Lost Gem

 “Summer of Soul,” Documentary by Ahmir ‘Questlove’ Johnson, 2021

Billed as the “Black Woodstock,” having occurred that same summer in 1969, footage of the Harlem Cultural Festival sat in a basement for many years until being rediscovered.  No one initially thought a Harlem event would be a sellable film.  It was a music festival put on by colorful promoter, Tony Lawrence, held in Harlem’s Mt. Morris Park and backed by the City of New York and liberal Republican Mayor Lindsay.  It was attended by tens of thousands of Harlemites dressed in everything from suits, ties, hats and summer dresses to Afros, open leather vests and bell-bottoms, reflecting the changing of the sartorial times. 

Sly - the only one at both

If you are expecting to see sets by various soul, psychedelic, R&B, gospel, Afro-Cuban, Caribbean, Motown, African, blues, folk and jazz greats, you wouldn’t be disappointed.  They are here, but…the segments are not long. The documentary side seems to take precedence.  The music sets last at most 3 songs, sometimes just concentrating on hits, sometimes only samples, sometimes just one song.  There are some outstanding performances here – Sly Stone bringing the hippie funk; Mavis Staples and Mahalia Jackson belting out gospel together; a 19-year old Gladys Knight keeping it pop, doing Grapevine while the Pips gyrate behind her; a young Stevie Wonder rocking out like a jack-hammer; Nina Simone rakes ‘The Man’ with Backlash Blues while asking the audience to ‘get ready’ for violence and burning; the 5^th Dimension go orange and pop psychedelic on Hair/Let the Sun Shine In. 

The vast variety of music and musicians is overlaid with a very familiar political documentary, as this was the summer after the assassination of MLK.  The darker-skinned part of the city was in the grips of a heroin invasion; the police initially refused to protect the event.  Jesse Jackson, Lindsay, Al Sharpton and the Black Panthers (who provided most of the security) show up.  This is the weakest part of the film for leftists, as except for the Panthers and the Young Lords, these characters have played a clear role in misleading movements.  Here they are stars.  

The funniest bit is that during the festival over 6 weekends the U.S. landed Apollo 11 on the moon.  Or as Gil Scott- Heron put it, Whitey on the Moon, which was also the universal feeling of this audience.  Spending money to go moon-wise was idiotic in the face of U.S. poverty – a sentiment still relevant today as billionaires now rise into the stratosphere on their ‘private’ rockets.  Blowhard middle-class scientists like Neil deGrasse Tyson are now on-board with 'star trekking,' which should tell you where his class loyalties lie.  

The Harlem festival is not the first ‘black’ concert film to be made, as the T.A.M.I concert in 1964 featured James Brown, Chuck Berry, Marvin Gaye and many Motown acts like the Supremes.  Several ‘white’ acts also performed, especially the Rolling Stones, who made the mistake of going on after James Brown.  The Harlem Festival sprinkled the concerts with Puerto Rican, Jewish, ‘white,’ African and Cuban musicians, which reflected its broad diverse intent.  Sly’s band included two women and two ‘white’ guys, which made an impression on the audience.

The most fun is looking at the crowds of young and working people of Harlem experiencing these moments of musical and cultural joy.  To be able to walk to concerts of this stature for free was an unusual experience.  For many young people it was a cultural earthquake that they had to hide from their parents. This documentary joins many others – The Funk Brothers, the Wrecking Crew, 20 Feet From Stardom, Cadillac Records, Searching for Sugarman, Buena Vista Social Club, Long Strange Trip, Woodstock, The Last Waltz, Monterey, etc. – that record the music of the 1960s and 1970s – and should not be missed.

May Day has a great section of books on all kinds of music and music politics – local Minneapolis bands, punk, blues, biographies, music scenes in various cities, folk, rock, jazz et al.

Prior blog reviews on this subject, use blog search box, upper left, to investigate our 14 year archive:  “If It Sounds Good, It Is Good,” “In Search of the Blues,” “Cool Town,” “33 Revolutions Per Minute,” “Life” (Richards); “Janis,” “Kids” (Patti Smith); “Marie and Rosetta,” “The Blues – A Visual History,” “How the Beatles Rocked the Kremlin,” “Echo in the Canyon,” “Treme,” “Long Strange Trip,” “Really the Blues,” “Music is Power,” “Zappa Plays Zappa,” “Laurel Canyon,” “We Have Fed You All a Thousand Years” (Utah Phillips).      

The Cultural Marxist

July 6, 2021