 15 of Alexandra Jacopetti Hart’s 1974 book Native Funk & Flash, which captured his imagination and inspired him to launch what would become a 15-year process of researching counterculture fashion. Since the late 1990s, Cepress has personally reached out to scores of makers across the United States and painstakingly assembled the garments and collateral material on view in Counter-Couture.

Counter-Couture: Handmade Fashion in an American Counterculture, installation view (photo by Jenna Bascom; courtesy of the Museum of Arts and Design)

Billy Shire, “Welfare,” winner of Levi’s® Denim Art Contest, 1975, Levi’s denim jacket, rivets, rim sets, furniture studs (collection of la Luz de Jesus Gallery; courtesy of Billy Shire; photo by Jenna Bascom; courtesy of the Museum of Arts and Design)

The exhibition, displayed on two floors of the museum, is divided into five sections: “Funk & Flash,” “The 1974 Levi’s Denim Art Contest,” “Couture,” “Performance,” and “Psychedelic Style.” Each section exudes what Cepress characterizes as a “vital stream of passion, ideas, and artist activists who chose fashion to help create a better world for us all” — a sentiment that rings as true in 2017 as it did in 1967. The visual language of protest appears here in overt forms, like Michael Fajans’s frenetically colorful and aggressively stitched “Hand Embroidered and Applique Army Coat” from 1967, which I read as symbolic of the countless battlefield injuries occurring in Vietnam. Other pieces are subtler, like the bright red dashiki dress from 1970, a symbol of Black pride, which is displayed next to one of the exhibition’s priceless finds: a Simplicity pattern for dashiki shirts from 1972, with an illustration that shows a young black couple in the foreground and a white couple in the background.

Michael Fajans, “Hand Embroidered and Applique Army Coat” (1967), cotton, silk, velvet, and wool (courtesy of Nancy L. Pollock; photo by Jenna Bascom; Courtesy of the Museum of Arts and Design)

Dashiki Maxi Dress (1970), artist unknown, cotton (photo by Jenna Bascom; courtesy of the Museum of Arts and Design)

Simplicity pattern for Dashiki shirts and dresses (1972) (photo by the author for Hyperallergic)

The counterculture-ness on display here is ultimately about fighting conformity, which comes across most powerfully in terms of gender and sexuality. The artists and designers who made these garments were, for the most part, raised in the 1950s, on a steady diet of postwar suburban etiquette and ideals. In one of the exhibition’s displays of printed ephemera, a 1967 photograph of Hibiscus (born George Edgerly Harris II), founder of The Cockettes, shows a relatively clean-cut young man with blond hair wearing a turtleneck sweater, gently placing a flower in the barrel of a military police officer’s gun. As associate curator Barbara Paris Gifford notes, Hibiscus was almost “preppy” in his youth. It’s bittersweet to note that just a few years later, in full hair and makeup, he would radiate androgynous, psychedelic splendor — which is captured in the magnetic films that are projected in a continuous loop on the opposite gallery wall — and a few years after that, in May 1982, he would die of AIDS. Hibiscus has long held cult status among fashion cognoscenti, and a 2003 profile in T Magazine by Horacio Silva counts Viktor & Rolf and John Galliano among the contemporary designers who revere his creativity and talent. (The article was published prior to the 2011 anti-semitic tirade that cost Galliano his post at Christian Dior.) And this is far from the only connection between the hippie commune and the runway: Another example is Yvonne Porcella’s patchwork gowns from 1972, which appear to presage the peasant silhouettes in Yves St. Laurent’s much-beloved 1976 “Russian” collection.

George Edgerly Harris II (AKA Hibiscus) placing a flower in the gun of a soldier, October 1967 (photography by Bernie Boston, via Wikipedia)

Cockette Pristine Condition (left) and Cockette Scrumbly Koldewyn (right), opening act for New York Dolls, Matrix, New York, August 1973 (courtesy of Kourosh Larizadeh and Luis Pardo)

Most of the works in Counter-Couture are visually of a piece. Fur collars, body jewelry, a faintly Biblical ensemble worn by Father Yod from the Source Family, and the album cover from the original cast recording of Hair all set the scene in a cohesive way, along with some smart atmospheric touches from MAD’s team, like walls of hanging beads and a lush classic-rock soundtrack. Gifford also added works from MAD’s permanent collection that predate those in the show, which adds visual and temporal layers to the installation. One particular work that seems ahead of its time is Mildred Fischer’s linen wall piece “Daydream,” from 1965.

