Piano Instructor

Okay, on that note, I'm gonna ask if you could play and sing for us some of that traditional gospel music that's made you a legend in this city [Cleveland, Ohio]. Would you do that?$$Well, let me see, is this cord long enough?$$Oh, no, we'll pause and maybe switch things around a little.$$(Tape interrruption).$$One number that really speaks to Kenneth Morris, a verse and a chorus, ' [My God is Real] Yes, God is Real'. I'm not gonna sing it though. You asked me to sing it. Then I have to change the key if I'm gonna sing it. That's another thing that put gospel musicians over. If you can transpose and play in any key, you can make it. (Singing) "There are some things"--anybody sing it with me?--"I may not know, There are some places, I can't go; But I am sure, Of this one thing; That God is real, for I can feel Him deep within. Oh, yes, God is real, He's real in my soul; Yes, God is real, For He has watched and made me whole. His love for me, Is like pure gold; Yes, God is real, for I can feel Him in my soul." And then the one that [Dr. Thomas A.] Dorsey wrote on ['The Lord Will Make A Way Somehow']--(Singing) "The Lord will make a way somehow, when beneath the cross I bow, He will take away the sorrow, let Him have your burdens now; When your load gets down so heavy the weight is sure to short upon my brow, There's a sweet relief, There's a sweet relief, There's a sweet relief in knowing the Lord will make a way somehow." Now, I'm gonna do my mother's song. She wrote this song, when she started walking again. Mother [Henrietta Coleman] did not walk from 1940, no, '43 [1943] to '47 [1947]. She had a nervous breakdown 'cause she worked too hard. So when she started working again, she wrote this song ['There Is A Place On The Battlefield For Me']. (Singing) "There is a place on the battlefield for me; There's a place on the battlefield for me; I can hear Jesus' voice sweetly saying, Stand up for right and behold the victory. On the battlefield Lord Jesus Christ was wounded; There He shed blood and died in agony; Now with joy, I'm fighting sin for my salvation, For His life means eternal life for me. I love to fight for my Christ, I want to die fully right, Then I'll see my savior's face in peace; So I'll keep marching along, Joyfully singing my song; There's a place on the battlefield for me."$$(Applause)$I'm wondering since you're now a full-time musician, clinician, sacred music--,$$Yes.$$--is all that I've ever heard you perform, but hearing all those different sounds growing up, were you ever torn between the sacred and secular, or were you pretty much focused on what you wanted to do as a young person?$$When I was in my teens, and I was attending, I think Rawlings Junior High [Cleveland, Ohio], we had a band in the school. And there were about six of us--little jazz band. And the teacher liked us. I think his name was Carter, yes. And he would take us out to do little gigs. We didn't call them gigs then, but that's what they say now. We had a saxophonist, trombone, baritone sax, bass violin, drums, and I was on the piano. And we would play at different places like Crile [General] Hospital [Cleveland, Ohio] and we'd go downtown, and I was rather enjoying it, thinking that I might be a second Hazel Scott. But my mother [Henrietta Coleman] put an end to that 'cause she (laughs), she said, there will be no jazz growing up in (laughs), in that house. But I, I enjoyed playing. I could play the jazz as the person did it. Two of my favorite numbers was 'After Hours' by Erskine Hawkins and 'Flying Home' by Lionel Hampton. Now, I could play those two. And I did like 'Begin the Beguine', and I can't think of the fellow who--oh, yes, I had a little repertoire of (laughs) of jazz.$$Okay, okay, now, when is this then that your mother is helping you decide that you're only gonna be a gospel musician? About how old were you then?$$I think I was, I was around, I was still in my teens.$$Oh, okay.$$And it happened one night we went to Crile Hospital on the West Side, you know, to entertain the fellows [World War II veterans]. Some of them were bedridden and they had their legs, you know, you know, amputated or all of this. And we thought we'd make them feel good, you know, by going out there. So I told mother [Henrietta Coleman] the [Rawlings Junior High] Glee Club had to sing somewhere, and, and she said, "Okay." This was not true. But I had to use that to get out of the house (laughs). And little did I know that my mother, being confined to the bed, she had a keen sense of discernment of the spirit, which is one of the fruits of the spirit. Now, she could tell what I was up to even just by sitting on that bed. And whether I was at home or not, someone would bring her the--"I saw Helen so and so." "Did you know Helen was so and so?" And, you know, so I really had to, to--you know, I had to come up in the straight narrow. Well, mother was concerned about this Glee Club. So she sent my grandmother [Martha Coleman] out in a car with someone and drove all the way out to York Road [Cleveland, Ohio]. And I was just whipping it on down on the piano. I was getting down, or at least I thought was (laughs). And I looked up in the door, and there stood my grandmother. And I think I could have been bought for a dime (laughs). I couldn't play, everything went out of me. I had no more--I, I was just like a person was, they saw something, and they had come to a stop, and, you know, it startled them. And then here I was. I can't believe this. This is my mother standing here, and all the fellows in casts, you know, and their toes just going, you know. And mother said, "Aren't you shamed, playing that jazz, and those men are laying up there with half of their torso and everything off." And I said, "But Mother, they want to be entertained." "Well, you're not gonna entertain them anymore like that." So that put an end to my jazz career.