Timpanist helped break the color barrier in classical music
Elayne Jones, a Black timpanist who helped break the color barrier in classical music when she won a coveted seat in the San Francisco Symphony in 1972, only to lose her bid for tenure in a divisive dispute that focused national attention on equality in the arts, died Dec. 17 at her home in Walnut Creek, Calif. She was 94.
The cause was dementia, said her daughter Cheryl Stanley.
As an African American and a woman, Ms. Jones confronted dual obstacles as she embarked on a career after completing her studies at the Juilliard School in 1949.
In that era, a New York Times reporter noted in a 1965 profile of Ms. Jones, Black musicians were accepted as jazz artists, and women were welcomed as harpists. Other musical genres and instruments seemed all but closed. The drums, in particular, were regarded as the domain of men.
Ms. Jones nevertheless became an in-demand freelance musician in New York in the 1950s and ‘60s. She was the first African American orchestral musician to play with the New York Philharmonic and performed extensively with the New York City Opera. She found an influential mentor in conductor Leopold Stokowski, who selected her for the American Symphony Orchestra, which he formed in 1962.
She had amassed nearly a quarter-century of experience by 1972, when she was hired by the San Francisco Symphony, then under the direction of conductor Seiji Ozawa.
Ms. Jones won her spot – a pinnacle of success in the classical music world – in what is known as a blind audition, in which aspirants perform behind a screen. Black musicians including Ms. Jones had fought to institutionalize blind auditions in classical music so that they could be judged on their talent rather than by their race.
“I wouldn’t have gotten the job if the screen wasn’t in play,” Ms. Jones told Grace Wang, a professor at the University of California at Davis who documented her story in the online publication Boom California. “I’m the recipient of a thing that I worked on.”
Her selection for the
San Francisco Symphony made her, according to the Times, the only African American musician occupying a principal chair in a major American orchestra at the time.
Ms. Jones’s debut received a highly complimentary review in the San Francisco Chronicle.
“Sensational! Absolutely sensational,” music critic Heuwell Tircuit wrote, according to Wang’s account. “Clean articulation, fine intonation, and technical savvy – a particularly fine roll, smooth as butter – rich tonal sensibility, and what was really mind blowing, she phrases.”
But two years later, after a standard probationary period, a sevenman committee of the orchestra’s musicians denied tenure to Ms. Jones and a Japanese-born bassoonist, Ryohei Nakagawa.
“I’ve worked so hard all these years,” Ms. Jones told the Times. “I’ve had good vibes everywhere. Now I wonder what the hell is wrong, and what do I do that’s so wrong? … Was it because I was a woman or a Black? Or both?”
Ms. Jones filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging her rejection. A judge ordered the matter returned to the orchestra players’ committee, which again denied her request for tenure. While Ozawa supported her during the first vote, he rescinded his support amid the second.
Some observers regarded the matter as a power struggle between the orchestra members and Ozawa, who soon left San Francisco to focus on his duties at the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Others saw the denial of tenure to Ms. Jones as a point of artistic judgment, however subjective.
San Francisco Examiner arts critic Alexander Fried wrote in 1975 that “the symphony at its very best does not outclass her,” but that “even seasoned musicians and symphony players differ about Ms. Jones’s musical art and craft, notably on the point of playing immaculately in tune.”
To Ms. Jones and her supporters, her rejection was a display of rank bias. She sued again, alleging discrimination on the basis of her race and sex. The case was dismissed.
Elaine Viola Jones – she changed the spelling of her first name after seeing it misspelled and deciding that she liked it with the “y” – was born in Harlem on Jan. 30, 1928.
Both her parents were immigrants from Barbados. By some accounts her father had worked as a newspaperman; by others he was an artist. In the United States, he became a porter and worked on subways.
Her mother played the piano and was “lured to the States under the guise that she could be a concert pianist,” according to Ms. Jones’s daughter. She ultimately subsisted on domestic work and was her daughter’s first piano teacher.
“My mother always said to me, ‘Laynie, you’re going to do something respectable. You’re not going to clean White people’s floors!’” Ms. Jones recalled years later in an interview with the Percussive Arts Society. “So I started studying piano at the age of 6.”