Detail of Father Yod Ensemble (c. 1970), cotton, leather, metal (courtesy of Isis Aquarian; photo by Rex Rystedt; courtesy of the Bellevue Arts Museum)

Mildred Fischer, “Daydream” (1965), linen (photo by Jenna Bascom; courtesy of the Museum of Arts and Design)

For me, though, the highlight of the exhibition is the work of San Francisco designer Kaisik Wong (1950–90). Wong’s aesthetic, which could best be described as “outer space/regal,” stands apart from the hippie coats and peasant dresses on view, and it easily passes the test of time as a thoroughly original body of work. Try to imagine that someone crossed highly structured examples of Elizabethan court dress with costumes from the movie Xanadu, and you’re almost there. Indeed, Wong’s creations read as cinematic costumes more than fashion: They’d look right at home in Logan’s Run, Labyrinth, or, if you squint a bit, Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. Like Hibiscus, Wong died of AIDS at a tragically young age, and although his clients included the likes of Tina Turner, Elton John, and Salvador Dalí (who commissioned his 1974 “Ray” series), his work didn’t enter the mainstream fashion world during his lifetime. This could well be for practical reasons: His 1974 “Yellow and Green Ray Dress and Headdress” from the “Seven Ray” series, a Paul Poiret–like garment that resembles a glittering peapod, seems more likely to influence moviemakers and stylists than merchandisers looking for the next workaday, wearable look. (Although one of Wong’s jackets was notoriously plagiarized by Nicolas Ghesquière for Balenciaga in 2010.)

Kaisik Wong, “Yellow and Green Ray Dress and Headdress,” from the Seven Ray series (1974), yellow, gold, and green lamé (courtesy of the DeYoung Museum)

Kaisik Wong (1974) (photo by Jerry Wainwright)

Grouping of ensembles by Kaisik Wong (photo by Jenna Bascom; courtesy of the Museum of Arts and Design)

From Wong’s work, to the wild, androgynous jewelry of partners in love and life Alex and Lee, to Billy Shire’s studded “Welfare” jacket (winner of the Levi’s Denim Art Contest) — it all reads a bit like the left-behind artifacts of a final Summer of Love, just before AIDS destroyed a generation of gay men. This isn’t explicitly referenced in the exhibition, as its chronology stops just short of the end of the disco era. But Counter-Couture offers a new way to think about the lasting legacy of the counterculture movement. To be sure, there were plenty of middle-class American teens for whom long hair, casual sex, drugs, concerts, and macramé were understood in the context of pleasure, suburban rebellion, and cool-kid trends. But the ’60s and ’70s also set the stage for a genuinely radical transformation in the way we read and understand the visual cues of gender and sexuality, many of which are, in part, fashion choices. Only an exhibition that considers vernacular material could do this: It wouldn’t make sense at a Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute show about the ’60s and ’70s that featured Pucci shifts, space-age Courreges hats, or Halston ultrasuede wrap dresses. Fashion’s queering during the counterculture is an overlooked preamble to so much of what we think and talk about with regard to gender and culture today. Men with long hair may have been sporting a visual rejection of “square” society, but they were also (perhaps unwittingly) paving the road for queer identities to be seen, recognized, and even celebrated in fashion and society at large.

Alex and Lee (1974) (photo by Jerry Wainwright for Native Funk and Flash)

Counter-Couture: Handmade Fashion in an American Counterculture continues at the Museum of Arts and Design (2 Columbus Circle, Midtown) through August 20.

The post How the 1960s and ’70s Counterculture Queered Fashion appeared first on Hyperallergic.

from Hyperallergic http://ift.tt/2obCPI7 via IFTTT

[blackkudos]

Donald Byrd

Donaldson Toussaint L'Ouverture "Donald" Byrd II (December 9, 1932 – February 4, 2013) was an American jazz and rhythm & blues trumpeter.

A sideman for many other jazz musicians of his generation, Byrd was best known as one of the only bebop jazz musicians who successfully pioneered the funk and soul genres while simultaneously remaining a jazz artist.

As a bandleader, Byrd is also notable for his influential role in the early career of keyboard player and composer Herbie Hancock.

