Penumbra

The stage show Ain’t Misbehavin’ reflects a really unique period in American history.

From the dawn of the century through the late 1940s, Harlem was the epicenter of swing, big band and jazz music and performance. Fats Waller’s contribution to this rich environment was as immense as his vivacious personality and famed appetite for life. The crowned king of stride piano, Waller took hold of a breakout style and shaped it into something marvelous and rollicking, clever, quick and uncanny. It summed up the tenor of the times: the rejection of Prohibition, the American sense of patriotism after the First World War, social and political debate, and the wit and verve of black people struggling to make a life in a country that only reluctantly allowed their inclusion.

Written in the late seventies, Ain’t Misbehavin’ is a posthumous tribute to one of the greatest jazz pianists this country has known; a musician and composer with his finger on the pulse of black life in Harlem during its heyday. The music featured in this show is worthy of our consideration not just for its distinctive flavor, but also for its role in shaping a more diverse, culturally astute world. In 1929 Fats Waller, along with Andy Razaf, wrote Hot Chocolates, a musical revue that opened on Broadway and featured, among others, Louis Armstrong. One of its irrepressible hits was the song “Ain’t Misbehavin’”. Performers such as Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald were touted as American ambassadors abroad, likened to political figures not just because of their popularity, but because of the unique position these remarkable individuals found themselves in as their music closed cultural gaps and opened hearts worldwide. In fact, many people don’t realize that the U.S. State Department actually funded many of Armstrong’s foreign tours. Rich and poor, black and white, American, African and European experienced this artistic excellence and cultural diplomacy.

Music was critical, yet only a portion of Harlem’s Renaissance period. From literature to theater to history and philosophy to the visual arts, all eyes were on the great experiment that was the ever growing neighborhood of Harlem, New York. The city was flooded with migrants traveling to what began to be described as a Mecca, or a new Eden for black people. As Alain Locke wrote,

“to Harlem came the man from the city and the man from the town and village; the peasant, the student, the business man, the professional man, artist, poet, musician, adventurer and worker, preacher and criminal, exploiter and social outcast. Each group has come with its own separate motives and for its own special ends, but their greatest experience has been the finding of one another.”¹

The convergence of so many cultures in such a small space made for a unique opportunity to describe, celebrate and differentiate the black experience. This show is but a piece of that legacy.

Sarah Bellamy, Dramaturge

¹ Locke, Alain. “The New Negro.” The New Negro : Voices of the Harlem Renaissance. Alain Locke and Arnold Rampersad. (New York: Touchstone, 1997) 3-18; 6 emphasis mine.

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