31 March 2010
Highland Park
My life in Highland Park was as a “preacher’s kid”. Most of my classmates at Ferris School overlooked this, but there were times when teasing about this became a bit of a burden. At home and in church there was an abundance of music. The sounds of music often filled our home as well as the Woodward Avenue Presbyterian Church. In my early years, music was as normal and expected as air itself. I learned to breathe both.
Perhaps the best thing about Highland Park High School was that it was so inclusive. That was part of what some refer to as the Highland Park Experiment. We all knew that our classes were comprised of students who represented a wide range of race, ethnicity, religion, and socio-economic class. Every day, we were studying, eating, singing, and playing sports with classmates representing widely varied backgrounds. That in itself provided us with a certain sensitivity and richness not found in most other schools in Southeastern Michigan. When our nation began to timidly focus on Diversity in the late ’90s, I often thought of the valuable experiences we all had with our classmates at HPHS back in the ’60s. If only all of the schools in the Detroit area had provided such a rich fabric for their students.
Hi-Fi
In the late ’50s, at a neighbors ’60s home, my friends and their dad demonstrated their home-built hi-fi as it evolved. The music their system pumped out was more than impressive - it seemed as though the jazz instrumentalists were right there in their living room. I soon determined that at some time, I would build my own hi-fi system, one way or another. Then in 1959, my friends added another amplifier and speaker system and a few other components, yielding amazing stereophonic sound! That was it. I was hooked for life.
The same friends introduced me to the jazz of that era. Their LP collection included The Modern Jazz Quartet, Ellington, Miles, Coltrane, Brubeck, Monk, Gordon, Hampton, Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, and on and on. This really opened my eyes and ears to the world of hi-fi and jazz. Jazz was not heard in our home at that time. Jazz is truly America’s only unique art form and it certainly resonates around my own home! A LOT.
Much later in life, for many years while traveling away from home on business trips, in the evenings, I would seek out hi-fi shops in every city I could. It was a great way to sample hi-fi equipment not available in local shops. No one hi-fi shop could afford to stock all of the brands of gear I had read about. I developed what some audiophiles consider “golden ears.” That is, I began to be able to discern what effect a particular piece of equipment had on the overall sound reproduction audible to the ear. It is a qualitative phenomenon, not quantitative. I began to gather components for my own system, bit by bit. I did my best to make my system sound at least as good as what I had heard in a shop.
Over time, I built an amplifier, selected a particular type of phono cartridge and turntable, bought an unusual pre-amplifier, and built my own speakers and crossovers. Even now, I listen to serious music with a tube amplifier. After listening to what was reportedly the finest speaker system available at the time, in Alexandria, Virginia, I quit modifying and tweaking my system, because it sounded as good as that one. My system had “arrived.“ With excellent recordings, the sound emanating from our living room seems to be created by live musicians.
HPHS
My introduction to music education began when Keith Sturdevant visited Ferris School to recruit students for the choral music programs of the Highland Park High School. One by one, the students who were interested were called to go down the hall to meet with him at the piano in the auditorium. He very kindly auditioned me; checking my range, tonality, and how much I could project my voice (very little in those days). But, I think he liked my pitch control.
In a few weeks, I was told that I had qualified and could be a part of the HPHS Concert Choir in my freshman year. I was pleased and excited. Soon afterward, Mr. Sturdevant called to ask if I would be interested in singing in a music educators” summer chorus down at Wayne University. That was a mixed bag of music teachers and students, but what a nice experience, and a great way to prepare to sing in the Concert Choir.
The years I was a member of the Concert Choir were wonderful. We all learned to sing together, blend well, take extreme care with diction, improve our breath control and carefully control pitch. The results were worth all of our collective effort. Since those years, unfortunately, most of us have wandered far from our Highland Park homes and rarely see one another. Otherwise, perhaps many of us would still be singing together in one choir or another.
I “played at” playing trumpet in the HPHS band for two years. I never was very good with a trumpet or cornet, but it was a lot of fun to be part of the band. I vividly recall when we had a guest conductor who led us in a performance of Sousa marches. He had actually been a member of John Philip Sousa’s band, many years before. That amazed us all.
In 1963, our senior year, Bill Maynard, John Evans and I formed a trio we called The Dusters. I believe we performed only five or six times, but somehow this music still lives on -- on one of the Magic Moments CDs that Clifford Larkins recently produced from Mr. Sturdevant’s wonderful old master tapes. You probably thought that Scotch Tape was only made for the purpose of holding envelopes and packages together. No, I can still see the box for the 10 1/2” reel of Scotch Recording Tape the recording engineer used to record our performances.
The brief time we spent singing as The Dusters was a lot of fun. Our voices were young, but we blended as well as the Hi-Lo’s did. On one occasion we were asked to sing after a dinner at Roma Hall, for the HP Teachers Association. They actually paid us! Our renditions of The Old Lamplighter and Scarlet Ribbons brought tears to the eyes of several of our favorite teachers.
