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Episode 1: Taking Root, Voices Heard, Part 1

When: March 7, 2025

In this episode, we hear about the origins of the Our Own Thing Chorale and Instructional Program with founder and special guest Dr. Willis C. Patterson. Dr. Patterson recalls the importance of music in his own development, especially as a member of the Dunbar Community Chorus.
 

Transcript

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  • [00:00:01] JEFFREY PICKELL: [MUSIC] Welcome to Talkin' Music: Celebrating 50+ Years of the Willis C. Patterson Our Own Thing Chorale. I'm honored to introduce our special guest, the founder of the chorale and its instructional program, Dr. Willis C. Patterson, professor emeritus of Music, Theatre and Dance. Dr. Patterson's achievements were fundamental to the inclusion of essential forms of the American music oeuvre such as jazz, art songs, and spirituals. His leadership made these areas of study and creativity available in the curriculum for the first time in University of Michigan's history. Dr. Patterson has achieved extraordinary stature in a remarkable area of influences: singer, performer, writer, publisher, conductor, orator, arranger, teacher, scholar, community teacher, husband, father, grandfather, and even great grandfather. It has been nearly 55 years since Michigan brought Dr. Patterson on board as the only African American professor of music. Ultimately, he served as associate dean for 20 of his 30 years on faculty. Arguably, during these years, Dr. Patterson did more to advance curricular diversity in the School of Music, Theatre and Dance than any single person or force before him. I urge you to visit Dr. Patterson's biography on the HistoryMakers organization website for more on that topic. Now, let's get started on our historical joyride celebrating 50 years plus of the Willis Patterson Our Own Thing Chorale. I am Jeffrey Pickell, long-term member of Our Own Thing Chorale, owner of Kaleidoscope Books and Collectibles, music and book lover, sharing sometime with my mentor and friend. Welcome, Dr. Patterson. It is my privilege and honor to share this time with you.
  • [00:02:30] WILLIS C. PATTERSON: It's my pleasure and honor to be a part of this initial 50th anniversary podcast, and especially to be interviewed by my friend.
  • [00:02:43] JEFFREY PICKELL: I'm honored to have that designation. Let's start out by taking a journey back in time to 1971. The first thing I'd like to know before we even get into the Chorale itself is, can you tell me a little about the African American community in that time in 1971 and its first Black mayor? What was it like to be living in Ann Arbor in 1971?
  • [00:03:15] WILLIS C. PATTERSON: Well, I had come back from Virginia State University, which was at that time, named Virginia State College in Petersburg, Virginia, to Ann Arbor upon the receipt of an invitation to join the faculty at the University of Michigan. Of course, having been born and raised in Ann Arbor, I knew and expected to have a great familiarity with the local scene. I knew the city and its mayor and other officials. I knew the university, having been a student here some 20 years prior. I was pretty much at home, save for having been educated in the social mores of the country as a result of my stays at Southern University initially in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Subsequently at Virginia State College with little forays back into Ann Arbor and other forays, including Europe as a Fulbright scholar and other areas around the country as a performer and general lecturer. Ann Arbor was a different place than I expected it to be prior to my coming back. Ann Arbor had been my prized location all my life. I had called it the Mecca. But indeed I had over-romanticized that circumstance and saw Ann Arbor with far more faults and blemishes than I had previously experienced it. As you said, the first African American mayor was in the midst of his term. I think he was elected maybe several years prior to my coming. I'm not sure of that timing. But the political circumstance in Ann Arbor was much more heightened and, in a sense, a bit more agitated as a result of the tenor of the times, racially speaking, the Black Action Movement had resulted likely in my being the first appointed African American professor at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre and Dance. Dr. Wheeler, who was the mayor at the time and the first African American mayor and the only African American mayor had graduated from the University of Michigan med school and was a practicing physician, but also a practicing politician. He was in advance of the Black Action Movement, but the Black Action Movement became quite active during his tenure as mayor, and it's fair to say that much of the political awareness, awakening, as it were, of the time is properly attributed to Dr. Wheeler and his tenure as mayor.
  • [00:06:51] JEFFREY PICKELL: You came back to Ann Arbor having many very different experiences which changed somewhat your perspective of what Ann Arbor was all about. But you were also coming back in the most socially active time in the history of the country at that time, changes in feminism and African American activism, and the war in Vietnam is coming to a close and struggles in the streets and what have you. Was this part of the inspiration for starting the OOTC and the instructional program, this effervescence of development, so to speak.