Ms. Jones explored the violin and brass instruments as well before being guided to the drums.
“There may have been a link with the mistaken notion that all Black folks have rhythm,” she said. “As luck would have it, I took to drums like a duck takes to water. As much as I enjoyed the piano, the experience of playing with other people in an orchestra was so profound and beautiful. Drums are more sociable than piano.”
After attending the prestigious High School of Music and Art in New York, Ms. Jones received a scholarship to study at Juilliard. She received a diploma in timpani in
1948 and a postgraduate diploma in percussion in 1949 under the direction of Saul Goodman.
In the early years of her career, Ms. Jones was routinely subjected to the indignities of segregation. When she traveled on tour, she had no choice but to sleep in motels restricted to African Americans while her
White colleagues slept in finer accommodations. A doorman at a Chicago theater once stopped her from entering the stage door because of her race.
“Being Black is worse than being a woman in everything except baseball, football and basketball,” she told the AfroAmerican in 1973. “I had to prove that music could be played by anyone who loves it. And I never let anything stand in my way. It’s been a terrible burden because I always felt I had to do better; that I wouldn’t be allowed the lapses other musicians have.”
Ms. Jones’s marriage to George Kaufman ended in divorce.
Besides her daughter, of Walnut Creek, Ms. Jones’s survivors include a son, Stephen Kaufman, a traveling musician and performance artist known as Thoth, currently residing in Mexico; another daughter, Harriet Kaufman Douglas of Akosombo, Ghana; three grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.
After leaving the San Francisco Symphony, Ms. Jones went on to a long career with the orchestra of the San Francisco Opera, retiring in 1998. She wrote a memoir, “Little Lady With a Big Drum,” published in 2019.
By pursuing her work, she said, “I wasn’t just playing music; I was making a statement. This would be my new objective: to try to change the way women and
Blacks were treated.”
’Tis the season for eggnog, mulled wine, champagne — and hangovers. So, what can you do to prevent the morning-after misery as you enjoy your end-of-year festivities?
Hangover cures abound online, ranging from herbal pills and supplements to home remedies like pickle juice and poached eggs.
Most of the evidence for hangover cures is thin, and there is no surefire way to avoid a hangover short of avoiding alcohol altogether. But there are some things you can do before, during and after drinking that can lower your risk for a hangover.
WHAT CAUSES A HANGOVER?
Hangovers can occur for a variety of reasons. Alcohol suppresses vasopressin, a hormone that prompts the kidneys to retain fluid. This can lead to increased peeing and dehydration, causing a pounding headache, thirst, and fatigue. Alcohol also can irritate the lining of your stomach, causing nausea and stomach pain, and it can disrupt your sleep, leading to fatigue and irritability. At the same time, the anxiety that some people experience after a night of heavy drinking can stem from alcohol withdrawal.
Some people are more susceptible to hangovers than others, depending on how your body metabolizes alcohol. When you drink, enzymes in your liver break down alcohol into acetaldehyde, a toxic byproduct and known carcinogen. Some evidence indicates that acetaldehyde may be a culprit in hangovers. A couple of studies show, for example, that people who carry a genetic variant that slows their ability to remove acetaldehyde from their bloodstreams are particularly prone to severe hangovers even after drinking relatively small amounts of alcohol. This genetic variant is especially common among people of Asian descent.
Many dietary supplements that are marketed as hangover cures claim to work by improving your body’s ability to eliminate acetaldehyde. But a 2021 study that evaluated 82 dietary supplements marketed online as hangover cures found that they lacked any evidence of efficacy, and they frequently contained excessively high doses of vitamins. Many also contained N-acetylcysteine, which is technically a prescription drug.
Some studies have found that the severity of your hangover symptoms may hinge on how high your blood alcohol level climbs while drinking (the higher it gets, the worse the hangover) and how quickly your body converts alcohol into its byproducts. The faster your body breaks down alcohol, researchers have found, the less severe your hangover.
NEVER DRINK ON AN EMPTY STOMACH
Always eat a meal or a hearty snack if you plan to drink. This can slow the rate at which the alcohol enters your bloodstream, which can lower the odds of a hangover, said Julia Zumpano, a registered dietitian with the Cleveland Clinic’s Center for Human Nutrition.
