Classic Ross Amico

Tag: William Grant Still

A Still Presence Behind the Stooges

For his many achievements – as the first Black American composer to write a symphony, the first to conduct a major U.S. orchestra, and the first to compose an opera, among other things – William Grant Still would be recognized as the “Dean of Afro-American Composers.” But face it, even under the best of circumstances, a full-time composer has to scramble to make ends meet. Still was not alone in seeking employment in Hollywood, which could always be counted on, once you were in, for a decent paycheck.

However, unlike some of his peers, he was employed mostly as an orchestrator and a composer of “additional music.” One of the films he worked on was Dimitri Tiomkin’s “Lost Horizon” in 1937. John Williams did the same kind of work for Tiomkin on “The Guns of Navarone” in 1961, and we all know how that worked out for him. Still was never given his shot to break into the upper echelon, the way so many white composers who did the same kind of grunt work were. To my knowledge, he never even received a screen credit, but if you know differently, please correct me!

A number of his cues were recycled as “library music” to fill out scores for B-movies and television shows. I was reminded of this yesterday by my friend (and former editor) Dan Aubrey, who will be accompanying me tonight to The Three Stooges Film Festival at the Princeton Garden Theatre, when he made a quip about Still’s music accompanying “eye gauging and cranium pounding.” Allegedly, Still’s work was indeed used in some of the Stooges’ shorts. I’m not sure which ones, and IMDB is no help in this regard, but I will listen more carefully, whenever I go back and watch them.

In the 1950s, he compiled his “Laredo Suite” for use in television westerns, such as “Gunsmoke,” “Have Gun, Will Travel,” and “Rawhide.” (He had written music for a number of film westerns starring Charles Starrett.) Still was far from the only composer to do this. Bernard Herrmann put together some suites of mood music and action cues to be dropped into CBS westerns. The difference is that, even if he wasn’t always credited on the shows, Herrmann was a headliner at the movies.

Still’s involvement with the Stooges is funny and sad at the same time. During the 1930s and ‘40s, Aaron Copland (the “Dean of American Composers”) was scoring prestige pictures such as “Our Town” and “Of Mice and Men.” He was even recognized with an Academy Award for his work on “The Heiress.”

Of course, Still wasn’t alone among talented composers who toiled on the Hollywood production line, but as a Black musician, it’s doubtful he would have been able to rise much higher in mainstream movies until at least the 1960s, after Otto Preminger hired Duke Ellington to score “Anatomy of a Murder,” in 1959, and Quincy Jones made his mark with “The Pawnbroker,” in 1964. And even then, would he have been accepted if the music he wrote wasn’t “jazz”?

While laboring anonymously in motion pictures of the 1930s, Still conducted a concert at the Hollywood Bowl with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. On July 23, 1936, he presented his “Afro-American Symphony.” It was the first time a Black man would conduct a major American orchestra. The next year, in August 1937, the work would be repeated on the first Hollywood Bowl program ever to be devoted exclusively to works by American composers.

Still’s “Afro-American” remains one of my favorite American symphonies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9iGFLpO5Nk

Fascinating reconstruction of Still’s “Laredo Suite,” library music for westerns, although I suspect the cuts have been posted out of sequence:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpJQK1miHV4&list=PLgK8FIC-dBq-qGKj5r3vXlGSP3nd9jfq-

Information on The Three Stooges Film Festival, tonight at the Princeton Garden Theatre:

https://www.princetongardentheatre.org/films/three-stooges-garden

———-

PHOTO: William Grant Still at the Hollywood Bowl

July 22, 2026
William Grant Still: Still the One

I am proud to say I was a William Grant Still advocate before it was cool to be so. When I first encountered his “Afro-American Symphony” in the early 1980s, it was love at first sound. It remains one of my favorite symphonies by an American composer.

Perhaps it’s not “The Great American Symphony,” self-consciously aspirational, oratorical, or grandiose in the manner the third symphonies of Roy Harris, William Schuman, or Aaron Copland; but it does go straight to the heart, which is something none of the composers of that great American triumvirate do, at least in those particular works.