  • [00:07:34] WILLIS C. PATTERSON: Yes, in a way it was very much a part of the instigation, part of the inspiration for it. Ann Arbor became aware--and I take the license to speak generally for the general population in Ann Arbor--it became aware that much of the subtleties of the racial atmosphere, the racial segregation, the racial practices that were prevalent during my being raised in Ann Arbor were now becoming less subtle and more recognized. The choral music situation in Ann Arbor had become very much noticed by its absence. Its absence was very noted primarily because it had previously at the Dunbar Community Center, a very active choral singing group called the Dunbar Community singers. The music of the chorale, Dunbar Community Chorus, filled a musical void. It provided a listening point and a performance point for those interested in choral music in Ann Arbor that previous to its beginning in 1930 was only fed by the local churches. The local churches in its feeding was limited in its variety. That limitation had previously been alleviated by the Dunbar Community Chorus done directed by Virginia Ellis, in which I participated as a youngster. There was an appetite. There was an appetite for the opportunity for singing music that was not necessarily church music, but did reflect the musical cultural heritage of African Americans in America that wasn't being provided by other institutions.
  • [00:09:36] JEFFREY PICKELL: Why did it disappear?
  • [00:09:39] WILLIS C. PATTERSON: Well, the Dunbar Community Center changed its location and its structure. The director of the Dunbar Community Center, Douglas E. H. Williams, was a sociologist and pharmacist who came to Ann Arbor from Atlanta, Georgia. He became very aware of the inadequacies and limitations of the current structure and facility when he came. He started immediately to raise funds and attention to the need not only in the African American community, but in the non-African American community. He was really a master at getting people to become aware of the need for a better community facility for the African American cultural issue, because things at that time were, while not quite as segregated as previous communities in which I'd been prior to coming back. I was in the South, though they were changing, were quite different. Segregation was the order of the day. Doug in his awareness and in his diplomacy, and I have to use that word very intentionally. He was a very diplomatic person, persuasive with his diplomacy. Raised funds, to say nothing of attention, raised funds to build the Ann Arbor Community Center on Main Street, which was roughly an eighth of a mile from its previous location. It was a wonderful addition to the community. But they changed the name to the Ann Arbor Community Center, which in a sense, took away the sense of prized possession of the African American community center. Its mission became much more expansive, it was to serve the needs to the extent possible of the entire community. Upon his death, by the way, he exerted himself to the extent that he overworked. He was a constant member of the Board of Trustees of the Animal Foundation, the Boy Scouts Commission, and several other statewide and national committees. All they had to do was ask him and he responded, and I must confess that I was very much impressed with that willingness to serve. It left its mark upon me.
  • [00:12:13] JEFFREY PICKELL: You feel in some ways you followed in his footsteps.
  • [00:12:18] WILLIS C. PATTERSON: Well, in a sense, in my own way, musically speaking, in his footsteps. I was a great fan of Doug's, and that marked cleavage between those persons in the African American community who were very much fans of Al Wheeler, the mayor, as opposed to supporters and fans of Doug Williams. That was an unfortunate cleavage at the Ann Arbor Community Center from which it suffered.
  • [00:12:50] JEFFREY PICKELL: You've come, though, full circle because not only did you experience hundreds of performances that you did as a result of your education and your talent, but you also became an exceptional teacher. Now we're going to go to the musical experience that you've given so many people. In 1971, Willis, you expressed to me once that you had an urgency to recreate a musical group that would feature African American singers. Can you tell me a little about this urgency?
  • [00:14:04] WILLIS C. PATTERSON: It was initialized--we had begun with an effort to have music play a much more decisive impact and role in the lives of youngsters in the Ann Arbor community, a thing that I had not experienced to the extent that I wished I experienced. I could see that it was not having its impact on the lives of youngsters at that time. I noticed this by way of going to the annual programs at the end of each semester that were given by the Ann Arbor public school choruses and orchestras and bands and noticing the dearth of presence of African American children in these organizations. That was the urgency because I felt that having played such an important role in my life, they were missing that, and it was to an extent an extension of that sense of segregation. They had the feeling, I thought, that they weren't wanted in these organizations. I felt that they're missing a very important ingredient in their growth, and so I began the Our Own Thing Chorale, the instructional program, in 1969. After which the parents who were bringing their youngsters to the classes that we started at Jones School which is now called Community High School. But it was during my educational experience, a school that took youngsters from kindergarten through the ninth grade. It was not a segregated school at all, but the population of the African Americans who attended that school was significant, perhaps comprising maybe as much as a third of the population of pupils in the school. But anyway, those parents who were bringing those youngsters to experience these gifts and positives in music reminded me that we used to have the Dunbar Community Chorale. We don't have that anymore. We'd like to have something to do also while we're waiting for our kids to finish their lessons, and that was all that I needed as an indication that they'd really be supportive of it. So in 1970 or '71, we began the Our Own Thing Chorale. [MUSIC]
  • [00:16:50] WILLIS C. PATTERSON: The first two members of it were Virginia Ellis, who had been the conductor of the Dunbar Community Chorus for years and her husband who was a fabulous baritone. They remained members of the chorale until she retired from the public school system in music and he retired from the public school system as a high school teacher of science.
