Regina was born in Detroit, MI, the youngest child of Dan Carter, an auto worker for Ford Motors, and Grace Williamson Carter, an elementary school teacher. Her musical talent became evident at age two when she interrupted an older brother’s piano lesson to pick out the notes to a song he was learning.
She later said, “I had a passion for [music] at a very young age.” [1]
At four she began Suzuki violin lessons, learning to play by ear first and only later learning to read music. She credits her improvisational skills to the freedom this allowed. “No rules have been set up and you haven’t been taught to be afraid of anything.” [2]
At the Detroit Community Music School, she and her two brothers took lessons in piano and dance—Regina studied tap and ballet—and listened to a wide variety of music—classical, Motown, R&B, funk, Greek, and Latin—both at home and at concerts. [1]
During high school, she played with the Detroit Civic Symphony. Her goal was to become a classical violin soloist. But when she was 16, a friend took her to hear jazz violinist Stephane Grappelli, an experience that changed her goals. “Seeing how much fun he was having—the passion and freedom in the music—I wanted to have that same experience.” [3]
At a master class with classical violinist Yehudi Menuhin, her violin teacher said, without enthusiasm, that Regina wanted to play jazz. “[Menuhin] picked up his violin,” Regina said “and played some kind of jazz lick, as if to say, ‘It’s OK!’” [4] Classically-trained jazz violinist Jean-Luc Ponty became her idol.
Bread: .21/loaf Milk: 1.04/gallon
Car: $2,300 Gas: $ 0.31/gal
House: $19,300 Income: $6,998/year
President John F. Kennedy
Hot toy: Easy Bake Oven
Top Books: Silent Spring, Rachel Carson; Catch-22, Joseph Heller; The Guns of August, Barbara Tuchman
Top songs:He's So Fine, Chiffons; Blue Velvet, Bobby Vinton; Fingertips (Pt 2) Little Stevie Wonder
Alabama Governor George Wallace pledges: “segregation now, segregation tomorrow and segregation forever.” Civil Rights leader Medgar Evers is murdered in Jackson, MS. 200 thousand march for racial equality in Washington, DC. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gives his “I have a dream” speech. Four school girls die when a black Baptist church is firebombed in Birmingham, AL.
November 23: JFK assassinated; Lee Harvey Oswald arrested. Lyndon Johnson sworn in as 36th president. In a shooting seen live by millions of TV viewers, Jack Ruby kills Lee Harvey Oswald.
“Through television,” Jack Gould wrote in the NY Times, “the shock of history reverberated in every home.”
ALMOST 100 YEARS EARLIER ...
MAUD POWELL 1867 -- 1884
Life on the Frontier
1867
U.S. News and Events
Three years after the Civil War ended Maud was born in Peru, Illinois. Her father, William Bramwell Powell, an innovative educator, was superintendent of public schools in Peru and Aurora, IL, and later in Washington, D.C. Her mother, Minnie Paul Powell, was a pianist and composer whose gender prevented a professional music career. Her uncle, John Wesley Powell, headed the U.S. Geological Survey and founded the National Geographic Society. [1]
At age three, Maud moved with her family to Aurora, IL. She began violin lessons at seven. At nine, she began four years of study with William Lewis in Chicago, traveling there by train once a week. Lewis recognized her talent and sometimes asked her to play duets with him in recital. She became a celebrity in Aurora, performing with local musical groups, including Stein’s Orchestra. In 1880 her first solo performance with the orchestra was deemed “one of the wonders of the age.” [3]
Although many people felt it was unseemly for a girl to study violin, Maud persevered. Her idol was renowned French violinist Camilla Urso (1842-1902) whom she had heard play in 1875. [A short biography of Urso is in Christine Ammer's, Unsung, p. 35]
Recognizing her prodigious talent, her parents sold their home to finance her continued education, which in those days meant studying with the great teachers in Europe. At age 13, Maud, accompanied by her mother and brother, went to Germany to study with celebrated violinist Joseph Joachim. Other teachers included Henry Schradieck (Leipzig) and Charles Dancia (Paris). She made her professional debut with the Berlin Philharmonic, playing the Bruch Violin Concerto [4], and returned to the U.S. in 1884 at age 18, determined to launch a solo career. [1]
Andrew Johnson is President (Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in 1964).
