Just ahead on American Black Journal.

This year's Kresge eminent Artist, jazz bassist Marion Hayden, is here to talk about being selected for this special honor.

Plus, she is going to treat us all to a performance.

Also coming up, a candid conversation with Detroit techno pioneer Carl Craig about black music and will remember Detroit journalist Al Allen.

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American Black Journal starts right now.

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For.

Welcome to American Black Journal.

I'm your host, Stephen Henderson.

My first guest was just named this year's Kresge Eminent Artist Award winning jazz bassist, composer, and educator Marion Hayden is the recipient of what's considered Metro Detroit's highest arts honor.

Her award includes $100,000 from the Presley Foundation.

I am pleased to welcome my friend Marion Hayden back to American Black Journal.

It is great to have you here, as always, and congratulations.

Thank you.

Stephen, thank you so much for having me here.

The American Black Journal I'm so excited to be here.

Yeah.

So in the intro I said, this is considered our area's greatest arts honors.

That said how you feel?

I totally feel that way.

It's like a it's like getting a big, giant hug for my community that that I love.

I just love this community is my it's my passion.

It's my muse.

I carry I carry the banner of Detroit wherever I go.

So yes, it feels great.

Yeah.

So so I want to talk about what brought you to this point, but but also a pause, a second to acknowledge that this is an award that that recognizes everything that you've done, the span of, your, your career.

So let's talk about that career and kind of how you got into, music, into the bass, which, I think I've told you before, I was a tuba player in college.

I have, a double bass at home and plunk around on it.

It is one of my favorite instruments.

So, talk about how how you got to this point.

Well, I have to say, one of the one of the wonderful things about growing up in Detroit, has.

Well, first of all, I should give.

I should give complete credit to my parents.

My parents.

Marion Ford.

Hayden.

Thomas.

She ended up getting remarried after my father passed.

And Herbert Herbert E Hayden and I, our little house that we grew up in and the wonderful neighborhood of Russell Woods on Fullerton Street and, and, they were just wonderful parents.

They never put any restrictions on me as a, as a young woman, as a girl, as to what girls could do.

My mother was a chemist, so she knew no boundaries of that sort.

So, when I just started taking, taking cello lessons when I was about nine, in a great public Detroit public school music education programs.

But I also left, the music, public school music program.

So, so important.

And I always want to, always, on my little bandwagon.

I'm always standing on my soapbox about continuing to support them for the young people that are in school now.

Yeah.

And so I was I was a little girl taking lessons in my school, took a cello lessons at nine.

And then when I got tall enough to, to stand up to the bass because I've always wanted to play bass, I was about 12.

I switched over to bass and, I had a lot of jazz in my household care of.

My dad was a huge jazz fan and record collector and, kind of a closeted jazz pianist.

He was really good and just, he was he exposed me to such great music.

And then he made what I consider to be just such a wonderful, gesture for me.

He took me to a summertime jazz, jazz camp called Metro Arts, which was right here on Selden Street and Detroit.

And that's where I met the likes of Wendell Harrison, Marcus Belgrave, Harold McKinney, and so many of the great jazz musicians which would become so influential for me and others.

And there was these are the torchbearers, the people that were really keeping the music alive at that time, which would have been the, you know, early 70s, you know, and that's how I really that's how I caught the jazz bug.

Yeah.

And from then on, it was just, it just at some point you hear something, and you just now, this is something that you have to hear in your ears forever.

And that was what it was for me.

Yeah, yeah.

So I always think of, music as a form of expression, and, and that expression is really important to the artist who is making that expression.

In a little bit, we're going to listen to something that you're, you're playing for us in our, in our viewers talk about that expression, the things that you're saying and trying to communicate when you're playing.

Well, one thing about especially it certainly at this point in my career is, I have a pretty big mental library of things.

There's a lot of music that I've played in a lot of different genres.

I've played, I played, the music of, Argentinian tango.