  • [00:17:15] JEFFREY PICKELL: One of the things I've always wanted to know being a member of the chorale for many years, how did you manage to successfully combine talented, trained singers with community members who just wanted to sing?
  • [00:17:33] WILLIS C. PATTERSON: I had the pleasure and honor, and privilege of always having even in the South, some extraordinary students who were very gifted. In fact, there was a bass and this is off the topic, but I'll get back to it. There was a bass who in Ann Arbor was able at 11 and 12, and he's a local youngster whose mother is still in Ann Arbor now. She's well into her 90s. Albert Howard, he was able to do at age 13 or so, what it took me to 23 or 24 to do with his voice. A wonderful instrument. Anyhow, I was blessed to have these wonderful students at the University of Michigan, many of whom I recruited to come to Michigan to do their graduate work. I thought that they were perfect examples of what the art of music did in the lives of those who might otherwise not be so fortunate as to go to university first to Southern or Petersburg, Virginia, and then come to University of Michigan to do graduate work. They were inspired by their talent. I thought it would be wonderful to have these talented youngsters become associated with the local populace. What better way to do it than with Our Own Thing Chorale? I left them no alternative. I said, "What you're going to have to do get a good grade in voice in which you're very talented, is to share it with this choral group." They all responded mostly out of apprehension of receiving a negative grade in voice training. I'm exaggerating, they said a little bit, but also because I wanted them to really have an appreciation and a respect for the community in which they were located to do their graduate and undergraduate work. Many people of color in that day and I think today even did their entire academic lives in Ann Arbor--be it three or four or five, or six years--in the absence of having any acquaintance with the African American community or any knowledge that there was a viable African American community. I thought this was a perfect opportunity for them to not only become acquainted with the African American community, but also to share their musical and vocal riches with that African American community. That's how we began to have a very thick and firm and satisfactory mixture of university students of color with the Our Own Thing Chorale.
  • [00:20:33] JEFFREY PICKELL: A very successful town and gown combination. What is the origin of this wonderful name, Our Own Thing Chorale?
  • [00:20:43] WILLIS C. PATTERSON: There was at the time one person on the faculty of the dance department, this name will come to me in a moment, and one person who was a member of the African American curriculum. He was an artist, and she was a dancer and I was a musician. We three became quickly acquainted with each other. Her name Vera Embree. His name was Jon Lockard. They both passed since then. In one of our meetings, it became clear that she was very active in the artist community in Detroit. He was very active in the artist community of Detroit and Ypsilanti. I thought, well, I'm the musician who can bring that third pod for Ann Arbor. She said, "Why don't we call this Our Own Thing?" Which was really to say, this is "our thing" as opposed to "their thing." I later became, in my operatic experiences around the country and all, acquainted with the fact that the real translation in Italian of "our own thing" is cosa nostra, which had a very negative impact name-wise and still does now on American social memory. That's how we came about it, but it was really our own thing as a way to say, well, we could make it much more impactful for our people since the general temper of the times was conveying that we were not being celebrated in their thing.
  • [00:22:30] JEFFREY PICKELL: Excellent. But you also immediately had diversity from day one?
  • [00:22:35] WILLIS C. PATTERSON: Yes. That again, stems from the instructional program. A large number of our instructional clientele in the instructional program were non-Black. They were Asian, they were Italian, they were generally a real reflection of the Ann Arbor community. [MUSIC]
  • [00:23:13] JEFFREY PICKELL: That concludes our first episode. We look forward to seeing you for Part Two of Talkin' Music, our historical joyride celebrating 50+ years of the Willis C. Patterson Our Own Thing Chorale. Special thanks goes to the Ann Arbor District Library in partnership with their Fifth Avenue Studios. I'm your host, Jeffrey Pickell. Thank you. [MUSIC]