Nebraska became the 37th U.S. state. The United States purchased Alaska from Russia for $72 million.
1870 population: 39.8 million, including 4.9 million African-Americans. Blacks voted for the first time in a state election in the South (Tennessee); Fisk University, an all-black college, was established
Popular books: Louisa May Alcott, Little Women (1868); Horatio Alger, Ragged Dick series (1867); Mark Twain, (Samuel Clemens) The Innocents Abroad (1869)
Music premiers: Johann Strauss the Younger, “The Blue Danube” (1867); Brahms German Requiem (1868); Max Bruch, Violin Concerto in G Minor (1868); Tchaikovsky, Overture to Romeo and Juliet (1869)
REGINA CARTER: 1981 -- 1998
Jazz studies, a move to Germany, then New York
1981 news and events
Upon graduating from Detroit’s prestigious Cass Technical High school, Regina enrolled in the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, where she discovered other jazz violinists like Stuff Smith. After concentrating on classical music the first year, she decided to focus on jazz, but NEC had no jazz violin teacher.
A year later, she enrolled at Oakland University in Michigan. She studied jazz composition and improvisation, but her understanding of jazz had just begun.
“Unlike classical music,” she said, “you can’t study books one, two and three and then you’ve got it. You have to study the culture of the music as well.” [5]
Her big band director advised her to listen to horn players and learn how to breathe. Learning solos by jazz greats like Charlie Parker and Clark Terry was a daunting experience, but she persevered until she could sing them and translate it to her violin. [5]
After earning a B.A. in performance from Oakland University in 1985, she taught violin in the Detroit public school for a year.
Then she moved to Germany. “It seemed like I had been in school forever and I was just tired,” she said. “I needed to travel and be around different people.” [6] For two years she sat in at jazz clubs, played in a German-American funk band and enjoyed being on her own, while continuing to study Charlie Parker solos. [6]
US population: 230.5 million Inflation is 14 percent.
Mortgage rates: 17 %.
The Centers for Disease Control publish first report on the AIDS epidemic. US Supreme Court rules that states can require parental notification when teenage girls seek abortions.
Reagan appoints the first woman, Arizona judge Sandra Day O’Connor, to the US Supreme Court.
The wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana is watched worldwide on TV. There are more divorces (1,210,000) in the U.S. than ever before. Fans are outraged when a midseason baseball strike eliminates 1/3 of the season.
President Reagan shot by John Hinkley, Jr., in Washington, DC. He recovers. Pope John Paul II shot as he rides through St. Peter’s Square. He recovers. Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, 62, assassinated in Cairo.
Back in Detroit in 1987 she began studying with trumpeter Marcus Belgrave. An Oakland University faculty member and mentor to young musicians, he had played and recorded with Ray Charles, Max Roach, Charles Mingus and Ella Fitzgerald. That year she joined Straight Ahead, a Detroit based all-female jazz quintet, playing electric violin with them at the Montreux Jazz Festival and on two recordings (1992, 1993). [7]
In 1993 she moved to New York and joined the String Trio of New York. She also worked with Dolly Parton, Billy Joel and Mary J. Blige, did radio and TV work, and sat in on jam sessions at the Blue Note and other clubs. [5] She released two recordings, Regina Carter (1995) and Something for Grace (1997), which were largely ignored by jazz critics and producers.
In 1998 she played the Newport Jazz Festival and with jazz singer Cassandra Wilson on her tribute tour to Miles Davis, “Travelin’ Miles.” More attention came when she toured and recorded with Wynton Marsalis on his Pulitzer Prize winning opera, Blood on the Fields.
