I went to a talk at the glorious public library on 42nd St. last Wednesday night where Harry Belafonte was the interviewee. His new book, My Song --- a Memoir, came out last week. The room is beautiful and the Emcee, Paul Holdengraber is always good, though that night I saw him as superb and, besides for my artist friends, it’s a reasonably-priced ticket --- yey!
When I arrived, wonderful music was pumping out across the room; I had forgotten the largeness of Harry Belafonte’s repertoire. I think we tend to remember ‘Day O’ immediately but there’s a lot more.
When the music stopped and Mr. Belafonte was announced, I found myself jumping up immediately to applaud with most of the audience doing the same and when I did, I noticed I was shivering. It was a profound moment.
He wore a softly-colored pale yellow sweater, his voice was a bit raspy but the stories that came out were phenomenal --- tough, touching, very funny at times and he so depicted the life of an artist --- you have nothing one second, something the next.
A few things stand out --- like Harry Belafonte had a 9th grade education and enlisted in the Navy and was in a segregated unit where he was surprised there were so many different types of black people --- their colors, languages, accents. He hung around with a more formally educated core of men and picked up many reading ideas from them and read and read. There is a touching library story, too long to include here --- you’ll have to buy the book!
I hadn’t known the extent of Harry Belafonte’s acting career, nor how he hung in the West Village evenings after classes at The New School and heard the great jazz people of his time. He had long followed Count Basie, Ella, Miles, Thelonious Monk and Charlie Parker. But, in the old “Royal Roost” near school, he heard many more jazz artists and, in time, they gave him a chance to sing (at first during intermission!). He had to talk his way into college because he didn’t have a High School degree. Many of his finest theater teachers there were German Jews, recently escaped.
In the whole over-two-hour interview, Harry Belafonte came off as fully open to people, interested, and, as such, he received great riches from them. Some of his colleagues in theater class were Marlon Brando whom he loved, Rod Steiger and Bernie Schwartz who would later become Tony Curtis. They were just young students in school together and, of course, Marlon mumbled.
I left before the talk was over, I had to. I was overwhelmed. As an artist what I can tell you is that Harry managed a building and took out the trash (something I do!); he had a lot of things go wrong, and he had a lot of people out of nowhere (sound familiar???) support him and, mostly, he heard what they said. They proffered advice and he was open to it. Once someone helped him totally change the order of songs for a raucous and unresponsive audience and he did it and it worked.
What a great night at the New York Public Library and there are many more nights to come in this delightful series.
Mary Pat Kane, October 20, 2011
http://www.nypl.org/events/live-nypl
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