Still’s symphony is poetic, it’s genuinely reflective, it’s beautiful, and it brims with great tunes. It’s congenial, and in the end quite moving. When I want “big statements” made on an Olympian scale, I will turn to those Lincoln Center composers, who would have us believe they are eating out of lunch pails in their spare time and riveting skyscrapers or busting sod in denim overalls. But let’s face it, they are mostly hobnobbing in suits, jostling to get their music conducted by “Lenny.”

Still is a composer in the mold, if not the manner, of Charles Ives. He’s a perpetual outsider, and always true to himself. His music grows directly out of his autobiographical experience, the blues, ballads, and spirituals of his childhood, in Woodville, Mississippi, and Little Rock, Arkansas, and later his experience playing in pit bands during the Harlem Renaissance.

He also studied at the Oberlin Conservatory and privately with George Whitefield Chadwick and Edgard Varèse, of all people. There is no Varèse to be found in Still’s music.

He composes with the directness of a Virgil Thomson, but with none of Thomson’s affected naiveté. He shares with George Gershwin a refreshing lack of pretention – or at any rate his music does (he did, after all, subtitle one of his symphonies “Autochthonous”) – and a wonderful facility with melody.

Of course, any discussion of Still must come with a litany of “firsts.” His “Afro-American Symphony” was the first written by a black composer to be performed by a major orchestra (the New York Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall). He was the first to be given the opportunity to conduct a major orchestra (the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl). His opera, “Troubled Island,” became the first to be produced by a major company (the New York City Opera). Another of his operas, “A Bayou Legend,” was the first to be performed on national television (as late as 1981). His works were performed internationally by the Berlin Philharmonic, the London Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony, and the Tokyo Philharmonic.

For years, all I could find was the “Afro-American Symphony,” and that only in two out-of-print, albeit very fine recordings (with Karl Krueger and the Royal Philharmonic, and Paul Freeman and the London Symphony Orchestra). It wasn’t until the digital era that the other four symphonies gradually – very gradually – became available. Thankfully, all of them now have been recorded and are available for purchase.

I think we have to thank the revival of the fortunes of Florence Price for the boost in exposure brought to so many other Black composers recently. Who would have thought that Price, Still, and William Levi Dawson would not only be performed, but recorded by the Philadelphia Orchestra – for the Deutsche Grammophon label, no less?

Of course, it would nice if DG didn’t change horses midstream and issue the final installment of their Price cycle exclusively as a digital download. I don’t do downloads, at least for the purposes of collecting. I would snap up the rest of their Price, Still, Dawson, and Margaret Bonds recordings if they actually existed on physical media (even if I was less than impressed with Yannick’s Dawson in concert). It’s exciting that a world-class band would take up the cause of these composers. I don’t need any more Philadelphia Orchestra Rachmaninoff!

Be that as it may, whether or not DG eventually grants him the respect of some compact disc releases, for me, William Grant Still is still the one.

Happy birthday, WGS (1895-1978).

—–

“Afro-American Symphony”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9S-g-qYnqQQ

May 11, 2026
Enjoy Your Coffee Black on “Sweetness and Light”

Very little is known about the Chevalier de Meude-Monpas. Among what we DO know is that he was a musketeer in the service of Louis XVI, who went into exile with the onset of the French Revolution. He also studied music in Paris and published six concertos for violin in 1786. In 1997, violinist Rachel Barton (now Rachel Barton Pine) put together a revelatory album for Cedille Records, “Violin Concertos by Black Composers of the 18th and 19th Centuries.” Meude-Monpas’ Violin Concerto No. 4 will be among the featured works this morning on “Sweetness and Light,” cumulatively guaranteed to put a smile on your face.*

Much better known, William Grant Still was regarded in his day as the “Dean of Afro-American Composers.” He the first composer of color to have a symphony performed by a major orchestra, the first to have a symphony widely performed, the first to conduct a major orchestra, and the first to have an opera televised nationally. A pupil of both George Whitefield Chadwick and Edgard Varèse, Still certainly had “serious” credentials, but he also worked in pit bands and wrote arrangements for Hollywood musicals. In many senses, he was the quintessential American composer. Also, he always knew how to write a good tune. This morning we’ll enjoy his “Danzas de Panama,” performed by the Oregon String Quartet.