In 1999 Verve Records released her critically acclaimed album Rhythms of the Heart; Time Magazine named it one of the year’s top 10 records.
Of her next CD, Motor City Moments (2000), Matt Abramovitz wrote on NPR’s website: “... the album is overflowing with talent, spirit, and beauty.”
MAUD POWELL 1885 - 1903
True Grit
Life in America
1870 – 1890
Knowing that “girl violinists were looked upon with suspicion,” Maud boldly walked into a rehearsal of the all-male New York Philharmonic, demanded a hearing from Theodore Thomas, then America’s foremost conductor, and blew him away with her talent. [1]
Calling her his “musical grandchild,” Thomas hired her to play the Bruch G Minor violin concerto with the orchestra. Of her performance on November 4, 1885, NY music critic Henry Krehbiel said: “She is a marvelously gifted woman, one who in every feature of her playing discloses the instincts and gifts of a born artist.” [1]
With no established concert circuits, solo engagements were difficult to obtain, especially for a female. At that time there were only five professional orchestras in America, all-male with male conductors. Establishing a career in Europe might have been easier, but Maud chose to stay in America. Her mission: bring classical music to Americans, not just in large cities, but in remote areas as well.
Braving primitive conditions, she pioneered the violin recital in concerts throughout the country, reaching people who had never before heard classical music. In 1891 she toured with the Patrick Gilmore Band in 75 concerts, and in 1898 with the John Philip Sousa Band. [4]
She played concertos and sonatas, educating audiences with her program notes and with journal articles about the history of violin playing. She played special programs for children and advised aspiring musicians of both genders. [2]
The greatest migration in U.S. history increased the population west of the Mississippi from less than 7 million to more than 16 million.
Total population rose from 39 million to 63 million.
The 10 largest cities: New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Boston, Baltimore, San Francisco, Cincinnati, New Orleans, Pittsburgh.
Carriages and horse trams clogged the streets. Cable cars came to San Francisco in 1873. Bicycles were all the rage for men and women alike. By 1888, electric trolleys were running in several cities.
The first professional baseball team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, toured the country in 1869, playing amateur opponents in games that drew crowds of 3,000 or more. In 1876, the National League of Professional Baseball clubs was formed.
Patent medicines for all sorts of ailments flourished; many contained hard drugs or alcohol. Lydia Pinkham, a Massachusetts housewife, marketed female cures that grossed $300,000 in 1883.
With no radio, TV or recordings, all entertainment was live in urban theaters or tents used by traveling circuses and variety shows that featured songs, dances, comedy skits and specialty acts. Annie Oakley and Wild Bill Hickock starred in their popular Wild West Shows. But traveling by horse-drawn wagon restricted most entertainers to short regional tours.
In 1893 Theodore Thomas chose Maud to represent America’s achievement in violin performance at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago. She was the only female violinist to perform. While there, she presented a paper to the Women’s Musical Congress, “Women and the Violin,” which encouraged girls with musical talent to take up the violin seriously and women of all ages to form music clubs and orchestras across the U.S. Photo right: Maud Powell, 1897
At a time when women could neither vote nor play in a professional orchestra—women were not admitted to the American Federation of Musicians until 1903—Maud insisted that there was no reason why women could not play violin with the best of men. [1]
REGINA CARTER: 2000 and beyond
Paganini’s violin and a MacArthur grant
On December 31, 2001, Regina was the first jazz musician and the first African-American chosen to play the 250-year old Guarneri violin owned by Nicolo Paganini. Dubbed “The Cannon” because of its huge sound, the violin is insured for $40 million and is kept in Genoa, Italy, played there only once a year by a virtuoso chosen by a committee.