In a small study in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, scientists looked at what happened when they gave a group of men alcoholic beverages on separate occasions, in one case on an empty stomach and on other occasions about 15 minutes after eating a 700calorie meal. They found that eating before drinking caused a “pronounced” lowering of the participants’ blood alcohol levels compared to when they drank on an empty stomach. Eating a meal also increased the speed at which the alcohol was cleared from their bloodstreams. The researchers found that meals high in protein tended to produce lower blood alcohol levels than meals high in fat or carbs, but ultimately the differences were minimal. Any big meal, regardless of whether it’s high in fat, carbs or protein, will help.
AVOID DARK LIQUORS
They tend to contain higher amounts of congeners, a byproduct of the fermentation process that can worsen hangovers. Some research suggests that hangover symptoms increase when people consume beverages with higher congener concentrations. Studies have found, for example, that one of the liquors with the highest congener contents, bourbon, causes worse hangovers than vodka, which contains essentially no congeners. Of course, drinking vodka instead of bourbon doesn’t mean you won’t experience a hangover – but it might improve your odds.
DRINK WATER
After each alcoholic beverage you consume, have a glass of water. Alternating between alcohol and water will help to keep your blood alcohol level from rising too fast and it will keep you hydrated.
“Alcohol is a diuretic,” said Zumpano at the Cleveland Clinic. “It naturally dehydrates you. When you’re hung over, a lot of the symptoms that you experience are due to dehydration. You can alleviate some of those symptoms by staying well hydrated.”
TRY THE BRAT DIET
It stands for bananas, rice, applesauce, and toast. This diet was originally designed for children with upset stomachs. If you’re experiencing nausea the morning after a big night out, it might be best to start with bland foods instead of having a heavy meal.
“The BRAT diet is very easy to digest and helps you keep down food,” said Zumpano. “Some people say greasy foods are helpful. But a heavy meal can make you feel worse because it’s in your stomach for a lot longer.”
USE GINGER
Many studies have shown that ginger can alleviate nausea and vomiting caused by pregnancy, cancer treatments, motion sickness and other conditions. You can add fresh ginger to your food or buy ginger supplements. But for a hangover, it’s probably best to sip on ginger tea or eat ginger chews. To make ginger tea, add fresh ginger slices to a pot of water, bring it to a boil, and let it simmer for a few minutes. Pour it into a cup and add a teaspoon of honey or a slice of lemon for more flavor.
REPLENISH YOUR ELECTROLYTES
Alcohol makes your body excrete electrolytes such as sodium, potassium, magnesium and phosphate. You can replenish them by consuming foods rich in minerals like fruits and vegetables. Watermelon, cantaloupe, peaches and oranges are particularly great because they have a lot of water and they provide a healthy dose of electrolytes. If you prefer liquids, try electrolyteenhanced waters or sugarfree Gatorade and Powerade.
Rather than waiting until morning, it might be best to start drinking them as soon as you get home from your party – that is, “if the party ever ends,” said Zumpano.
TRY ONE OF THESE HANGOVER CURES
Recently, a team of British researchers scoured the medical literature to find rigorous clinical trials that put a variety of hangover cures to the test. The researchers found seven products showed some limited evidence of being able to reduce hangover symptoms when compared to placebos. Among them were supplements made with clove extract; the anti-inflammatory drug tolfenamic acid; a form of vitamin B6 called pyritinol; herbal supplements containing extracts of Hovenia dulcis, also known as the Japanese raisin tree; products containing the amino acid L-cysteine; and finally, Korean pear juice and red ginseng.
The researchers cautioned however that most of the studies were typically small and contained mostly men and people under the age of 40.
“The short story is there’s not a lot of very good research out there,” said Emmert Roberts, an author of the study and a visiting scholar in the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University. “There were some very small low-quality studies that did show some things that had the potential to help.”
Roberts said that he and his co-authors did not find much evidence that any of the products they highlighted were harmful, so he doesn’t discourage people from trying them.
“You can try them, but they are not going to be miracle cures,” he added. “There are loads of products that market themselves as hangover cures or hangover remedies, and they say they have science behind them but that isn’t really true. There’s a lot of snake oil salesmen in the hangover world.”