It took nearly 90 years for Florence Price to become an overnight success. Price was the first African American woman to have a symphony performed by a major orchestra. Her Symphony No. 1 was played by the Chicago Symphony, conducted by Frederick Stock, in 1933. But it’s only fairly recently, after decades of comparative neglect, that her music has finally begun to gain traction. From a 2-disc set devoted to her piano works on the Guild label, we’ll hear Kirsten Johnson play “Dreamboat.”

Duke Ellington requires little introduction. He was a major figure in American music, especially in the field of jazz. But for the past hundred years or so, there has been quite a bit of “blurring of the lines” between genres of art music. In 1943, Ellington composed “New World a-Comin’,” a work for piano and 15-piece band. He never wrote down the piano part, so it was reconstructed by ear by Maurice Peress from a recording made of an Ellington concert at Carnegie Hall in 1943. Subsequently, Peress expanded the jazz band to full orchestra. The soloist on the recording we’ll hear, Jeffrey Biegel, obtained permission from Sir Roland Hanna to transcribe the improvised final cadenza from a recording Hanna made with the American Symphony Orchestra under Peress’ baton.

We’ll be enjoying our coffee black on “Sweetness and Light,” this Saturday morning at 11:00 EST/8:00 PST, exclusively on KWAX Classical Oregon!

Stream it, wherever you are, at the link:

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

——–

* Please note: Meude-Monpas is not to be confused with that other swashbuckling composer, the Chevalier de Saint-Georges, whose music also appears on Barton Pine’s record.

February 21, 2026
William Grant Still’s “Afro-American Symphony”

It’s hard to believe I made the following observations as recently as 2019, prior to this show’s first airing. So much has changed since then. William Grant Still has gone from a neglected master to probably one of the most frequently programmed American symphonists of his generation. The change may have been propelled by social and political trends, but if ever anyone deserved more notice, it’s this composer.

As someone with an insatiable appetite for American symphonies composed during the first half of the 20th century, I try not to miss a performance or even a radio broadcast of music by Roy Harris, William Schuman, or Aaron Copland. But for as much as I adore these composers, the American symphonies that delight me the most, off the top of my head, are Charles Ives’ 2nd, Howard Hanson’s 2nd (the “Romantic”), and William Grant Still’s 1st (the “Afro-American”). I never get tired of listening to these, and they move me like few others.

I am only too happy to include Still’s symphony, then, as a kind of capstone to my four-part survey of the landmark Black Composer Series of the 1970s – reissued on Sony Classical as a 10-CD boxed set – this week on “The Lost Chord.”

The “Afro-American Symphony,” composed in 1930, is informed by African-American spirituals, the blues, and syncopated banjo-like riffs. Indeed, a banjo actually turns up in the work’s third movement.

To me, the symphony has always been a kind of “portrait of the artist as a young man.” (Still was born in Woodville, Mississippi, and grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas.) In this respect, it puts me in the mind somewhat of Virgil Thomson “Symphony on a Hymn Tune,” which similarly draws on hymns and folk songs of his boyhood in Kansas City, Missouri.

But Still’s music comes across as more personal, more sincere, and certainly less self-consciously “modernist.” It goes straight to my heart and then gets in my head so that it literally disturbs my sleep. It’s one of the great American symphonies. The concert suites from George Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess” remain popular, but some enterprising music director should give the “Afro-American Symphony” a shot, because I know audiences will love it. (NOTE: Again, since I wrote this, the work has gone on to be played by seemingly every major American orchestra.)

There is a solid Gershwin connection. Still quotes the melody of “I Got Rhythm” in the third movement of his symphony. And for good reason. It’s actually his! According to Eubie Blake, Gershwin was in the audience during one of Still’s performances in the pit band for Blake’s revue “Shuffle Along.” Still’s improvisation became the basis for Gershwin’s hit tune. (Blake was quick to add that the appropriation was probably inadvertent.)

