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Photographs depict musical greats of past 70 years
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| Bessie Smith Cultural Center |
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Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross and Mariah Carey are appearing at the Bessie Smith Cultural Center.
They're joined, in an extraordinary array of musical talent, by Smokey Robinson, Tina Turner
and Aretha Franklin. But they're appearing only through the end of the week.
The artists are among 37 whose portraits or photographs are on display in "Songs From the
Soul", which celebrates contributions to the country's musical history, popular culture and
the civil-rights movement. Curator and education director Carmen Davis said the display
provides "an evolution of recent African-American music here in the United States. It's
also a content exhibition because it gives you great information about the artists."
The traveling exhibition consists primarily of large-format, original illustrations by
international portrait artist Wolfram Schramm of Gerlingen, Germany, and black-and-white
photographs from the William P. Gottlieb Collection, "Photographs From the Golden Age of
Jazz", in the Library of Congress.
The artists range from jazz greats of the 1940s and 1950s to today's pop star Mariah Carey.
The head-and-shoulder illustrations, for instance, portray a smiling pop/R&B and blues
singer Aretha Franklin in a tall bouffant and garbed in a pink boa-like outfit. Pop singer
Michael Jackson, meanwhile, gazes out soulfully in a more subdued work as his trademark
curls cascade over his face. Among the photographs, Louis Armstrong, donned in a checkered
robe, reclines in a chair as he practices his trumpet. A young Billie Holiday sits in
front of her dressing table with a canine companion in a second seat. A stolid Ella
Fitzgerald, meanwhile, gazes in the distance.
Davis said the photos are especially interesting. "Some of them seem so personal," she
said. "They are really unique photos." A photo of jazz great Duke Ellington seated among
his wardrobe and the detritus of his dressing room is Davis' favorite. "He looks so cool
and comfortable," she said.
Gottlieb must have had wide access to the stars, Davis said. "He was always on the scene,
always in the scene," she said. To accentuate the collection, which is circulated by
ArtVision Exhibitions of Boca Raton, Fla., Davis said, the center added seven paintings
loaned by Rondell Crier, a New Orleans native who now lives in Chattanooga; a costume
and tour accouterments used by former Chattanooga resident Usher that are part of the
center's permanent collection; and an African banjo and other instruments that also are
part of the permanent collection.
The instruments, she said, allow visitors to make the connection between the African
heritage of most of the singers and their influence in American music. "Everything ties
together," Davis said.
The collection may be viewed as part of a tour of the Bessie Smith Cultural Center, 200
E. M.L. King Blvd. The hours are 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday and noon-4 p.m. Saturday.
Admission is $7 for adults, $3 children for children ages 6-12 and $5 for seniors and
students. For more information, call 266-8658.
(Chattanooga Times Free Press)
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