- Hello and Welcome to MetroArts.

I am your host Larry Wallace.

Here on MetroArts, we highlight some of the best in the business.

From fine artists, photographers and performing artists to cinematographers and musical artists - all from the Metro Detroit area.

On today's show, we'll learn about the efforts of the Detroit Sound Conservancy to preserve Detroit's musical legacies.

During our checking-in segment, we'll catch up with Tableau Cadre and have an in-studio dance performance.

But first Singer-Songwriter Noah de Leon is here to perform in studio.

♪ ♪ - I spent two years as a ghost ♪ ♪ I had no sense of control ♪ ♪ Looking for better days away ♪ ♪ I took six months in a row ♪ ♪ I made things right on my own ♪ ♪ Looking for better days away ♪ ♪ Hoping that better days await ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ We took too long getting on ♪ ♪ We should have called it a draw ♪ ♪ Searching for better days away ♪ ♪ We took too long making noise ♪ ♪ We should have gone to Detroit ♪ ♪ Searching for better days away ♪ ♪ Knowing that better days await ♪ ♪ ♪ Ooh ♪ ♪ Ooh ♪ ♪ Ooh ♪ ♪ ♪ We took too long making noise ♪ ♪ We should have gone to Detroit ♪ ♪ Searching for better days away ♪ ♪ Hoping that better days await ♪ ♪ Knowing that better days await ♪ ♪ Hoping that better days await ♪ ♪ ♪ Ahh.

Ooh ♪ ♪ - Hello Noah and welcome to MetroArts.

- Hi, thanks for having me.

- So we just heard your song Better Days.

- Yes.

- What can you tell us about that song?

- So Better Days is about a couple years I spent in my life um kinda after I had stopped going to college and I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with music and life in general, and a lot of the relationships in my life were changing so.

Um I was feeling lost and that song was just me exploring that feeling of yearning for something better and bigger than where I was in my life at that point.

- Now I really want to know, how did your music career begin?

- So I've always kind of been banging on pots and pans since I was a kid, um and my dad used to work in the record business for a long time, so I was always hearing all kinds of different sorts of music.

And so growing up I was always listening to music and so I always wanted to play music and to write music, and so from like when I got a guitar when I was seven and when I got a drum set when I was just around that age as well, I just started making as much noise around the house as possible, and my parents could never shut me up.

And so eventually it came to a time where I was able to like buy my own instruments and stuff like that, and so I started palling around with friends of mine in middle school and we started making terrible songs together and kind of just went from there.

- Now your video clips are actually really visual.

Where does your inspiration come from?

- Yeah um so my inspiration comes from all over.

I watch a lot of music videos because I'm such a fan of music, and so um both of the visuals that I did- well actually all of the visuals that I've done so far for my solo music have been with my friend Chris Herman and uh him and I talk a lot about how we're able to take these things that I've made, um these sonic palettes, and how we're able to kind of blow color into them.

And so him and I work a lot.

We just we watch a lot of videos.

We watch movies.

We just he takes so many pictures while he's traveling that a lot times kind of what we see and what we're feeling, we talk a lot about colors.

And so with my videos, it's been a lot of how can we take a visual palette with colors and with motion that is really going to match the flow of what's going on in the music.

- Cool.

Now we're actually going to hear one more song from you today.

- Yes, yes.

- Can you tell us a little bit about it?

- So um Gonna Be You, this next song I'm going to play is uh a song that I wrote with my friend Judson and it's about just um sort of the yearning for somebody.

Like wanting to be involved with somebody but knowing um that you really just don't want to be alone.

And it's kind of a weird disconnective I want to be with you just because I don't wanna be by myself, and kind of being afraid to fully commit to something that you don't completely understand.

- Yeah that's understanding.

Now where can people find out more information about your music?

- So I'm all over everywhere on the internet.

Noah de Leon-dot-com is my website.

So thats N-O-A-H-D-E-L-E-O-N.

I'm on uh Spotify, iTunes, Apple Music, all those music streaming platforms as well.

- Well Noah I want to thank you so much for being here.

It was a pleasure interviewing you.

- Thanks so much for having me.

- You're watching MetroArts on Detroit Public Television.