Biography

Early life and career

Byrd attended Cass Technical High School. He performed with Lionel Hampton before finishing high school. After playing in a military band during a term in the United States Air Force, Byrd obtained a bachelor's degree in music from Wayne State University and a master's degree from Manhattan School of Music. While still at the Manhattan School, he joined Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, as replacement for Clifford Brown. In 1955, he recorded with Gigi Gryce Jackie McLean and Mal Waldron. After leaving the Jazz Messengers in 1956, he performed with many leading jazz musicians of the day, including John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Thelonious Monk, and later Herbie Hancock.

Byrd's first regular group was a quintet that he co-led from 1958 to 1961 with baritone saxophonist Pepper Adams, an ensemble whose hard-driving performances are captured "live" on At the Half Note Cafe.

Byrd's 1961 LP Royal Flush marked the Blue Note debut of Hancock, who came to wider attention with Byrd's successful 1962 album Free Form, and these albums also featured the first recordings of Hancock's original compositions. Hancock has credited Byrd as a key influence in his early career, recounting that he took the young pianist "under his wings" when he was a struggling musician newly arrived in New York, even letting him sleep on a hide-a-bed in his Bronx apartment for several years

"He was the first person to let me be a permanent member of an internationally known band. He has always nurtured and encouraged young musicians. He's a born educator, it seems to be in his blood, and he really tried to encourage the development of creativity".

Hancock also recalled that Byrd helped him in many other ways: he encouraged Hancock to make his debut album for Blue Note, connected him with Mongo Santamaria, who turned Hancock's tune "Watermelon Man" into a chart-topping hit, and that Byrd also later urged him to accept Miles Davis' offer to join his quintet.

Hancock also credits Byrd with giving him one of the most important pieces of advice of his career – not to give away his publishing. When Blue Note offered Hancock the chance to record his first solo LP, label executives tried to convince him to relinquish his publishing in exchange for being able to record the album, but he stuck to Byrd's advice and refused, so the meeting came to an impasse. At this point, he stood up to leave and when it became clear that he was about to walk out, the executives relented and allowed him to retain his publishing. Thanks to Santamaria's subsequent hit cover version of "Watermelon Man", Hancock was soon receiving substantial royalties, and he used his first royalty check of $3000 to buy his first car, a 1963 Shelby Cobra (also recommended by Byrd) which Hancock still owns, and which is now the oldest production Cobra still in its original owner's hands.

In June 1964, Byrd played with Eric Dolphy in Paris just two weeks before Dolphy's death from insulin shock.

Electric Byrd

By 1969's Fancy Free, Byrd was moving away from the hard bop jazz idiom and began to record jazz fusion and rhythm and blues. He teamed up with the Mizell Brothers (producer-writers Larry and Fonce) for Black Byrd (1973) which was, for many years, Blue Note's best-selling album. The title track climbed to No. 19 on Billboard′s R&B chart and reached the Hot 100 pop chart, peaking at No. 88. The Mizell brothers' follow-up albums for Byrd, Street Lady, Places and Spaces and Stepping into Tomorrow, were also big sellers, and have subsequently provided a rich source of samples for acid jazz artists such as Us3. Most of the material for the albums was written by Larry Mizell.

In 1973, he helped to establish and co-produce the Blackbyrds, a fusion group consisting of then-student musicians from Howard University, where Byrd taught in the music department and earned his J.D. in 1976. They scored several major hits including "Happy Music" (No. 3 R&B, No. 19 pop), "Walking in Rhythm" (No. 4 R&B, No. 6 pop) and "Rock Creek Park".

During his tenure at North Carolina Central University during the 1980s, he formed a group which included students from the college called the "125th St NYC Band". They recorded the Love Byrd album, which featured Isaac Hayes on drums. "Love Has Come Around" became a disco hit in the UK and reached No. 41 on the charts.

Beginning in the 1960s, Byrd (who eventually gained his PhD in music education from Teachers College, Columbia University in 1982) taught at a variety of postsecondary institutions, including Rutgers University, the Hampton Institute, New York University, Howard University, Queens College, Oberlin College, Cornell University, North Carolina Central University and Delaware State University. Byrd returned to somewhat straight-ahead jazz later in his career, releasing three albums for Orrin Keepnews' Landmark Records, and his final album Touchstone, a quintet.

Byrd died on February 4 2013 in Dover, Delaware. He was 80.

