The Ron McCurdy Quartet and Malcolm-Jamal Warner performed Langston Hughes' "Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz," Wednesday night as a commemoration of the University's 50th year of integration.
Before the lights dimmed Dr. Ronald McCurdy, told the crowd gathered in Foy Hall auditorium to treat the production like a Southern Baptist church gathering.
He sent out an "amen," and the crowd returned it on cue.
Warner, after a warm reception said that he thought the crowd could do one better, and asked for a War Eagle. The crowd followed suit.
Throughout the performance audience participation was expected.
Many of the arrangements were begun by McCurdy, trumpet raised high in one hand, the other urging the crowd to clap along to the beat.
The atmosphere was informal. And the poetry, dark, emotional, intimate and racially revealing, would still bring the audience to laughter at times.
"Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz" was the brainchild of renowned poet, author, activist Langston Hughes.
The piece was intended as a fusion of multiple art forms but was unperformed at the time of Hughes' death in 1967.
Through McCurdy's compositions and the Langston Hughes Project the epic poem was finally performed nearly 30 years later.
McCurdy is a professor of music in the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California, where he previously directed the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz.
McCurdy said that he began work on the project around 20 years ago, while at the University of Minnesota. He joked that, being a professor, he set out on the project and then forgot about it.
He said he remembered when someone asked him how it was coming along. He wrote the score to the piece in about six months, and gave a "primitive performance," which he said was really a rehearsal.
It was well received. Surprised by the reception, McCurdy remembered saying among his band "What would happen if we rehearsed?"
"Ask Your Mama," has now been performed numerous times all across the U.S., in high school gymnasiums and Carnegie Hall.
He thinks of it as an extension of the classroom. "First and foremost I'm a professor," McCurdy said.
He said that the diversity of his audience is crucial, and is why he travels so extensively throughout the year to perform. According to McCurdy, the production is put on nearly 60 times a year.
"Langston was about bringing people together," McCurdy said.
Warner, who along with McCurdy, orated selected "moods" of the poem has been involved with the project for about two years.
He said that he agreed to work on the project almost immediately, before he knew that it was a 35-minute-long poem, without the music, and that his father was a major influence.
Warner said that starting around 6-or-7 years old, his father would make him read his books which included Hughes' poetry.
"I'm a poet," Warner said.
And, outside of his acting career, which he received an Emmy-nomination for with his role of Theo in The Cosby Show, he leads a band that performs both spoken word and songs written and conducted by Warner.
Every production of "Ask Your Mama" brings something new, he said. This one of his favorites aspects about performing the piece."It always has a different life to it," Warner said.
After a question-and-answer session, McCurdy said that if anyone missed the performance at Auburn, another will be held 7 p.m. Thursday night at Tuskegee University, with free admittance to the public.
Wednesday's event was sponsored by the Multicultural Center and the Office of Diversity and Multicultural Affairs.
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