Those amazing Magic Moments CDs with music of many years of the Concert Choir are as important as any of our Polar Bear yearbooks. The recordings captured the essence of our performances. In my living room, the CDs of those evening concerts recreate even the feel of the HPHS Auditorium; down to the occasional clanking of some of the round steel heating vents (under some of the seats) that were inadvertently kicked from time to time. There used to be a TV show known as You Are There. Our Magic Moments CDs provide the sound that can almost take you “There”.
Music on the Radio
In the sixties, it nearly goes without saying that we loved the seemingly weekly new hits released on the airwaves by Berry Gordy’s Motown label and others. Wow! Listening to the DJs on WXYZ, WJBK and CKLW and other Top 40 AM stations I could receive from as far as Cleveland, Chicago and New York provided great backdrops for living a teenager’s life in Highland Park. I suppose most of us recall Lee Alan, Tom Clay, Mickey Shorr and Robin Seymour, as some of the major DJs back in the day.
But, in the same timeframe, especially at night on my AM radio at home, I would tune in to WCHB or Frantic Ernie on WJLB to hear all manner of Rhythm and Blues, and Soul; some of them Detroiters; Etta James, Sam Cooke, Brook Benton, Aretha. That was black music on a black station. R&B was some of the most honest and soulful music ever performed. Black music, white music, classical, R&B, Motown, jazz. I liked it all as long as it was good music. Still do.
Of course there were two other superb stations in Detroit that included music for part of their schedules; WWJ (The Detroit News) and WJR (“The Goodwill Station,” then “From the Golden Tower of the Fisher Building,” and now, “The Great Voice of the Great Lakes”). After midnight, there was a program known as Night Flight 760 with wonderful soothing music to lull listeners to sleep. Early on Sunday afternoons there was another theme program by developed by Mike Whorf, called Patterns in Music. He also had a program he called Kaleidoscope. Good stuff. And, for many years, WJR broadcast a program known as Adventures in Good Music, developed by Karl Haas. I listened to his program from 1950 until his death a year or two ago, as it was aired in various cities where I have lived. I miss his program.
As we all know, Highland Park was a special place, tucked away within the big city of Detroit. But somehow, we felt the music of Motown was our own. It seemed as though it was ours. Each week the DJs would spin yet another smash hit or two from Motown. And, at the annual Michigan State Fair, there were times when we could experience the Supremes, the Temptations, Martha Reeves, and others, live–on–stage at the Concert Shell. In those early years at the Fair Grounds we could see a shortened version of the Motown Review — as the saying went: For Free! What a time.
Music Education
As a student in high school and college, music was an elective — a sideline for me. But, what I learned by singing during those years has provided a constant in my life. The sensitivity to, and appreciation of sacred music, classical music and jazz has provided me with a layer of life not experienced by those who have not lived with, and performed, music in their early years. Music education has provided me with a lifelong love for the art of music as much or more than any of the other arts; at least as important as learning language or literature — because it is a part of my life each day — art I can hear. I am ever thankful for those who taught me.
College and Life Since
In 1960, I built my first speaker system for my dorm room at Alma College. I didn ’ t have space for a pair of speakers, so a monaural hi-fi system was my limit. With the radio I had in that system, I could listen to a couple of FM stations from Lansing. In those years, I began to think of FM as “free music!” I still do.
But these days with the innovation of Internet radio, I can listen to music from almost anywhere in the world. Of course much of the music available on the radio or on the Internet is not worth listening to, but there IS an abundance of music that I enjoy, day and night. My wife will tell you that I listen to music “all of the time.” But, in truth, most days I think I listen to music about half of my waking hours, at home or in my car. With the advent of the cassette tape, CDs and more recently the iPod, there is rarely a time when there is not some source of recorded music nearby.
When we designed our home, we had five or six design goals. One of the goals was to build a home that provided “music everywhere.” We achieved that goal. The system I put together indeed sounds like there is a live performance going on in the living room. That has been a long-time goal, finally achieved.
Closing the Circle
Never have I considered myself a musician, although I have always been able to read music and sing rather well. Over the years, my voice has matured (even if I may not have!), but I’ve never taken a course in music theory, music history, or other courses required of music majors at the university level. Yet, I have learned much about performing music from Mr. Sturdevant and later at Alma College, from Dr. Ernest Sullivan and others. At Alma, I sang with the A ’Capella Choir. We toured twice a year, performing in churches and schools in Michigan, New York, New England, Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Lots of fun.
Since my college years, I’ve never been a member of another choir until recently. A couple of years ago my wife and I decided to join our church choir in Houston. This has been a great way to reconnect with choral music; with preparation of a wide variety of music and to sing again. I found my voice is still with me. I still have an ear, relative pitch and can sight read. Our choir is comprised of about sixty members, some of whom are professional musicians; some choral teachers, and a member of the Houston Symphony. On Good Friday this year, we will perform the Passion of Saint John, by J.S. Bach. This is the most challenging music I have ever encountered. But, our choir is able to do it.
Reflecting on my interest in music, I believe that it has provided a way of centering in difficult times, to rejoice in happy times, to enjoy singing in choirs, and to provide music to others in a worshipful context — completing the circle for me ... for the love of music.
David J Kerr’63