Discography

As leaderTransition Records

Byrd Jazz (1955) – also released as First Flight (Delmark)

Byrd's Eye View (1955)

Byrd Blows on Beacon Hill (1956)

The Transition Sessions (2002 compilation)

Prestige Records

2 Trumpets (1956) – with Art Farmer

The Young Bloods (1956) – with Phil Woods

Verve Records

At Newport (1957) – with Gigi Gryce

Up with Donald Byrd (1964)

Columbia Records

Jazz Lab (1957) – with Gigi Gryce

Modern Jazz Perspective (1957) – with Gigi Gryce and Jackie Paris

Blue Note Records

Off to the Races (1959)

Byrd in Hand (1959)

Fuego (1959)

Byrd in Flight (1960)

At the Half Note Cafe (1960)

Chant (1961)

The Cat Walk (1961)

Royal Flush (1961)

Free Form (1961)

A New Perspective (1963)

I'm Tryin' to Get Home (1964)

Mustang (1966)

Blackjack (1967)

Slow Drag (1967)

The Creeper (1967)

Fancy Free (1969)

Electric Byrd (1969–70)

Kofi (1969)

Ethiopian Knights (1971)

Black Byrd (1973)

Street Lady (1973)

Stepping into Tomorrow (1974)

Places and Spaces (1975)

Caricatures (1976)

Elektra Records

Thank You... for F.U.M.L. (Funking Up My Life) (1978)

Donald Byrd And 125th Street, N.Y.C. (1979)

Love Byrd (1981)

Words, Sounds, Colors and Shapes (1983)

Landmark Records

Harlem Blues (1987)

Getting Down to Business (1989)

A City Called Heaven (1991)

Other labels

Byrd's Word (Savoy, 1955)

Jazz Eyes (Regent, 1957) – with John Jenkins

New Formulas from the Jazz Lab (Vik, 1957) with Gigi Gryce

Jazz in Camera (Sonorama, 1958) with Barney Wilen

Jazz Lab (Jubilee, 1958) with Gigi Gryce

Live Au Chat Qui Peche (Fresh Sound, 1958),

Jazz in Paris: Parisian Thoroughfare (Gitanes, 1958)

Jazz in Paris: Byrd in Paris (Gitanes, 1958)

Motor City Scene (Bethlehem, 1960)

Out of This World (Warwick, 1961)

September Afternoon (Discovery, 1982; rec. 1957) – with Clare Fischer and Strings

