Lester McCumbers was more than West Virginia’s last old world, old time fiddler. A man no doubt born into the remoteness of mountains and music and soaked it up in a regional style that over decades stood as a highly cherished remainder of an archaic sound that has recently caught the modern ear.
The New York Times did a wise man and the student piece about Lester McCumbers back in the late 1990s. http://nyti.ms/1CmUBWF. And he continued to graciously host visitors from photographers to musicians committed to the old time sound and wanted to experience the exchange in person rather from a recording. Soon visitors no doubt realized there was more to Lester than the music or maybe there was more to the music.
Lester embodies the power of music, how music can more than compensate the lack of material things, how music infuses a kind of civility that draws people. It…
Smithsonian Folkways producer and archivist Jeff Place holds one of the original glass studio recordings he would have listened to in the making of his recent project Lead Belly: The Smithsonian Folkways Collection. (Toni L. Sandys/The Washington Post)
Over the past three decades, Jeff Place has been the central figure researching, organizing and ultimately releasing the recordings represented in one of the world’s most important collections of 20th- century music: The Rinzler archives includes the 12 record labels now collectively known as Smithsonian Folkways Recordings.
On a recent weekday, Place stood in the Rinzler vault — a windowless room stacked with recordings from 19th-century wax cylinders to 8-tracks. He carefully slid a glass disc out of a paper sleeve and held it up to show the black film — the area where sound had been recorded — peeling like a bad sunburn. This Lead Belly radio recording, dating to the 1940s, could no longer be played. But there was good news. Place had copied and digitized it years ago.
“You sneeze, and they break,” he says. “The whole idea is you want to take these in and get them out to the public. We don’t want to hoard these things. We want to get this stuff out of this room.”
In 1987, the Smithsonian made a deal to buy Folkways after the death of the label’s founder, Moses Asch. Place scored an interview and got the archivist job.
“Folkways was huge,” recalls Tony Seeger, Pete’s nephew and an ethnomusicologist who worked as curator alongside Place until 2000. “Moses Asch had all this artwork very carefully stored and 2,168 LPs. For each of those there was a file. We knew we couldn’t do it in a day, but Jeff’s a fairly unstoppable person. He also brought a pretty good knowledge of American folk music. He knew what it meant when he found something special.”
Place never met Asch, who died in 1986, but he does share part of his philosophy. Asch, he learned, wasn’t desperate for hit records. In fact, a hit would disrupt the Folkways formula by putting undue pressure on the label to press and distribute albums. Asch simply wanted to record as much good music as he could and reach those who were passionate about it.
Walking through the Smithsonian offices, Place points out the activity. One person is converting fast-dissolving master recordings; another is scanning slides from a music festival into the computer system.
There’s a room where anyone can make an appointment and come in and listen to records. There’s also a disc-burning machine — “the robot,” Place calls it — through which visitors can order discs long out of print that have been digitized, such as the aforementioned “Sounds of Medicine,” a 1955 album featuring “stethoscope sounds” from a variety of ailing patients, as well as the 1982 release “Cable Car Soundscapes.”
Last fall, Place stepped down as full-time archivist to become the Rinzler curator, which is really what he has been doing the past few years. He likes to work out of his house in Mayo, Md., on the Chesapeake Bay, which he shares with his wife, Barrie, and his collection of about 20,000 records.
Still, Place remains the ultimate authority on Folkways and doesn’t sound ready to retire. A Pete Seeger box and book — the third in a trilogy that began with Guthrie in 2012 and Lead Belly this year — should be out in 2016. There’s also work to be done on the music of the banjo-playing lawyer Bascom Lamar Lunsford.
“This is the stuff,” Place says, still wide-eyed as he stands in front of rows of Lead Belly, Guthrie and Seeger masters. “You look in this room. All these tapes, these records. Every one of them has a story. Every time you take one out and copy it, you’re in for it.”
Jonathan Bekoff died at home in the night between June 14-15, 2015, after a three-year illness and the culmination of a lifelong spiritual journey. He loved this blog and asked one of his music students to help maintain the site after he died. An excerpt of this will appear in the Summer issue of Oldtime Herald.