I played, I played music from, you know, Puerto Rican, Puerto Rico and Cuban.

I played, I have played folk music.

Some classical music, of pretty much all types of jazz and all the different spheres that we work in.

And so, I'm, I'm a collector of, I collector of themes and a collector of, musical moments.

And so when I, when I play, especially something like a solo piece, then basically, I am able to I try to weave those moments together and threads so that they can be interesting.

I try to think, find things that are interesting for my, for my, my mental collection.

And, it's very important, I think especially, especially, as a, for a bass player that we have a lot of experience because the bass is a very ubiquitous instrument, and all ensembles is so much more versatile than anybody ever thinks.

Is.

It is, but the basis of so many different places.

And so so I'm, I have a I have an opportunity to really be very proudly expressive in so many, so many different ways.

I mean, as I say, you know, rock in indie rock, all kinds of things, gospel, of course, you know, all the branches of black music.

Yeah.

And so I try to bring all those things to bear when I, when I perform and try to, just try to be broadly expressive, really tell, really talk about, talk about the, the music that I'm playing in a way that is befitting of that particular, any particular thing I'm doing.

Yeah.

So, you know, in that way, you're a as much a creator.

I know you don't like to call yourself a composer.

No.

But you're a creator in in the sense of, taking all of these things, all of these ideas, all these little bits of, things that you've heard or played around with and putting them together very, very much so.

And I really I really love doing that.

One of my, one of the things that I enjoy doing a lot of is this idea of, composing from a narrative point of view.

And, so many times when I'm composing, I'm composing from an actual story, something it might be a story that I'm trying to tell.

One of the I'll give an example of one of the pieces that I wrote.

This was a commissioned piece, from Art X. Detroit was about the city of Highland Park.

That's where that's where my husband and I live.

My husband fell gardener and, to, to young man to gardener and luckily gardener.

They we are we we raised our family there.

And Highland Park has an amazing history in the auto industry.

Yeah.

And, so I created a whole piece about about Highland Park's history, and it included also interviews from Highland Park workers where they talked about the history of their town and how things had changed over the years.

And, it was, I have to say, I really I really loved delving into that.

It was, and it took, I took from that so many different, different ways of talking about the city and, and also ways to be able to kind of lay there their beautiful narratives in a, in a, in a, you know, in a bed and a bed of beautiful bed of musical flowers, you know?

Yeah.

You have some performances coming up where people can actually come see you live.

I do I'm, I'm very I would love to have people come and, please come out and see my band.

Marion hidden Legacy at the Blue Llama Jazz Club in Ann Arbor.

I'll be there on April the 4th, and then I will be, with my my great band straight ahead that I'm a co-founder of that band of Wonderful women, has been gather for many years.

Great Grammy nominated band, Random Woman.

I mean, these are women who are just, stars.

Absolute stars and, in their own right, each of them and, and we and we actually were the first, woman group signed to a major jazz label.

Yeah.

Right.

So we we will be at the freed House series that sponsored by the University Musical Society and, and, Ypsilanti and, April the 13th.

And then we'll also be at the really at the, Cranbrook project, Friday Night Live series on June the 13th.

So come on out and see us, everyone.

Love to have you there.

Yeah.

And and again, you'll be doing all of the things that, the Kresge eminent artist does, during the next year, I am.

It's just been it's just just been so beautiful.

And I so appreciate Kresge for this, for this opportunity to, to, as I said, just, just be overwhelmed with gratitude.

Just one spirit.

Well, Mary, congratulations again.

Thanks for being here.

We're on, American Black Journal.

Thank you.

Stephen.

Detroit techno pioneer Carl Craig is one of the headliners at this year's Detroit Movement Festival.

Over Memorial Day weekend this month, Craig rolled out his annual video series, All Black Vinyl, on Instagram.

Every Wednesday in February, he selects a playlist of black artists from his massive record collection, American Black Journal.

Contributors Bryce Huffman of Bridge Detroit and producer Dacia moss talked with Craig about the importance of celebrating black music history.

