Lincoln Improvisation Ensemble Receives Rude Reception

In my interview with Randall Snyder, he said:

We played one performance at an arts fair, and a couple people complained about the noise. This was an indoor amphitheater, it sat about 2,000 people. They came and told us we had to stop. Some of my students were there, and they complained about this, so they wrote letters to the editor, and it became sort of a cause célèbre for a while.

I was able to find a letter to the editor of the Lincoln Star that describes this incident, and a follow-up from the paper which give more details. Enjoy!

Musical guest group offered little courtesy

Rude reception

The Lincoln Star, 5 May 1978 Page 4

Lincoln, Neb.

On Saturday, April 22, we witnessed an event that any proponent of freedom of expression would have found appalling.

The Lincoln Improvisation Ensemble, who had been invited as guest performers, were scheduled to play at 4:30 p.m. The program, however, was running behind schedule and the group did not ascend the stage until approximately 5:10 p.m. No sooner had they announced the first number and begun to play than a representative of the Arts Festival intervened.

The Lincoln Improvisation Ensemble, Feb 1975

Judging from the clearly audible comments shared between the official and the ensemble members, he apparently asked them to play some "real music." He asked if they would lower the volume on their instruments because they were "scaring away the customers," and then stated to the audience that "some people were wondering when they were going to stop tuning up."

He then inquired: "Who wants to listen to this?" Ignoring the enthusiastic affirmative response of the 25 to 30 people who had gathered to listen, he asked the remaining performers to leave (two performers were so insulted, they had already departed).

The L.I.E. was invited to play at the festival on a no-fee basis -- they did not ask to come. As guest performers, they should have been accorded the respect due any guest. The 25 to 30 members of the listening audience should have been accorded the respect due any patron. Basic social graces and humane consideration seemed to be lacking. Regardless of whether the Arts Festival personnel knew of the L.I.E.'s musical style (and they should have), the moment of the performance is not the time to decide if the band should be perform. Rather, it would seem to the average person that this issue should have been decided prior to the invitation.

What happened to the Lincoln Improvisation Ensemble is akin to the initial rejection of the then-progressive musical styles of Louis Armstrong and the Hot Fives in the 1920's. Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker in the 1940's, as well as John Coltrane and Thelonious Monk in the 1960's created music in the face of such rejection. Their music is now acclaimed as classic or modern jazz. This phenomenon is not peculiar to jazz music, but may also be found in philosophy, literature and painting. Throughout history, people have consistently resisted any new idea that seemed to be a radical departure from tradition.

An arts festival is traditionally a vehicle which provides for the cultural exchange of conventional and unconventional art forms between the patron and the artist. Lincoln should consider itself fortunate to include the Lincoln Improvisation Ensemble as members of its artistic community. Freedom to express that creativity is a necessary prerequisite to its continued growth.

ROBIN BUCHMAN
DAVE SKOW
BARB STIMSON

This letter was printed 11 May, 1978 by the Lincoln Journal. Ten days later, a response came:

 

Quartet or ensemble? Music or noise?

by Helen Haggie

Illustrator - Karen Blassen

An incident of April 22 at the Festival of the Arts sponsored by the Lincoln Community Arts Council seems to have been blown out of proportion as the result of letters to editors of Lincoln newspapers.

The incident centered on the volume of music made by the Lincoln Improvisation Ensemble at the festival, and the circumstances surrounding the group's departure from Pershing Auditorium during the festival.

The letter writers claimed that a festival official told the musicians they were "scaring away customers["], asked them to play "real music" and to "lower the volume." The letter writers quoted the official as asking, "Who wants to listen to this?"

The letter writers asserted that 25 to 30 people had gathered to listen to the ensemble but that the official finally asked all of the musicians to leave after two of them departed, feeling that they had been insulted although the ensemble was there by invitation of those who arranged the festival.

Arts Council President William Schlaebitz responded to a request for another side of the incident, saying that he went to the musicians with certain requests after noticing people "streaming out" of the auditorium and being approached by several artists who had displays in the arena. Several asked: "Can't you do something about all that noise?"

Schlaebitz said he found that [the] source of the "noise" was the Improvisation Ensemble, a group he described as 8 to 12 musicians on stage; Schlaebitz says he asked them to turn down the sound amplification, but this request did not get results "so I returned and I did ask them to leave."

He said this was to protect a "captive audience" in the auditorium from sound that was annoying many rather than entertaining.

Chairman Keith Heckman of the festival's performing arts program, said the invitation was for a quartet of  improvisers, not a large ensemble, and that group appearing "was much larger than I expected." He recalled that the entire festival was moved into the auditorium because of bad weather outside and speculated that the ensemble's music played outdoors would have made no problem because those who didn't like it could have moved on and still been in the festival area. "A lot of persons had to make concessions when it (the festival) was in the auditorium," Heckman added.