Jon was born May 8, 1959 in Staten Island, NY. Raised in Montreal, Canada, he also lived in Ohio, Edmonton, Virginia, Oregon, and Vermont before settling in Greenfield, MA in 1996. He attended the University of Oregon, and was a gifted middle school math teacher for 27 years, mostly in Guilford and Brattleboro, VT. As his former principal at Brattleboro recalled, “Jon was a gentle soul and loved to connect with people, especially with the kids. He came into himself in the classroom; he explained things so clearly. His students loved him. Everyone loved him.”
Jon had strong passions for studying, collecting, playing, mentoring, and sharing roots music of the world, particularly American Old-time and music of Africa (e.g. Malian, Congolese, Shona) and the African diaspora (e.g. Mento, Haitian, Cumbia.) The diverse content of this blog is testimony to his manifold tastes – although all his tastes share one thing in common, i.e., rhythm and groove. To listen to the African music alone in Jon’s iTunes library would take an entire month of continual playing. Jon had a scholarly interest in the people who documented and field recorded roots music. For example, he regarded Alan Lomax, Harry Smith, and Moses Asch as the “holy triumvirate” of Old-time music; having “huge, incalculable long-term cultural influence.”
Jon was a multi-instrumentalist, playing guitar (excelling at several American and African styles), mandolin, banjo, kora, balafon, etc., but fiddle was his forte. Jon started fiddling in 1978, and quickly mastered several regional styles, though he seemed to prefer the excitement and danceability of early Georgia stringbands and favored the “great southern waltzes” of the 1920s and 1930s. Jon developed a unique style of “complementary” fiddling, drawing from the Cajun tradition, but with his own characteristic counter-melodies, harmonies, and syncopated double stops. Jon disliked being the only fiddler in a jam, and said after one masters a tune inside and out, it more fun to complement the melody of another player. This approach he developed is probably one of Jon’s most important contributions to old-time music. This clip of Jon and his protege, Nate Paine, playing Coleman’s March (recorded August 2015) is a good example of how Jon started a tune with the melody lead, then shifted into accompanist fiddling:
Although he once played electric bass in a Zydeco band, and later fiddle in a Cajun band (the high point of his musical “career”), Jon shunned performance opportunities and large festivals in favor of creating music with small groups of friends (friends who considered him as their mentor). Despite his uncanny abilities on the fiddle, Jon was not elitist and regularly played with less skillful players of all ages. He was committed to sharing the love of music. He encouraged those who were drawn to his style to instead learn from source recordings. This self-effacing approach to music was sometimes frustrating, because regardless of the genre, Jon’s version of tunes sounded better, even more authentic, than the original recordings. One might attribute this phenomenon to his ability to intensively and actively listen to a recording, and to reproduce the music as it originally was played, embellished by his understanding of the genre from which the source recording emerged. Anyone who came in contact with him came away with their curiosity awakened and courage bolstered. As a gifted accompanist and a natural teacher, Jon had a curious ability to assess the strengths of his playing partners; his sensitivity and giving nature drew the best out of players, while gently buoying their weaknesses.
Regardless of the genre, in a good jam, Jon liked to play a single tune for no less than ten minutes and often up to 30-60 minutes, depending on the endurance of his musical partners. This reflected his need to exhaustively explore a tune’s harmonic and rhythmic dimensions. While faithful to a tune’s originally composed character, Jon experimented in a way that adds diversity and richness to an otherwise simple folk tune. After 10-15 minutes of playing a tune, one could start to hear delightful syncopated rhythms, evoking an ethnic feel from somewhere in the Caribbean or West Africa. This “complementary” fiddle ability of Jon had the effect of making anyone sound better than they could ever sound alone, and explains Jon’s popularity amongst his musical friends. For most musicians, playing music in a jam with Jon bordered on an ecstatic experience. For Jon, jamming seemed to be when communed best with others, and when he felt most at ease, “delighting in relaxed unity with the constant flow.”