♪ ♪ ♪ - I would hide in my shame and I'd wallow ♪ ♪ In the pain of yesterday ♪ ♪ Used to wonder how I'd see tomorrow ♪ ♪ Or find a single thing I want to say ♪ ♪ But that's over ♪ ♪ I know you're the one ♪ ♪ That will talk with me all night ♪ ♪ About what's going on ♪ ♪ And we both know ♪ ♪ That I gotta settle for somebody ♪ ♪ Is it gonna be you ♪ ♪ ♪ Is it gonna be you ♪ ♪ ♪ As the days quickly pass ♪ ♪ and we follow all our dreams from yesterday ♪ ♪ And we talk about all that tomorrow ♪ ♪ Could be if we just keep it up this way ♪ ♪ But that's over ♪ ♪ I know you're the one ♪ ♪ You'll talk with me all night ♪ ♪ About what's going wrong ♪ ♪ And we both know ♪ ♪ That I gotta settle for somebody ♪ ♪ Is it gonna be you ♪ ♪ Yeah ♪ ♪ Is it gonna be you ♪ ♪ ♪ All I want, all I need ♪ ♪ Is for you to join with me ♪ ♪ Take my hand, share this dance ♪ ♪ I promise I'll give you all that I can ♪ ♪ Is it gonna be you baby ♪ ♪ Is it gonna be you ♪ ♪ Ooh ♪ ♪ All I want, all I need ♪ ♪ Is for you to join with me ♪ ♪ Take my hand, share this dance ♪ ♪ I promise I'll give you all that I can ♪ ♪ If it's gonna be you ♪ ♪ ♪ - And now, let's welcome the Founder and Executive Director of the Detroit Sound Conservancy, Carleton Gholz.

Welcome to MetroArts Detroit.

- Thanks for having me.

- So could you tell me the overall mission of the organization?

- Detroit Sound Conservancy was founded in 2012 and our main mission has always been preservation, Detroit music preservation, all genres, many different kinds of materials, historic preservation, buildings, oral histories.

So that's where our core mission is and has been and continues to be.

- Now I'm really interested in knowing, how did the organization form?

- That's a good question.

Uh it came out of my own research.

Uh I have a Doctorate in Communication uh and Cultural Studies.

And I wrote my dissertation on the rise of the D-J in Detroit and disco in the 80s and 70s and 80s, and uh so I created an archive of materials for that dissertation, and then when I was done, I didn't know where that material should go.

And so the Sound Conservancy was really about thinking about how to build new collections in the 21st century.

- Okay.

Now I must tell you, your website is really fascinating.

You have a wide range of audio and visual artifacts.

- Yes.

- Ranging from country um and into jazz, and we actually have a sample of the blues selection.

- Great - So let's watch.

♪ - The Chessmate was the center for the change of the new hippy movement, the enlightenment movement.

The change from being very uh straight into uh experimental and psychedelic and non-war, finding yourself, peace, self-expression, I ain't gonna do it the old way, I'm gonna do it the new way.

The Chessmate was the center for that change in Detroit.

♪ - We are gathered here today, the we being Live Six, the Detroit Sound Conservancy, the Detroit SIP.

Uh it's kind of a throwback to a neighborhood staple.

So we're here to recognize the Chessmate Cafe, which once was um a beat poet kind of coffee shop that existed at the corner of Livernois and Six Mile which is now a coin laundry.

- So Carleton, the blues section is just one of many artifacts in your collection.

Can you tell us a little bit about other artifacts?

- Yeah absolutely.

I mean if we can talk about the video we just saw briefly.

Uh we were tasked by Live Six to come in and do a series of programs to connect new residents and old residents back to their own shared history, and so the Chessmate had folk music.

It had blues, and it eventually became an after-hours disco spot.

And so we did three days of programming at a nearby coffee shop that's new in the neighborhood, and one of the nights was a blues night.

Uh we had Carlton Washington come in and play guitar, but we also had storytelling and people remembering uh when people like John Lee Hooker played the Chessmate back in the 60s in Detroit.

So that's really about our mission.

So we said earlier preservation's our mission, but if you do preservation well, then you can do other things like storytelling.

You can bring in and connect uh old residents and new residents with live musicians.

Uh and you can do really interesting programming that's not just a concert, not just a lecture.

- What are some of the highlights and accomplishments that you are most proud of the organization?

- That's a great question.

It's uh you know it's a little non-profit that could.

We do our best.

Uh we have a board of five individuals, and I think I'm most proud of just building an organization.

We have a board.

We have meetings.

We have a treasurer.

Uh the board is majority black.

I think that's really important for a city like Detroit uh to have that kind of commitment since we work with African American assets in histories.

It's not the only crews we work on, but it's a very important one.

And so I think I'm the most proud of this organization the fact that it's survived this long, that we're to the point now where we thought maybe it would just be a website.

When we started off we thought okay we'll just have a great website, with all this stuff people can engage with.

Now we realize that's not enough.

We need a home.

We need a place where people can come to.

We need a museum kind of atmosphere.

- Of course.

- Somewhere.

So that's really what the next phase of the organization's gonna be.

How do we build a real home uh for the community to engage with?

- Of course.

Now where can people find out more information about the organization?

