Martin-Smith School of Music

The Martin-Smith School of Music (MSSM) was a music school at 139 W. 136th St in the Harlem neighborhood of Upper Manhattan, New York City, United States.[1][2] Founded in 1912 by David I. Martin and Helen Elise Smith, the school was a significant music conservatory for African-Americans during the first half of the 20th century. The school was still active as late as 1953, but by 1969 its building was demolished.

History

Helen Elise Smith, who co-founded the Martin-Smith School of Music with David I. Martin

The Martin-Smith School of Music was founded to serve black students at a time when many institutions of learning were racially segregated and denied admittance to African Americans. It was co-founded in 1912 by violinist David I. Martin and pianist Helen Elise Smith (later the wife of Robert Nathaniel Dett).[3] According to musicologist Eileen Southern, it was "one of the most important black musical institutions in the country",[4] an assessment echoed by historian Reid Badger.[5] In its early years the peak enrollment at the school reached more than 300 students.[6] It was an influential school during the era of the Harlem Renaissance.[2]

The MSSM had both youth and adult orchestras conducted by Martin.[7] The school also had a Ladies' Staff Orchestra founded c. 1915, an all-women ensemble that was directed by Mildred Gassaway Franklin.[8] Walter F. Craig was an early supporter of the school, and many of its students and graduates were featured in concerts that he organized in the 1910s.[9] On May 5, 1915, Scott Joplin's Frolic of the Bears was given its world premiere at the MSSM's annual recital concert.[10] That same year the school hosted a recital given by Daisy Tapley.[11] Later, the school sponsored one of Marian Anderson's earliest recitals.[12]

In 1919 the Colored Music Settlement School was subsumed into the MSSM after its primary teacher, J. Rosamond Johnson, resigned.[13] After Martin's death in 1923,[14] his wife Gertrude took over the business management of the school[7] and his son, violinist and MSSM graduate Eugene Mars Martin,[15] was appointed director.[4] When Eugene Mars died in 1926 he was succeeded as director by David I. Martin Jr.[6] By 1929 the school enrollment had declined to 150 students with 12 music faculty teaching courses in harmony, music theory, strings, woodwinds, brass, voice, and piano.[6] Enrollment increased in the 1930s, and in 1934 approximately 500 students were attending the school.[16]

Gertrude succeeded David Jr. as director, and was still leading the school as late as 1953 when she was honored in a special tribute event by the National Association of Negro Musicians.[17] She died in June 1954.[18] By 1969 the school's building had been demolished and an article in New York Amsterdam News advocated for the placement of a memorial plaque to honor the MSSM.[2]

Faculty

Vocal music faculty at the school included sopranos Marie Selika Williams[4] and Minnie G. Brown;[19] concert tenor Sidney Woodward;[4] and baritone Frank Goodall Harrison.[20] The multi-instrumentalist, composer, and conductor Francis Eugene Mikell was another influential teacher at the school.[21] Other faculty members included Irving Frederick Barnwell (violin),[22] Andrew Fletcher Rosemond (violin),[20] Tourgee DeBose (piano),[23] Lou Hooper (piano),[24] H. Leonard Jeter (cello),[25] James R. C. Pinn (piano),[26] Sonoma Talley (piano),[19] Edwin Coates (piano / music theory),[19] Jessie Ernestine Covington (piano),[19] and Will Marion Cook.[27]

Alumni

Jazz trombonist George Matthews was a student at the school from 1927 to 1931.[28] Other graduates of the school included cellists Clarissa Burton Cumbo[29] and David Irwin Martin Jr.;[15] violinists Winston Collymore,[30] and Gertrude Martin (daughter of David and Gertrude);[15] pianist Hugo Bornn;[2] jazz bassists Chocolate Williams and Olivia Sophie L'Ange Shipp,[31] jazz trumpeter Arthur Briggs;[27] jazz saxophonist and clarinetist Sol Moore;[32] and jazz keyboardist and arranger Skip Hall.[33]