As for an assertion by the letter writers that the festival officials were, in effect, stifling innovative performing artists, Arts Council Director Sam Davidson said in response to a question that the festival never has been described as a haven for unconventional art. "Every new innovative art has its place, but it is hard to force it on the public in large doses," Davidson said.

Schlaebitz said he apologizes if the group and its admirers are unhappy, adding he wants no verbal shooting match over the incident.

𝄇

The Strange Case of Ella Malone

By the late 19th century, improvisation in "classical" music was relegated to composers, organists, and a few virtuoso performers. In general, it was not taught as a part of standard music education, until Emile Jacques-Dalcroze began his influential work in Switzerland. So for most Americans it was quite a spectacle to hear someone improvise music, especially if the end result sounded as if it had been planned all along.

I recently searched newspapers.com for the phrase "improvises music" and turned up the interesting story of Ella Malone from San Jose, CA. Ella was a teenager who was first reported in the San Jose Mercury as having extraordinary experiences in which she channeled spirits while playing the piano. Her story is worth quoting at length (author is unknown)

"She goes into a trance, in which she claims to be, not Ella Malone, but a man named Charles S. Evans, who died several years ago, but who was, while living, a musician and a member of a minstrel troupe. While in this state she is said to execute difficult music on the piano with her eyes closed, she being evidently in an abnormal condition. After a few performances of this kind she is able to give the same music in her normal state. In this way, in less than a year, without any previous knowledge of music, and without any present knowledge of written music, she is able to execute many difficult pieces with the skill and precision of an artist. At times her 'control', as the influence is called, improvises music, and has composed several pieces in which Ella plays in her normal state. In this way she is acquiring her musical education independent of books of earthly instructors."

Malone's story made a small splash in the fall of 1877, with her story being retold in newspapers in Reno NV, Detroit MI, Milwaukee WI, Holton KS, Davenport IA, and Pulaski TN. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch dismissively wrote that "If the spirits' music is no better than their literature, she might do better to learn from a dog with a tin kettle tied to his tail."

Ella Malone is known to have given a concert at Little Music Hall on 19 September 1877, which was very well reviewed. The Batesville Guard (Batesville, AR) reprinted the report from the San Jose Mercury (author, again, unknown) :

"The so-called trance medium, Miss Ella Malone, of this city, assisted by the Parkman family, gave a concert at Little Music Hall last evening. The attendance was not large. Shortly after 8 o'clock, an overture having been played by Professor Parkman, the medium was introduced ... she rubbed her eyes a few minutes, after the style of Fannie Allyn and other "trance mediums" who have appeared here in public, turned to the master of ceremonies, who bound her eyes with a handkerchief, after which she was apparently seized with a fit of trembling and jerking. This continued a minute or two and the agony was over; she was then, as the Spiritualists say, "possessed, or under control." Without more ado she turned to the piano, a Weber furnished by Morton & Co., and commenced her execution, and, in the language of a bystander, proved before five minutes had passed that she was a "lightning striker." Her movements were all characterized by the same irresistible nervous twitching, and the way she clawed the keys while executing some of the lively Irish reels, was simply marvelous ...

She then executed a piece which she informed the audience was the "Wrecked Daughter," and another entitled "The Soldiers Crossing the Plains," followed by the "Arkansas Traveler." The latter was perfect. After this she played a piece not in print, called the "Spirit March," which came from the "Higher Powers," whoever they may be. After this exertion, she asked that the band would play while she rested ...

At the close she asked that the boy violinist play what he pleased and she would accompany him. He did so, and gave a musical medley which in the main was accompanied correctly. At times she was at fault as if finding the keys, and in one instance she failed, and listened for the time to end. She then sang "Come to that Beautiful Shore," with much expression. The "Little Old Log Cabin in the Lane," was next, but the lines were given as if by spasmodic effort. The "Blue Danube Waltz" and "John Brown's Body" followed, both of which were rendered in first-class style.

A Mr. Hughes, a violinist, in the audience then asked to be permitted to take the boy's violin and see if she could accompany him, and the test was satisfactory. We allow all who were present to draw their own conclusions, as to whether the girl is an expert musician, figuring to be controlled, or is controlled, by a supernatural power. Suffice it to say that, taken throughout, the entertainment was pleasing and well worth the admission fee."

I was unable to find any information about "Professor Parkman" or "Charles S. Evans".

An Ella Malone was reported to have committed suicide in Los Angeles in 1907. Perhaps it's the same person. In any case, I couldn't find any other leads to what happened to her. If this is the same Ella Malone, it is a tragic end to what could have been a remarkable career. 𝄇