Photo at right: Regina plays "The Cannon"
Some critics felt the violin should not be played by a jazz violinist, but the audience was on its feet throughout the concert, which included jazz
standards made famous by Billie Holliday, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington and Thelonius Monk, pieces by J.S. Bach, as well as her own compositions. In 2003 she returned to Genoa to use the violin on her 2003 recording, Paganini: After a Dream. Critic Sonya Murray called the CD “an album that anyone would find absolutely beautiful.” [8]
To counter those who consider jazz inferior to classical music, Regina cites examples in which classical musicians were expected to improvise. Down Beat Magazine named her Best Jazz Violinist for five straight years. To those who believe the violin is only for classical music, she says: “It’s just an instrument. It doesn’t come with a set of instructions that say, ‘For Classical Use Only.’” [4]
Music education is another passion. “I don’t want to just play at audiences, but educate them as well.” While on tour, she does workshops for Suzuki violin teachers and music fans. For a time she was artist in residence at San Francisco Performances, teaching music to disadvantaged children and playing at Bay Area community centers and churches. [9]
In 2005, Grace Carter, the woman who nurtured Regina’s early talent, inspired her with pride and told her to seek her personal best in all she did, and, most importantly, to give the world her soul-stirring music, died. Regina dedicated her next CD to her mother: I’ll Be Seeing You, a collection of songs from the 1920s to the 1940 that Grace Carter enjoyed in her youth. [9]
In 2006 she received an exciting phone call, notifying her that she was the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation grant of $500,000. Citing the overlooked potential of the jazz violin for its lyric, melodic and percussive potential, the Foundation deemed her music “swing with a soulful sound,” citing her ability to tap into a broad musical vocabulary and weave new sound tapestries.
“She captivates her audience with the passion and spirit of adventure intrinsic to her approach to music. Through her artistry on an instrument defined predominantly by the classical tradition, Regina Carter is pioneering new possibilities for the violin and for jazz.” [9]
Having played for her mother during her illness, Regina immediately knew what she wanted to do with part of the MacArthur grant.
“I want to go back to school for music therapy. I want to help other people, whether it’s children, the elderly, or people in hospices.” [10]
While not on tour, Regina Carter lives in Manhattan
MAUD POWELL 1904 -- 1920
New technology, wider fame and a closing chord
In 1903 Maud toured Europe with Sousa's band and began a relationship with the band manager, H. Godfry Turner. In 1904 they were married. [4] That year The Victor Company chose her as their first solo instrumentalist to record for a new celebrity artist series (Red Seal). In an historic marriage of recording technology and high quality violin playing, Maud stood before a large funnel to perform. Her music’s vibrations agitated a needle in an adjoining room that scratched impressions of sound waves on the soft, spinning wax from which a record could then be molded. [1] Photo at right: Maud Powell autographs records
“I’m never as frightened as when I stand in front of that horn to play,” Maud once said. “There’s a ghastly feeling that you’re playing for all the world and an awful sense that what is done is done.” [1]
Indeed, there were no cuts and splices in those days. Pieces were played from beginning to end without pause. Electrical recording with microphones did not begin until 1925, after Maud’s death. However, her recordings set the standard for violin performance and became world-wide best sellers. [2] Her recorded legacy demonstrates why her name stands alongside those of Caruso, Melba, Kreisler and Paderewski as one of the “Victor Immortals.” [1]
Photo at right: Maud Powell in 1916
Maud played the American premiers of violin concerti by Tchaikovsky, Dvorak, Sibelius, Saint-Saëns, Bruch, and many others. She championed the works of American composers Amy Beach, Victor Herbert, Cecil Burleigh, Arthur Foote, Grace White and many others. She also chose promising young pianists to accompany her in concert and recordings, including Arthur Loesser, Francis Moore, and Axel Skjerne, paving the way for their solo careers.
