Concerts: Taking to the Streets

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A year ago, the vacant lot between Newark's Prince and Broome streets was filled with angry looters. The dominant sounds in the area were the bellow of police bullhorns and the snick of snipers' bullets from a nearby housing development. Last week a crowd of 2,700 ghetto residents gathered in the lot once more. This time, however, they were orderly and placid, and the sounds were the melting strains of Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty. The music was provided by the 90-piece New Jersey Symphony, led by young (35) Negro Conductor Henry Lewis, performing in a huge portable concert shell that can be folded and packed up into a single oversized trailer.

The Newark program, one of three free ghetto performances by the orchestra in memory of Martin Luther King, is part of a nationwide trend in summer concerts. More and more, sponsors and performers are taking to the streets in order to carry music right to the doorsteps of the nation's poor and underprivileged. The result is that many slum dwellers who otherwise would not bother or could not afford to go to a concert in a large park or stadium can now hear good music simply by leaning out their windows or pausing on a street corner:

> Chicago's Artistic Heritage Ensemble, a troupe of 25 Negro performers, works from a wheel-mounted band shell, mixes gospel, modern dancing and rhythm-and-blues to illustrate African and U.S. Negro contributions to music. Its costs are paid by federal and state funds.

> The Atlanta Steel Band, made up of a dozen Negro and white teenagers, pounds its converted oil drums in racially troubled neighborhoods. Formed two months ago by a suburban white businessman and trained by a steel-band leader from the Virgin Islands, the group is one of the most successful enterprises of Atlanta's Youth Opportunity Program, which is supported by city, federal and private money.

> A truck-hauled float known as the Jazzmobile swings noisily through New York City, offering two-hour concerts in front of neighborhood community centers. Now in its fourth year, the Jazzmobile features first-rate jazzmen (Dizzy Gillespie, Milt Jackson), sometimes attracts 3,000 listeners at a time. It is an independent offshoot of the Harlem Cultural Council, and private firms, such as Coca-Cola Bottling Co. and Chemical Bank New York Trust Co., pay most of the tab.

> Washington, D.C., has a Showmobile and a smaller "music wagon," staffed largely by teenagers, that feature youthful amateur talent from around the city. Their daily performances at first were closely watched by precautionary groups of plainclothes cops, but they now draw peaceful audiences of up to 1,000 per show. They are operated by the District's recreation department.

Although these programs—and similar ones in other cities—all seem partly designed to cool the heat of racial tensions, nobody expects them to cure the ills of the ghettos. Says Washington's James L. Jones, director of youth programs for the District of Columbia mayor's office: "Problems that are not caused by music are not solved by music." But pending longer-range social solutions, curbstone concerts at least serve a useful role as entertainment, education, and reassurance to ghetto residents that they are not forgotten.