- We uh the website which you seem to like, Detroit Sound-dot-O-R-G.

It's right there.

Uh our designer Dylan Box, he did our logo.

He did the website.

We, you know, lots of kinds of different materials there.

You know, we're on all the social media, etcetera.

That's all the kind of things we're doing right now.

- Of course.

Well Carleton I want to thank you so much for coming on today.

It was a pleasure interviewing you.

- Larry - Thank you.

- Thanks so much.

- You're watching MetroArts produced for Detroit Public Television at Wayne State University.

♪ - In our checking in segment, let's welcome Katherine Mays and Jenabah Giacomelli from Tableau Cadre.

Welcome guys.

- Thanks for having us.

- So the name of Tableau Cadre is pretty unique.

Where did it come from?

- Uh I'm glad you asked.

So our Artistic Director and Founder Kendra Ray created the name.

So a Tableau is a picture or an image and a Cadre is a nucleus of effort.

So we really try to embody that in all of our pieces and choreographies.

We try to transport the viewer or the audience into the image that we create.

- Okay.

So I really want to know, what's been new since your last appearance three years ago on MetroArts?

- Um we've been up to a lot.

We've grown our group.

We've added multiple new members and we've been able to draw from more cultures and more traditions of dance around the world.

- And Jenabah, you're actually the choreographer and dance captain.

Tell us about your uh role.

- As dance captain, um I'm kind of like the drill sergeant.

Um when we do have new choreography or we're cleaning up choreography or getting ready for a show or performance or anything, I'm kind of the one that really looks at the bigger picture, um because when we're ten dancers or seven dancers dancing a piece, we're not seven or ten individual dancers.

We're one group.

Trying to make all of our repertoire as clean and presentable as can be.

- Cool.

Now speaking of working together as a whole, how is working together even though you guys might have different backgrounds?

- Yeah we do all have um totally different backgrounds, um but we all speak the language of dance.

We've all come from, some of us four years old, to 45 years old, some of us um from 18 to 29 been taking some form of dance classes and studying dance.

Whether it be more traditional styles like ballet and um tap, modern, jazz, um many of us have extensive backgrounds in bellydance, tribal-style and raqs sharqi style.

And it's not always easy, and it takes a lot of work, but um we all work together to help each other and give dotes to each other and help everybody get the different feelings and the styles and um yeah.

Bring it all together and working together.

- Cool, cool - Into a Tableau.

- Into a Tableau.

- And where can people find out more information about Tableau Cadre?

- Um so they can always check our website Tableau Cadre-dot-com.

Um we're also on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at Tableau Cadre, and also the hashtag FindWhatMovesYou2018.

Um so there's lots of information out there to learn more about us and to hopefully join us at a workshop or community event.

- Okay, cool.

Well I want to thank you guys so much for being here.

It was a pleasure interviewing you.

- Thank you for having us.

- Up next, let's enjoy Tableau Cadre.

You're watching MetroArts produced at the Midtown Studio at Wayne State University.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ -O meu ganzá faz chica chica boom chic ♪ ♪ P'rá eu cantar o chica chica boom chic ♪ ♪ Com a canção do chica chica boom chic ♪ ♪ Meu coração faz chica chica boom chic ♪ ♪ E vem a saudade da Bahia ♪ ♪ Onde o samba tem ♪ ♪ Canjerê também ♪ ♪ Numa batucada ♪ ♪ Chic boom boom boom boom ♪ ♪ É brasileiro o chica chica boom chic ♪ ♪ Com um pandeiro fazendo o chica boom chic ♪ ♪ E para terminar chica chica boom chic ♪ ♪ Vocês devem cantar o chica chica boom chic ♪ ♪ Chic boom boom boom boom ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Boom chic boom boom boom boom ♪ ♪ You don't make sense the chica chica boom chicc ♪ ♪ But it's meant to chica chica boom chic ♪ ♪ That's all you've got to say ♪ ♪ To chase the jinx away ♪ ♪ Chica chica boom chica chica boom chica chica boom ♪ ♪ -Okay, you babes of jazz.

Let's pick up the pace.

♪ ♪ Let's make the parties longer.

♪ ♪ Let's make the skirts shorter.

♪ ♪ Let's all go to hell in a fast car and keep it hot ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ And all that jazz ♪ ♪ ♪ - We hope you enjoyed today's show.

I would like to thank our guests Noah Deleon, Carleton Gholz, and everyone from Tableau Cadre for being here today.

Remember, you can watch any of our shows online at MetroArts Detroit-dot-com and find us on social media.

I'm your host on MetroArts, Larry Wallace, reminding you to always support the arts and cultivate the talent in your community.

♪ ♪ ♪