Jazz Pianist, Teacher, And Activist Consuela Lee Dies
Consuela Lee
By Monica Moorehead
(Contributing Writer)
Published Jan 10, 2010
(National News)
Consuela Lee, an African-American jazz pianist, composer, arranger and music educator, passed away Dec. 26 in Atlanta, Ga. She was 83 years old.
Lee had dedicated her life to helping to preserve the integrity of African-American culture, which she consistently traced to the resistance to slavery, for future generations.
She was the founder of Springtree/Snow Hill Institute for the Performing Arts in Snow Hill, Ala., and its artistic director for almost 25 years. Snow Hill Normal and Industrial Institute was originally founded in 1893 by William James Edwards, Lee’s grandfather, to provide an education in vocational trades to impoverished rural Black people, 30 years after the legal end of slavery. Today, Wilcox County remains one of the poorest counties in Alabama. SHI permanently closed its doors in 1973 due to a desegregation edict.
In 1979, Lee went door to door in the Snow Hill community to poll the residents on whether they wanted to see a school in their community. When the majority voted yes, she left her teaching job at Norfolk State University to reopen her grandfather’s school as a performing arts center. Lee had vowed since the age of 12 that she would one day return home to teach in the Snow Hill community.
Springtree’s main goal was to emphasize the contributions of African Americans to the creative arts, especially through the media of music, drama and dance. Children throughout Wilcox County, from pre-school to high school, were encouraged to attend Springtree after their regular classes during the school year and also during the summer months. Lee also took a job as an artist-in-residence and traveled to schools in various Alabama counties to teach music in schools that had no music programs.
From 1980 until 2003, Snow Hill Day Celebrations included musical programs that attracted the Alabama community, and Snow Hill alumni and supporters from throughout the country. These programs were carried out on shoestring budgets, mainly small grants. In 1993, to help commemorate the centennial of the founding of SHI, filmmaker Spike Lee, who is Lee’s nephew, legendary folk artist Odetta and other artists attended.
In later years, other major artists such as drummer Max Roach, vibraphonist Milt Jackson and actor Delroy Lindo came to Snow Hill to support Lee’s work with the community. Lee’s students, particularly a group of vibraphonists called Bright Glory, toured college campuses, film festivals and churches around the country to perform her arrangements of popular jazz selections written by Duke Ellington and other famous jazz composers. They appeared in 1988 on WABC’s “Like It Is” TV show hosted by Gil Noble in New York City.
Lee, who succumbed Dec. 26 after a three-year battle with dementia/Alzheimer’s disease, was born on Nov. 1, 1926, in Tallahassee, Fla., to Arnold W. and Alberta G. Lee. Her mother was the second child of SHI founder William James Edwards and Susie V. Edwards. Her father was a cornet player and band director at Florida A&M. Her mother was a classical pianist and teacher.When she was 3 years old, she moved to Snow Hill and began to play the piano. Lee became a child prodigy, playing classical music such as Chopin’s etudes.
When her father brought home a recording of Louis Armstrong’s 1927 “Struttin’ with Some Barbecue,” however, Lee fell in love with jazz. This love affair only ended with her death. Among her favorite artists were Nat King Cole, Oscar Peterson, Art Tatum, Dizzy Gillespie and Sarah Vaughn.
Following her graduation from SHI in 1944, Lee attended the historically Black college Fisk University in Nashville, Tenn. There she heard an instructor, Alphonso Seville, play jazz and soon afterward she became his pupil.
Lee was a pioneer since during this period of jazz known as Bebop women jazz pianists were very rare.At a Newark, N.J., nightclub, she unexpectedly accompanied her idol, singer Sarah Vaughn. In the early 1960s, Ms. Lee became choir director of the acclaimed Phillis Wheatley High School Glee Club in Houston, Texas. She taught music theory and composition at a number of historically Black colleges such as Alabama State, Hampton Institute, Talladega College and Norfolk State University.
By Monica Moorehead
(Contributing Writer)
Published Jan 10, 2010
(National News)
Consuela Lee, an African-American jazz pianist, composer, arranger and music educator, passed away Dec. 26 in Atlanta, Ga. She was 83 years old.
Lee had dedicated her life to helping to preserve the integrity of African-American culture, which she consistently traced to the resistance to slavery, for future generations.
She was the founder of Springtree/Snow Hill Institute for the Performing Arts in Snow Hill, Ala., and its artistic director for almost 25 years. Snow Hill Normal and Industrial Institute was originally founded in 1893 by William James Edwards, Lee’s grandfather, to provide an education in vocational trades to impoverished rural Black people, 30 years after the legal end of slavery. Today, Wilcox County remains one of the poorest counties in Alabama. SHI permanently closed its doors in 1973 due to a desegregation edict.
In 1979, Lee went door to door in the Snow Hill community to poll the residents on whether they wanted to see a school in their community. When the majority voted yes, she left her teaching job at Norfolk State University to reopen her grandfather’s school as a performing arts center. Lee had vowed since the age of 12 that she would one day return home to teach in the Snow Hill community.
Springtree’s main goal was to emphasize the contributions of African Americans to the creative arts, especially through the media of music, drama and dance. Children throughout Wilcox County, from pre-school to high school, were encouraged to attend Springtree after their regular classes during the school year and also during the summer months. Lee also took a job as an artist-in-residence and traveled to schools in various Alabama counties to teach music in schools that had no music programs.
From 1980 until 2003, Snow Hill Day Celebrations included musical programs that attracted the Alabama community, and Snow Hill alumni and supporters from throughout the country. These programs were carried out on shoestring budgets, mainly small grants. In 1993, to help commemorate the centennial of the founding of SHI, filmmaker Spike Lee, who is Lee’s nephew, legendary folk artist Odetta and other artists attended.
In later years, other major artists such as drummer Max Roach, vibraphonist Milt Jackson and actor Delroy Lindo came to Snow Hill to support Lee’s work with the community. Lee’s students, particularly a group of vibraphonists called Bright Glory, toured college campuses, film festivals and churches around the country to perform her arrangements of popular jazz selections written by Duke Ellington and other famous jazz composers. They appeared in 1988 on WABC’s “Like It Is” TV show hosted by Gil Noble in New York City.
Lee, who succumbed Dec. 26 after a three-year battle with dementia/Alzheimer’s disease, was born on Nov. 1, 1926, in Tallahassee, Fla., to Arnold W. and Alberta G. Lee. Her mother was the second child of SHI founder William James Edwards and Susie V. Edwards. Her father was a cornet player and band director at Florida A&M. Her mother was a classical pianist and teacher.When she was 3 years old, she moved to Snow Hill and began to play the piano. Lee became a child prodigy, playing classical music such as Chopin’s etudes.
When her father brought home a recording of Louis Armstrong’s 1927 “Struttin’ with Some Barbecue,” however, Lee fell in love with jazz. This love affair only ended with her death. Among her favorite artists were Nat King Cole, Oscar Peterson, Art Tatum, Dizzy Gillespie and Sarah Vaughn.
Following her graduation from SHI in 1944, Lee attended the historically Black college Fisk University in Nashville, Tenn. There she heard an instructor, Alphonso Seville, play jazz and soon afterward she became his pupil.
Lee was a pioneer since during this period of jazz known as Bebop women jazz pianists were very rare.At a Newark, N.J., nightclub, she unexpectedly accompanied her idol, singer Sarah Vaughn. In the early 1960s, Ms. Lee became choir director of the acclaimed Phillis Wheatley High School Glee Club in Houston, Texas. She taught music theory and composition at a number of historically Black colleges such as Alabama State, Hampton Institute, Talladega College and Norfolk State University.
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