Touchstone (2000) Pepper Adams, Herbie Hancock, Teddy Charles, Jimmy Cobb

As sideman

1955 George Wallington Live At The Bohemia (Progressive 1955 Prestige 1970)

1955 Kenny Clarke – Bohemia After Dark (Savoy)

1955 Cannonball Adderley – Discoveries

1955 Oscar Pettiford – Another One

1955 Hank Jones – Quartet-Quintet (Savoy)

1955 Hank Jones – Bluebird – one track only

1955 Ernie Wilkins – Top Brass (Savoy)

1956 George Wallington – Jazz for the Carriage Trade

1956 Jackie McLean – Lights Out! (Prestige)

1956 Hank Mobley – The Jazz Message of Hank Mobley (Prestige)

1956 Kenny Clarke – Klook's Clique (Savoy)

1956 Art Blakey – The Jazz Messengers (Columbia)

1956 Art Blakey – Originally

1956 Rita Reys – The Cool Voice of Rita Reys

1956 Elmo Hope – Informal Jazz (Prestige 1956, Elmo Hope The All Star Sessions - Milestone CD)

1956 Phil Woods – Pairing Off (Prestige)

1956 Jackie McLean – 4, 5 and 6 (Prestige)

1956 Gene Ammons – Jammin' with Gene (Prestige)

1956 Horace Silver – Silver's Blue (Epic)

1956 Hank Mobley – Mobley's Message (Prestige)

1956 Hank Mobley – Jazz Message No. 2 (Savoy)

1956 Art Farmer – 2 Trumpets (Prestige)

1956 Paul Chambers – Whims of Chambers (Blue Note)

1956 Phil Woods/Donald Byrd – The Young Bloods (Prestige)

1956 Horace Silver – 6 Pieces of Silver (Blue Note)

1956 Hank Mobley – Hank Mobley Sextet (Blue Note)

1956 Doug Watkins – Watkins at Large (Transition)

1956 Sonny Rollins – Sonny Rollins, Vol. 1 (Blue Note)

1956 Kenny Burrell – All Night Long (Prestige)

1957 Kenny Burrell – All Day Long (Prestige)

1957 Gigi Gryce/Donald Byrd – Jazz Lab (Jubilee)

1957 Art Farmer/Donald Byrd/Idrees Sulieman – Three Trumpets (Prestige)

1957 Lou Donaldson – Wailing with Lou (Blue Note)

1957 Jimmy Smith – A Date with Jimmy Smith Volume One (Blue Note)

1957 Jimmy Smith - A Date with Jimmy Smith Volume Two (Blue Note)

1957 Art Taylor – Taylor's Wailers (Prestige)

1957 Gigi Gryce – Gigi Gryce and the Jazz Lab Quintet (Riverside)

1957 George Wallington – The New York Scene (Prestige)

1957 Various Artists – American Jazzmen Play Andre Hodeir's Essais

1957 Kenny Burrell/Jimmy Raney – 2 Guitars (Prestige)

1957 Kenny Drew – This Is New (Riverside)

1957 Hank Mobley – Hank (Blue Note)

1957 Paul Chambers – Paul Chambers Quintet (Blue Note)

1957 The Gigi Gryce/Donald Byrd Jazz Lab – At Newport – One side of LP which also features Cecil Taylor (Verve)

1957 Gigi Gryce/Donald Byrd – New Formulas from the Jazz Lab

1957 Gigi Gryce/Donald Byrd – Modern Jazz Perspective (Columbia)

1957 Sonny Clark – Sonny's Crib (Blue Note)

1957 John Jenkins – Jazz Eyes (Savoy)

1957 Oscar Pettiford – Winner's Circle

1957 George Wallington – Jazz at Hotchkiss (Savoy)

1957 Red Garland – All Mornin' Long (Prestige)

1957 Red Garland – Soul Junction (Prestige)

1957 Red Garland – High Pressure (Prestige)

1957 Lou Donaldson – Lou Takes Off (Blue Note)

1957 Art Blakey – Art Blakey Big Band (Bethlehem)

1958 John Coltrane – Lush Life – one track only (Prestige)

1958 John Coltrane – The Believer – two tracks (Prestige)

1958 John Coltrane – The Last Trane – two tracks (Prestige)

1958 Johnny Griffin – Johnny Griffin Sextet (Riverside)

1958 Pepper Adams – 10 to 4 at the 5 Spot (Riverside)

1958 John Coltrane – Black Pearls (Prestige)

1958 Michel Legrand – Legrand Jazz

1958 Dizzy Reece – Blues in Trinity (Blue Note)

1958 Art Blakey – Holiday for Skins (Blue Note)

1958 Jim Timmens – Gilbert and Sullivan Revisited

1959 Mundell Lowe – TV Action Jazz!

1959 Jackie McLean – Jackie's Bag 3 tracks (Blue Note)

1959 Thelonious Monk – The Thelonious Monk Orchestra at Town Hall (Riverside)

1959 Chris Connor – Ballads of the Sad Cafe

1959 Sonny Clark – My Conception (Blue Note)

1959 Manny Albam/Teo Macero – Something New, Something Blue

1959 Jackie McLean – New Soil (Blue Note)

1959 Walter Davis Jr. – Davis Cup (Blue Note)

1962 Duke Pearson – Hush! (Jazztime)

1963 Hank Mobley – No Room for Squares (Blue Note)

1963 Jackie McLean Vertigo - released 1980 (Blue Note)

1963 Hank Mobley – Straight No Filter – released 1986 (Blue Note)

1963 Hank Mobley – The Turnaround (Blue Note)

1963 Jimmy Heath – Swamp Seed (Riverside)

1963 Herbie Hancock – My Point of View (Blue Note)

1964 Eric Dolphy – Naima

1964 Eric Dolphy – Last Recordings / Unrealized Tapes

1964 Dexter Gordon – One Flight Up (Blue Note)

1964 Cal Tjader – Soul Sauce (Verve)

1964 Solomon Ilori – African High Life

1964 Duke Pearson – Wahoo! (Blue Note)

1965 Dexter Gordon – Ladybird (SteepleChase)

1965 Wes Montgomery – Goin' Out of My Head

1967 Stanley Turrentine – A Bluish Bag

1967 Sam Rivers – Dimensions & Extensions

1967 Hank Mobley – Far Away Lands (Blue Note)

1977 Gene Harris – Tone Tantrum

1978 Sonny Rollins – Don't Stop the Carnival (Milestone)

1993 Guru – Jazzmatazz, Vol. 1

1994 Various – Stolen Moments: Red Hot + Cool

1995 Guru – Guru's Jazzmatazz, Vol. 2: The New Reality

1995 Ahmad Jamal – Big Byrd: The Essence Part 2

Wikipedia