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November, 1975 - SPELMAN SPOTLIGHT - Page 5 Canterbury Renaissance By Sherrie Marshall Canterbury Center Episcopal Chapliancy, Atlanta University Center, is a social service agency located at 791 Fair, St. across the street from Morehouse College. Formerly called Canterbury House, the new Canterbury Center reopened June 21, 1975 after renovation. The agency has been in existence for 15 years. The primary function of Canterbury Center is to “marry the academic (students, faculty and staff of the Atlanta University Center) with the community,” accordging to Father Michael Randolph, Director of the Center. Black students in the AU Center don't relate to the community Father Randolph said. He feels this is most unfortunate and is seeking to alleviate the problem. The operation of Canterbury Center is three-fold. It concerns itself with community, academic, and congregational activities. The Canterbury Center is attempting to establish its presence in the general com munity through contacts and coordination with such organizations as The Atlanta and Dekalb Chapter of the NAACP, the Butler Street YMCA, The JFK EOA Center, and others. Four students from the Inter denominational Theological Center will be conducting a community resource research project which will aid in pin pointing areas of need for other projects and programs in the community. Four students from two of the night law shools in the Atlanta area will be operating a law advocacy project, con centrating on landlord-tenant relationships and conducting legal referrals. This project will be supervised by two faculty members from the Atlanta Law School and a practicing attorney. The Canterbury Center with serval community agenicies is presently planning a program which will serve to improve the the delivery of health services to the immediate community. The Canterbury Center’s presence in the academic com munity of the AU Center is maintained through a working relationship with The Department of Counseling and Guidance- Atlanta University, The Continued from Page 4 Spelman guest book which dates back to 1927. It is interesting to note that the mandatory chapel services facilitated the access of the students to these public personalities concerned with the public weal. And it was the charisma of the Florence Matilda Read, fifth president of Spelman College, which played a significant role in bringing those personalities to the campus. A NEW ERA While 1954 brought America to the end of separate but equal educational facilities VIA the Brown decision, its brought to Spelman the first black and the first male president of the college, Dr. Albert E. Manley. This erh was ushered in by successful civil rights cases, won throughout the country by organizations like the NAACP, and SCLC led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and later, non violent student organizations like the Student Non-Violent Coor dinating Committee (SNCC). Spelman students played a signifcant role in the posture of the civil rights movement in the south of that period. Many were arrested for their efforts. And yet, young women like Marian Wright Edelman emerged, who shortly after her Spelman experience became the first black woman to pass the Mississippi bar examination. SPELMAN TODAY Spelman today is more liberal, more liberal than it was in the late sixties. Her students today, Department of Drama, Spelman College, The Department of Communications, Clark College, and others. During evening hours, Can terbury Center will provide a quiet place for study and meditation for the academic year. Congregational activities involve administrative duties and prestly functions. The above information is listed in a Proposed or Planned Projects unlike yesterday, can be seen on campus wearing slacks and any other apparel they themselves may deem appropriate. There are no longer curfew hours for upper class students. Freshman students, with the consent of their parents, may reside in upper class domitories where they too may enjoy the non-restrictive curfew hours. All of the students have won the right to open visitation. And, man datory chapel has not been heard of since 1973. According to a number of Spelman students, the biggest problem the college will en counter during the next few years will be that of student apathy getting the students to become more involved in the life of the college and the surrounding Atlanta Community. One young teacher here, an alumna of the college who was actively involved in the civil rights movement of the campus during the sixties, perceives the apathy simply as being a decision the student has made as a result of her new-found freedom, a decision that says, “i am not going to get involved, because I don’t have to.” She does not believe that it is a decision af fected by a morality, as was the decision to participate in some Spelman students in the sixties. But rather, SHE VIEWS IT AS A DECISION AFFECTED BY A DEGREE OF ASTUTENESS THE STUDENT MAY OR MAY NOT HAVE ACQUIRED. “Some students are simply more astute than others,” she assessed. and Programs and pamphlet which may be obtained from the Canterbury Center. The Canterbury Center is financed by the Episcopalian Church and grants from various sources. There is also an offering taken in Sunday services. The Center is presently operating on a budget of $1500 a month. This amount is insufficient to handle the operating cost of the Center according to Father Randolph. He expects that by the end of the year the Center will face serious financial problems. One of the most innovative ideas at Canterbury Center is the Jazz Mass held every Sunday with a live Jazz band - The Life Force. Asked about this concept, Father Randolph explains that Jazz is very dear to him. He once hosted a Jazz program on a New York