Bay Area jazz composer Marcus Shelby unveils ‘Negro Leagues and the Blues.’
Bay Area musician and composer debuts his latest work in a free show in S.F.
Bassist and composer Marcus Shelby loves to talk about his musical heroes, sharing insights about jazz icons like Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus and Miles Davis.
But if you really want to get him going, ask him about the Giants’ pitching rotation. Or the personnel moves the Warriors should make in the offseason. Follow him on social media, and you’ll read his smart postgame (sometimes intragame) commentary delivering correctives and plaudits to his beloved Bay Area teams.
Given his enthusiasm for sports, it was hardly a surprise to hear about his latest project, “Black Ball: The Negro Leagues and the Blues,” which brings together his parallel passions for baseball, African-American history and jazz. Commissioned by the Yerba Buena Gardens Festival, the production premieres Saturday afternoon at Yerba Buena Gardens.
“I’ve had a dual personality for a long time,” says Shelby, 52. “I came up as an athlete, playing Little League and football, and I went to college on a basketball scholarship. But once I got involved in music, that all took a back seat because of the commitment that music takes.”
Over the past 15 years or so, Shelby has focused his creative energy on a series of hard-swinging works exploring key historical events and personalities, like the 2011 album “Soul of the Movement: Meditations on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.” (Porto Franco). In recent years, he’s served as a musical foil for playwright and actor Anna Deavere Smith throughout the interview-driven creation of her one-woman show about the school-to-prison pipeline, “Notes from the Field.”
“Her process is genius,” he says. “As much as I can absorb from her,
I’m just trying to find ways that I can use blues and swing to tell these different stories.”
He’s added dramatic elements to “Black Ball” that weren’t present in previous projects. More than a suite, the production involves actors and sketches “in the tradition of a live radio show,” Shelby says. He plans to reprise “Black Ball” in May as part of his stint as an SFJazz resident artistic director.
Shelby collaborated with veteran Bay Area director Val Hendrickson, who wrote the book with scenes featuring historical figures such as pitcher Satchel Paige (played by African-American Shakespeare Theater artistic director
L. Peter Callender). Pioneering female Negro League player Tori Stone and Effa Manley, co-owner of the Negro League World Series champion Newark Eagles (played by vocalists Tiffany Austin and Kim Nalley, respectively) also speak their piece.
While Major League Baseball often celebrates itself as a vanguard force for integration starting with Jackie Robinson’s 1947 breakthrough on the Brooklyn Dodgers, the sudden loss of top talent led to the collapse of the Negro National League after the 1948 season. The Newark Eagles’ Manley, a savvy businesswoman, fought to make sure that black teams received compensation when players under contract decamped for MLB.
With its deep current of irony, biting humor and communal release, the blues is an ideal vehicle for exploring the bittersweet aftermath of Robinson’s triumph. Shelby’s music draws on that deep well, with “variations of the blues, spirituals, dirges, anything that’s a byproduct
of the blues and swing,” he says.
In many ways, the Marcus Shelby Orchestra embodies the power of all kinds of diversity. The 14-piece ensemble features veteran cats like baritone saxophonist Fil Lorenz and trombonist Charles Hamilton, who mentored hundreds of musicians as the director of the Berkeley High jazz program for more than three decades. In the trumpet section, the powerhouse Bill Ortiz, who spent more than 15 years touring with Santana, blows alongside 18-year-old Kate Williams, a standout in the SFJazz High School All-Stars.
“I’m kind of conscious about that, but not in any forced way,” Shelby says. “It’s a lot like baseball. A coach puts a team on a field with a mix of veterans and young players. I’ve thought a lot about how an ensemble can create an overall expression. The diversity of the band can really enhance that. A big band looks like a village, with good young players, older players
who can serve as mentors and everything in between.”
Beyond the gender, ethnic and chronological mix, Shelby’s band reflects an unusual geographical blend, bringing together top players from across the region. The stellar San Jose saxophonist Kristen Strom, a highly regarded bandleader in her own right, joined the fold about a year ago, though she’s known Shelby for years and exchanges sports observations with him on Facebook
“Like all of Marcus’ stuff, it just swings like crazy,” says Strom, who celebrates the release of her new album “Moving Day: The Music of John Shifflett” at the Monterey Jazz Festival. “The soloists are really going for that groove, playing with authority and soul. Marcus is so amazing and creative and inclusive. He has these great ideas and makes them happen, which is not that common.”