Dr. Eva Jessye Is 85 Today

At This Stage _______________________

Dr. Eva Jessye is 85 today

SUNDAY JAN 20 1980

By Norman Gibson

THEATER WRITER

Eva Jessye is 85 today.

I don’t know where she might be, but she could be in Ann Arbor, for she promised when she left less than a year ago she would return here for her birthdays.

I have written so much about Dr. Jessye over the years I find it difficult to believe there is anyone who doesn’t know who she is.

BUT ANN Arbor has such a turnover in population, I imagine there are a number of people who have taken up residence here who have not heard until now of Eva Jessye.

They are poorer for not knowing that she once lived in this education town, for Dr. Jessye is the daughter of slaves and her greatest interest always has been in touching people on a personal basis.

I think the main message she tried to bring to Ann Arbor during her eight years of living here was that no matter how insufferable the world may become, an individual should not quit trying to make it better.

DR. JESSYE especially liked to get to the young who thought they were such small pebbles on the beach of life, that anything they did would matter little.

She always lived as if she mattered a whole lot and, of course, she did. At 85, she still is living that way, as if her life’s work were just beginning, not ending.

Dr. Jessye now is artist-in-residence at Pittsburg State University in Pittsburg, Kansas. She probably is best known for her work with the Eva Jessye Choir, her compositions and as unofficial curator for George Gershwin’s original 1935 “Porgy and Bess,” for which she was choral director.

WHILE LIVING in Ann Arbor from 1971 to April of last year, she donated items from her personal collection to the University of Michigan, where it is housed in the Stearns Building on North Campus.

The U-M Eva Jessye Afro-American Music Collection includes photographs, recordings, books, manuscripts and videotaped interviews concerning blacks in music and the arts.

When last I heard from Dr. Jessye, she was basking in the praise that had been heaped on a production of “Job” she did in Kansas. Of course, she was not content to rest.

“THEY ASK me what I am going to do next,” she said. “As you know, it is harder to stay ahead than to set the pace, so I am scratching my head, wondering. I think it may be A Testimony to the Clergy ... or some such.”

She thinks she may get together ministers from eight to 10 denominations, their choirs, the new Eva Jessye Choir at Pitt State and sing spirituals.

She says the program would be similar to the one presented in the Rackham building here (“you were not there . . . shame, shame . . .,” she reminds me in her letter).

THIS PROGRAM was put on videotape later and shown in St. Louis and cities in Ohio.

She says the chairman of the Pittsburg State Music Department thinks the new program would be a good idea because until now not much has been done in recognition of churches and such a project is desirable.

She is finishing her book of “Poetry and Other Writings” for publication.

“MY STYLE varies,” she says, “but it is poetry as I was taught to understand it - it rhymes! Some and most of what is called poetry these days reads like poor translation of a foreign language. Agree?”

Looking out the window at weather that look as if it wanted to blow snow but for some reason refrains, she came up with the following poetic piece in what she calls “Midwest/Southeast language:”

“The sun may shine

And the win’ don’t blow

But if you don’t believe it’s Kansas,

Stick yo’ head out th’ do'

(P.S.: and get it friz off).”

THEY SAY Dr. Jessye still works a 12-hour day. Her Room 102 of Pittsburg State University’s McRay Hall is described as “a nest of comfortable clutter.” Paintings and autographed photographs are on the walls. An old upright piano and plants are there.

The 85-year journey to Pittsburg has been a long one but I never have heard her say she regrets or found dull one moment.

She was born in Coffeyville, Kansas, of parents who relocated after being freed from slavery following the Civil War. Her mother put her through Western University in Kansas City, Kansas.

After graduation, she taught in segregated Oklahoma schools.

SHE DID everything from ironing shirts to singing in New York before forming her choir in 1929. In 1934, Gershwin sought her out to be choir director for his opera “Porgy and Bess.” She walked right behind Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1963 civil rights march on Washington.

“I SHIVER at the thought of 85,” she said. “I wonder would I feel younger if I should discover that a mistake has been made - in my favor - of about 20 years?” -

She answers her own question.

“No way!” she said, “no way.”