The “Afro-American Symphony” is now the best-known piece in the Black Composers Series, which originally appeared on vinyl between 1974 and 1978. But at the time of the recording’s original release that was by no means definitively the case. The only previous recording of the work, made by Karl Krueger and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, was available only through mail-order subscription. Exposure to this gem of a symphony, then, was comparatively limited.

Thankfully, there have been a number of recordings since, but for me none match the commitment and loving attention to detail of the performance in this set, with Paul Freeman conducting the London Symphony Orchestra.

Also included on today’s program will be “Markings,” by Ulysses Kay, composed in 1966 to the memory of Dag Hammerskjöld, secretary general of the United Nations. Called “the greatest statesman of our century” by John F. Kennedy, Hammarskjöld was killed in a plane crash in Zambia en route to ceasefire negotiations during the Congo Crisis of 1961. Hammarskjöld was awarded a posthumous Nobel Peace Prize.

We’ll conclude on an “up” note, with the lively “Danse Nègre” from the “African Suite” of 1898, by Afro-English composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor.

I hope you’ll join me for the grand finale of my month-long survey of highlights from CBS Records’ forward-looking Black Composers Series – that’s “Black to the Future, Part IV,” on “The Lost Chord,” now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:

PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EST/5:00 PM PST

SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – ALL NEW! – Saturday at 11:00 AM EST/8:00 AM PST

THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EST/4:00 PM PST

Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

February 22, 2025
Black Composers Shine on KWAX Radio
Very little is known about the Chevalier de Meude-Monpas. Among what we DO know is that he was a musketeer in the service of Louis XVI, who went into exile with the onset of the French Revolution. He also studied music in Paris and published six concertos for violin in 1786. In 1997, violinist Rachel Barton (now Rachel Barton Pine) put together a revelatory album for Cedille Records, “Violin Concertos by Black Composers of the 18th and 19th Centuries.” Meude-Monpas’ Violin Concerto No. 4 will be among the featured works this morning on “Sweetness and Light,” cumulatively guaranteed to put a smile on your face.*

Much better known, William Grant Still was regarded in his day as the “Dean of Afro-American Composers.” He the first composer of color to have a symphony performed by a major orchestra, the first to have a symphony widely performed, the first to conduct a major orchestra, and the first to have an opera televised nationally. A pupil of both George Whitefield Chadwick and Edgard Varèse, Still certainly had “serious” credentials, but he also worked in pit bands and wrote arrangements for Hollywood musicals. In many senses, he was the quintessential American composer. Also, he always knew how to write a good tune. This morning we’ll enjoy his “Danzas de Panama,” performed by the Oregon String Quartet.

It took nearly 90 years for Florence Price to become an overnight success. Price was the first African American woman to have a symphony performed by a major orchestra. Her Symphony No. 1 was played by the Chicago Symphony, conducted by Frederick Stock, in 1933. But it’s only fairly recently, after decades of comparative neglect, that her music has finally begun to gain traction. From a 2-disc set devoted to her piano works on the Guild label, we’ll hear Kirsten Johnson play “Dreamboat.”

Duke Ellington requires little introduction. He was a major figure in American music, especially in the field of jazz. But for the past hundred years or so, there has been quite a bit of “blurring of the lines” between genres of art music. In 1943, Ellington composed “New World a-Comin’,” a work for piano and 15-piece band. He never wrote down the piano part, so it was reconstructed by ear by Maurice Peress from a recording made of an Ellington concert at Carnegie Hall in 1943. Subsequently, Peress expanded the jazz band to full orchestra. The soloist on the recording we’ll hear, Jeffrey Biegel, obtained permission from Sir Roland Hanna to transcribe the improvised final cadenza from a recording Hanna made with the American Symphony Orchestra under Peress’ baton.

So, yeah, it’s February 1 – Black History Month – not that any excuse is required to share these delights. But it does ensure that they will make it to the air waves and, hopefully, your ears. We’ll be enjoying our coffee black on “Sweetness and Light,” this Saturday morning at 11:00 EST/8:00 PST, exclusively on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

Stream it, wherever you are, at the link:

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/
- Please note: Meude-Monpas is not to be confused with that other swashbuckling composer, the Chevalier de Saint-Georges, whose music also appears on Barton Pine’s record.
February 1, 2025

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