radio station. Jazz is a form of music developed by black people; thus it is deep in the heritage of black people said Father Randolph. “We must synthesize our blackness in workable forms and pass them on to our people.” This is what the Jazz Mass attempts to do. The Jazz Mass has received quite a bit of attention, both negative and positive, from the Atlanta community Father Randolph said. But Canterbury Center only works on a positive foundation. Worship services are held every Sunday at 11:00 a.m., in Danforth Cahpel on the Morehouse College Campus. Canterbury Center is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. week days during the school year and 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. during the summer months. On the one hand there is the student passivist, and on the other, there is the student ac tivist. Both however, survive in an identical academic and social environment yet one becomes involved, the other does not. Another teacher feels that many of the students of today who are not involved feel duped by the broken promises of the black power movement of the sixties. Promises yiat could not have been kept because they had behind them no plans for their implementation. According to her, “black students (today) do not read enough, they do not travel enough, and they have not internalized the lessons of the sixties.” Lessons which she believes if internalized, would aid black students in constructing their role in the movement of today. That historic role has been an unambiguous answer to the threat of injustice throughout the society at large. For, as the late civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., asserted in his “Letter From Birmingham City Jail,” “...injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. ’ ’ Spelman women have learned long before the seventies to go far beyond the peripheral demands of those in need of her intellect, her courage, and her versatility. And doubtlessly, despite the obstacles place upon her by the environment, whether those obstacles be natural or man made, she will continue the role trust upon her by her heritage. Neyeswah Music About a couple of years ago, if you attempted to talk about jazz or what is termed black progressive music aroud the AU Center, you probably found that no such discussions existed. Black classical music i(i.e., jazz, or, gospel): has been so ignored by media, and frightened away by our own people that this new resurgence in this music has me in shock. In about a three-year span progressive black music has taken a grip of the AU Center. In this span many misconceptions about jazz and its relationship to the black experience has opened up. This two part series will try and clear up a few of these myths. Be ye forewarned that whatever reviews you may happen upon in most of your national music magazines are usually lacking in a basic understanding of black people and our encounters with our en vironment. Thus nearly any European-oriented critic will tend to overlook the tradition of our music. They begin to judge our musical expression on their standards for listening. There are Black critics writing who need to be read. Stan Crouch is one, also Vernon Gibbs, and A.B. Spelman.There is a white critic who does extend black music to a respectable level, Gary Giddins, but stick to The Black cats if at all possible. Jazz encompasses so many ways to express ideas, and so many different musicians express themselves differently, that it is non sense to say that any one musician is “better” than another. Take, for example, two jazz bassists, Ron Carter and Stan Clarke. To say that Ron was better than Stan, and vice-versa, doesn’t make a lot of sense. After all, they’re both masters of the bass. Each of them have spent years perfecting their particular techniques. Each has chosen to express himself through his separate and unique living ex periences. If you’re going to say whose good, you’d better have a good definition of good. Perhaps another musician may play to your liking, but who are you to say who is better, because when you look at it, musicians are not in competition with each other for being better. Perhaps there are some imitation musicians who believe doing this, but no true musician does. Beware of the imitators. These are the cats who use every gimmick in the world to get over with their music. They usually do this and claim “to reach a wider audience”. Remember, no artist com promises his or her talent for the sake of the masses. If they do, they are not being true to themselves, regardless of who they happen to be. So the next time you hear a saxaphonist who sounds “just like ’Trane”, think! Has this musician taken techniques and learned from them or has he copied Trane’s style until he no longer realizes the difference between his own talent and someone else’s expression? But then again, its truly hard to tell the difference between an imitator and an innovator. We will talk about innovators later. But suffice it to say that you need to read up on your black music before you even listen, and try to decipher what is going on today. Check these albums out until next issue: Woody Shaw “Moontarin”—Muse Wooay’s a hard-bop trumpet player from the sixties and his playing is still hard edged and gutty, a welcome relief from that crap Byrd and Hubbard are doing, and it’s freak cause those two cats used to be on Miles’ a-! Yusef Lateef “Ten tears Hence”-Atlantic This recording is live and thank God! It’s about time we can hear just what he’s been doing live instead of trusting his studio music. Dig the piano player, Kenny Barron. He’s been bad for so long that he needs to be heard by someone other than critics who ignore his contributions to jazz. That’s all tor now-see you next month. And remember, be bouyant; it keeps you above water. THEM CHANGES