According to his friend Meghan, Jon used to sing long, complex ballads in his younger days. Here’s Jon at age 24 singing Paddy’s Lamentation
One of Jon’s unique contributions to Old-time fiddling was his ability to “resurrect” archaic ballads which he converted into fiddle tunes, e.g. Watchman Ring the Bell:
or twin fiddle “compositions” with his musical partner, Nate Paine: e.g. Charlie Poole’s “Once Loved a Sailor,” which can be seen/heard here amongst >5 hours of footage of Jon with Nate, or with other players (>100 posts by MoonshineV):
This blog Oldtime Party, was Jon’s passion from about 2011-2015, as the 3rd (and most active) blog administrator. His original goal was to create an online community of like-minded music lovers, but the blog morphed into what he described as his repository of “cool stuff” that he discovered posted elsewhere or was submitted by subscribers. Basically, Jon wanted to make it easy for others to find “cool stuff” all in one place. He once said he would have expected that Old-time musicians to find interest in the content regarding Caribbean, African, Cajun and other genres he re-posted here, in addition to the exhaustive collection of Old-time articles, music history, CD/LP reviews, book reviews, links to other archives, and classic recordings. He was our acoustic curator and lined up posts for this blog until his last 2 weeks of life (as evidenced by the posts that continue to emerge under his handle, oldtimeparty, through mid July). Anyone who wants to submit something they think Jon would like to have had posted, or who has recordings of him, contact the blog at oldtimepartyblog (at) gmail.
Jon’s last words were laid out in a letter to family and friends, in which he informed us that his last year of life was his “most peaceful, clarifying, and meaningful.” [http://www.jonbekoff.net/index.php/2015/06/16/new-post/ ] In addition to communing with others through music, Jon adored spending his last few years alone, exploring alternative healing, spirituality, reading, listening to audiobooks, podcasts and his expansive world music collection, and hunting material for his blog. Jon left this world without fear and with profound gratitude for his 56 wonderful years; he wished us to cultivate affection for all beings. Let us honor him by taking a moment to browse through the blog’s archives. Jon never made commercial recordings, but several hours of his unique fiddle style can be experienced at MoonshineV Old-time Field Recordings YT Channel
One of Jon’s fiddle students in his final year posted a highly personalized tribute movie for Jon. All the audio was fiddled by Jon or came from his personal audio collection. Audio borrows heavily from the Harry Smith Anthology and visuals borrow from Harry Smith’s 1950s stop-motion film “Heaven and Earth Magic,” as well as from photos/vdo contributed by Jon’s old-time musician friends. Astute blog followers will also note many world music images from posts of this very blog. Jon viewed this 22-minute tribute twice in April and said he liked it.
Remembrances can be posted here (but cannot be edited immediately after posting, so check your wording first.)
-Moonshine
More recordings will be added below or in an upcoming OTP Blog Page devoted to Jon’s music. What follows are muses on Jon’s music, which we will flesh out over time:
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Nate and I believe that Jon learned all the great tunes in old-time in the 1980s and 90s, and by the 2000s had taken the best ones and developed his own twist to them. By example, we present his early and versions of the same tunes:
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Here is Jon playing straight Peter Francisco, 1985:
And here is a recording of Jon and Nate playing a modalized Peter Francisco in 2014, when Jon applies his “complementary” fiddle style:
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Here’s is Jon fiddling Old Jake Gilly in 1985
And here’s is Jon fiddling Jake Gilly in 2014, with Nate, when Jon applies his “complementary” fiddle style:
Jon fiddling at Galax mid 1980s
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Here’s Jon fiddling Bibb County Hoedown in 1985, recorded in Port Townsend, obtained by Nate’s dad, Don.
Below’s Jon and Jim fiddling Bibb County in 2006 at Harry Smith Frolic (Jon once said Jim Burns bows breakdowns exactly like him – Georgia style):
Here’s Jon fiddling Bibb County in 2014, with Nate (flatfooting by Moonshine); Jon applies a light version of his “complementary” fiddle style after a few rounds through on the melody line:
NB: Jon said the most interesting site along his drive through S Georgia to Atlanta in January 2015 was passing the sign “Welcome to Bibb County!”
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Jon said he leaned Cajun fidding from recordings, but he attributed his application of Cajun styling in the Old-time context to Vermont fiddler Bob Naess (here they’re playing “Eunice Two Step”, then the beautiful “Aimer et Perdre” Champlain Festival 2009, recorded by Mara):
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Found this recording of Brandan Taaffle with Jon playing african style guitar on Brandon’s website: Go to sleep, weary Hobo:
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This is Jon 1985, playing Dance Terpsichore, recorded in Port Townsend, obtained by Nate’s dad, Don.