References

Citations

  1. ↑ "The Martin-Smith School of Music". The Crisis: 41. May 1923.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Allen, James Egert (August 2, 1969). "Black History Past and Present: The Martin-Smith School of Music". New York Amsterdam News. p. 13.
  3. ↑ Southern 1997, pp. 288–289.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Southern 1997, p. 289.
  5. ↑ Badger 1995, p. 262.
  6. 1 2 3 Boris 1929, p. 257.
  7. 1 2 Handy 1998, p. 9.
  8. ↑ Howe 2013, p. 150.
  9. ↑ Southern 1997, p. 285.
  10. ↑ Price, Maxile & Kernodle 2011, p. 515.
  11. ↑ Brooks 2005, p. 257.
  12. ↑ Palmer 2006, p. 90.
  13. ↑ McGruder 2015, p. 149.
  14. ↑ Southern 1997, p. 288.
  15. 1 2 3 Southern 1982, p. 266.
  16. ↑ "Helen Elise Dett". The Brooklyn Times-Union. March 17, 1934. p. 7.
  17. ↑ "Musicians Plan Martin Tribute". The New York Age. September 26, 1953. p. 5.
  18. ↑ "Gertrude H. Martin: To Be Honored". The New York Age. July 9, 1955. p. 9.
  19. 1 2 3 4 Allen, Cleveland G. (October 15, 1927). "Music and Drama". The Chicago Defender. p. 18.
  20. 1 2 Southern 1982, p. 265.
  21. ↑ Southern 1997, p. 290.
  22. ↑ Brooks 2011, p. 1097.
  23. ↑ Southern 1982, p. 99.
  24. ↑ Kidd, Jim (June 1966). "Louis Hooper". Record Research (77): 3.
  25. ↑ "Cellist Jeter Dies; City Resident's Brother". Mount Vernon Argus. June 23, 1970. p. 2.
  26. ↑ "Dr. Pinn Assumes Pastorate". The Marshall News Messenger. August 15, 1975. p. 6.
  27. 1 2 Goddard 1979, p. 281.
  28. ↑ Koch, Lawrence (2003). "Matthews, George". Grove Music Online. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.J294700.
  29. ↑ Gates & Higginbotham 2013, p. 381.
  30. ↑ Southern 1982, p. 79.
  31. ↑ Smith & Bracks 2014, p. 195.
  32. ↑ "Sol Moore Forms Band". New Pittsburgh Courier. May 4, 1946. p. 19.
  33. ↑ Feather 1960, p. 240.

Bibliography

  • Badger, Reid (1995). A Life in Ragtime: A Biography of James Reese Europe. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195060447.
  • Boris, Joseph J., ed. (1929). Who's Who in Colored America: A Biographical Dictionary of Notable Living Persons of African Descent in America : 1928-1929. New York City: Who's Who in Colored America Corp.
  • Brooks, Christopher Antonio, ed. (2011). The African American Almanac, 11th Edition. Gale Cengage Learning. ISBN 9781414445472.
  • Brooks, Tim (2005). Lost Sounds: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry, 1890-1919. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 9780252028502.
  • Feather, Leonard (1960). The Encyclopedia of Jazz. Horizon Press. ISBN 9780818012037. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
  • Gates, Henry Louis, Jr; Higginbotham, Evelyn Brooks, eds. (2013). African American National Biography, Second Edition. Vol. 3. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199990382.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link)
  • Goddard, Chris (1979). Jazz Away From Home. Paddington Press. ISBN 9780448223674.
  • Handy, Antoinette D. (1998). Black Women in American Bands and Orchestras. Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 9780810834194.
  • Howe, Sondra Wieland (2013). Women Music Educators in the United States: A History. Scarecrow Press. ISBN 9780810888487.
  • McGruder, Kevin (2015). Race and Real Estate: Interracial Conflict and Co-Existence in Harlem, 1890-1920. Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0231169158.
  • Palmer, Colin A., ed. (2006). Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History: the Black Experience in the Americas. Vol. 1. Macmillan Reference USA. ISBN 978-0028658216.
  • Price, Emmett George; Maxile, Horace Joseph; Kernodle, Tammy L., eds. (2011). Encyclopedia of African American Music. Vol. 2, H–O. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 9780313342035.
  • Smith, Jessie Carney; Bracks, Lean'tin L., eds. (2014). Black Women of the Harlem Renaissance Era. Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 9780810885424.
  • Southern, Eileen (1982). Biographical Dictionary of Afro-American and African Musicians. Greenwood Press. ISBN 9780313213397.
  • Southern, Eileen (1997). The Music of Black Americans: A History. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 9780393038439.
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