Perhaps her greatest artistic triumph was her 1906 premier of the Sibelius Violin Concerto, which she called “a gigantic rugged thing, an epic really ... Oh, it is wonderful.” [1] Although the piece was initially rejected by critics (“... why did she put all that magnificent art into this sour and crabbed concerto?”), the Sibelius Violin Concerto is now one of the most recorded violin concertos. [1]
At the age of 52, while rehearsing for a concert in Uniontown, PA, Maud suffered a heart attack. She died the next day on January 8, 1920. The New York Symphony paid tribute to this “supreme and unforgettable artist. She was not only America’s great master of the violin, but a woman of lofty purpose and noble achievement, whose life and art brought to countless thousands inspiration for the good and the beautiful.” [1]
MAUD POWELL'S LEGACY
Internationally recognized as America’s greatest violinist, Maud Powell ranked among the best violinists of her day: Joseph Joachim, Eugene Ysaye and Fritz Kreisler. Combining her European training with her American spirit, she proved that a woman could play violin as well as a man, and set a enduring standards for virtuosity and musicianship. She led her own Trio (1908-09) and Quartet (1894-1898). Her American premiers of the Tchaikovsky, Dvorak and Sibelius violin concertos helped advance violin technique into the modern age. She toured the US, Europe and South Africa to wide acclaim, appearing with great orchestras under such famed conductors as Joachim, Mahler, Nikisch, Thomas, Damrosch, Richter, Wood, Herbert, and Stokowsky. [2]
No doubt she would be extraordinarily proud of Regina Carter's accomplishments!
A statue of Maud stands in her hometown of Peru, IL, where in 2009, the annual Maud Powell Music Festival entered its 15th season. Thanks to Karen Shaffer, Maud Powell biographer and president of the Maud Powell Society for Music and Education, the Maud Powell legacy endures. An online magazine is published on their website: www.maudpowell.org
REGINA AND MAUD
STRIKING SIMILARITIES: Both women had a passion for music and music education. Both had the unwavering support and encouragment of their families. Both showed musical talent at an early age, great determination and a capacity for hard work.
OBSTACLES: Although Maud Powell believed that women violinists could have professional careers, during her lifetime (1867-1920) professional orchestras were all-male; women had to play in all-female groups, most of them unpaid. A year before her death in 1920 Maud admitted: "When I first began my career as a concert violinist ... a strong prejudice then existed against women fiddlers, which even yet has not althogether been overcome." [4, 1] Not until orchestral auditions were held behind screens to conceal their gender in the 1970s did women begin to win orchestral positions in large numbers.
Regina Carter encountered resistence from some who believed the violin should be used for classical playing only. Her selection to play the Paganini violin in Genoa was criticized by some, until they heard her play. As for gender discrimination, she only recalls one incident, early in her career. She believes women represent a different aesthetic than men: "We are nurturers. We bring a different energy, totally." Having said this, she adds, "I like it when there's a mixture of both [genders]. [6]
ROLE MODELS and MENTORS: Maud Powell had few female violinists to emulate. Her early idol was concert violinist Camilla Urso. Maud's talents were championed by Theodore Thomas and other male conductors won over by her astounding virtuosity and musicianship.
Regina Carter's role models were mostly male: classical violinists Itzhak Perlman and Yehudi Menuin; jazz violinists Stephane Grappelli, Jean-Luc Ponty and Stuff Smith, and jazz giants like saxophonists Charlie Parker and Ben Webster, and trumpeter Clark Terry. Her mother was her earliest mentor; another was Detroit trumpeter and jazz instructor Marcus Belgrave.
DISCOGRAPHIES
Maud Powell recordings reissued on CD: MAUD POWELL—Complete recordings Vol. 1, 2 and 3, [Naxos] works by J.S. Bach, Beethoven, Bruch, Elgar, G.F. Handel, Felix Mendelssohn, Pablo Sarasate, and Henryk Wieniawski. The MaudPowell website has A complete list of her recordings
Violinist Rachel Barton Pine plays concerts in honor of Powell. See amazon.com for her recordings.