It is remarkable how well Jon played music throughout his last year of life. Below Jon and Nate playing Omie Wise in March 2015:
Here is a beautiful rendition of Kitty Waltz with Jon and Nate in March 2015 (Carter Family version) Music starts after a 35 seconds: This is a great example of Jon’s complementary fiddling for a waltz. He starts to really cool things after minute 6, note how he pulses variations of the 3/4 rhythm! This is an example of inserting other African rhythms into old-time while always respecting the original spirit of the American folk tune.
This is the last tune Jon played, and recorded, June 14, 2015, an adaptation of a Congolese tune called Kuyina, with Jon playing lead in a guitar duet with Eddie. He died later that night. Note his little laugh at the end of playing! Music brought Jon great happiness his entire life. Original below.
Choctaw County fiddler Hoyt Ming (1902-1985) led the lively string band recorded as “Floyd Ming & His Pep Steppers” at a Memphis Victor session in 1928. His “Indian War Whoop,” with its fiddling “holler,” became an old-time country music standby. Potato farmer Hoyt, with his wife Rozelle on guitar and brother Troy on mandolin, regularly played at fairs, fiddling contests, and rallies before World War II. Rediscovered in 1973, Hoyt and Rozelle Ming returned to recording and live appearances.
Born in Choctaw County on October 6, 1902, into a musical farming family of German-American extraction, Hoyt began teaching himself to play fiddle at fifteen, after admiring a string band that played for his father Clough at the Mings’ house. At least three of Hoyt’s seven brothers and one sister learned to play string instruments at about the same time; his brother Troy took up the mandolin and joined him in forming a family band that played for local dances and parties.
By 1928 Hoyt had married guitarist Rozelle Young; they relocated to rural Lee County and appeared as a trio, with Rozelle’s sister on mandolin. Hoyt heard that Victor Talking Machine record producer and scout Ralph Peer, who was already overseeing Jimmie Rodgers’ rise to stardom, was about to hold auditions in nearby Tupelo. Hoyt, Rozelle, Troy, and square dance caller A. D. Coggin auditioned as a quartet, and became one of the first acts from this area to get the go-ahead to record.
Their February 13, 1928, recording session at an auditorium in Memphis produced four instrumental recordings, typical of Mississippi string band music of the time in repeating musical phrases and showing subtle blues influences—but with particularly driving rhythms and Hoyt’s specialty “war whoop” fiddle inflection on the most celebrated record.
Rozelle Ming tended to stomp her foot on the beats. Atypically, Ralph Peer not only chose to leave that sound in, but named the band the “Pep Steppers” after it. The record label proceeded to transcribe Hoyt’s name as “Floyd Ming,” leading to inevitable confusion later.
The brief initial recording experience led to Pep Stepper appearances at fairs, political rallies and fiddler’s contests through the 1930s, but with their focus on raising a family, Hoyt and Rozelle kept music a sideline, and Hoyt tended to his main occupation, potato farming. Infrequent gigs made it hard to keep a band together, and by the 1950s, they’d essentially given up playing for audiences.
Unbeknownst to them at the time, Harry Smith included “Indian War Whoop” in Folkways Records 1952 Anthology of American Folk Music, and the tune became a favorite in the 1950s-’60s folk revival. In 1973, David Freeman of the “old time” music label Country Records approached Hoyt about appearing again, having tracked down the mysterious “Floyd” Ming by searching around the Tupelo area one Victor record had pointed to.
By that summer, Hoyt, Rozelle and new young accompanists began playing at large-scale folk festivals and recorded a full album, “New Hot Tunes!” for Freeman’s Homestead imprint. “Monkey in the Dogcart” became a frequently played instrumental from that album. In 1975 they contributed to the soundtrack of the motion picture “Ode to Billy Joe,” based on Bobbie Gentry’s song. Hoyt Ming passed on in 1985, two years after his wife.
Lester McCumbers was more than West Virginia’s last old world, old time fiddler. A man no doubt born into the remoteness of mountains and music and soaked it up in a regional style that over decades stood as a highly cherished remainder of an archaic sound that has recently caught the modern ear.
Old Time Party