Happy 2025 and we're back again with a new edition of all black vinyl.

So, Carl, tell me, why did you start your all black vinyl series?

And what does that medium for music mean to you personally?

During Covid it was just hell, okay?

And, you know, everybody was doing streaming but not really streaming with meaning.

Of course, George Floyd and and all the other things that were going on at the time, had such a big impact.

But, I really felt that there needed to be something that I could do that had meaning.

And for Black History Month, it made sense to do a project that was about the music, about the music.

That is good music, but that's music that's done.

By, whether it's people from Detroit or people from outside of of, Detroit.

That was celebrate black history Month.

So all black vinyl just seemed to be an obvious thing for me.

And it was a lot of fun to do it, you know, instead of it, being something where I would sit there and mix records for a day or something.

I like the concept of doing one a day, and I got so many people from not only inside of the United States, but outside of the United States, that were looking forward to seeing the next day that we would that I would, do a post that there's Miles up there.

And, what about that?

You've been collecting vinyl for years now.

How big is your collection?

And is there one record that stands out as, very important to you?

On a personal level?

I can always say like, oh, yeah, you know, we got all this, all this, records and stock and stuff.

Yeah, I got, you know, 50,000 records, 100,000 records.

No, it's not like that.

It's, it's something that I don't pay attention to collecting for the sake of collecting records.

I buy it because I love the music and I want the music.

So I don't have a Fela Kuti record or a number of Fela Kuti records, because that was the trend I have.

Because I just like music, you know, the music that that stands out really the most to me.

Marcus Belgrave, vibes and tribe from Phil Randle and, you know, the Detroit stuff and Motown records and from Detroit, when you go through records that you haven't listened to in a while, is there an appreciation for the recording process, the artistry that goes into making the albums that you kind of rediscover those, those records that the that were being done in the 50s and 60s and even the 70s, the, the process of making them and the care of making them was, was incredible.

And it's so much different than when you're using the laptop, you know, or you I mean, MPC sounds great and stuff, but, you know, to have the guys in the studio going straight to a mixing console, left, right, center, boom, you there now?

Jazz, techno, hip hop, R&B these are all genres that have been covered on the show and all genres that are really important to black history, especially music history.

Tell me, was there a genre that you think sounds best to you when it's recorded on vinyl?

You know, there was a whole disco sucks movement that happened in and was in 1979 and, in Chicago, it was a baseball game between, Detroit and Chicago.

Was it the White Sox versus the the the, the Tigers when they blew up all those pieces of vinyl and.

Disco might have sucked because of all the novelty that happened with it, but a lot of those records are recorded.

So.

Well, they sound incredible.

You know, there there's, records from Barry White that just sound enormous on the sound system.

Moody man, he's been playing, the Isley Brothers at his gigs mixed with Thundercat and the Isley Brothers record.

Sounds monstrous on the sound system.

How do you go about talking to younger generations of music lovers, people who might not even know that they are history buffs through music?

How do you talk to them about that important, somebody that doesn't really force my musical, ideas on my kids.

And I try to, to use how I, how I deal with things with my kids to dealing with, other, other people's kids if if it comes, if it comes to play.

So, when I was learning how to play piano before I guitar was my instrument, but I was learning how to play piano.

I hated the regiment.

The the, you know, that it was just really regimented how you had to learn piano.

And when, I met Francesco Tristano, who's a concert pianist from, from Luxembourg, and he played the piano where he's banging on the sides and pulling the strings and doing all these things.

I'm thinking like, why didn't we do that when I'm learning how to play piano?

That would have made me want to play piano and stick with piano because, it becomes more of a performance instrument, you know, Elton John tried to make piano or, let's even go a little Richard, because that's where it all comes from.

Little Richard, the way he was playing piano, standing on it and all that stuff was like someone standing there with a guitar and just showboating with the guitar and stuff.

So, you know, banging, turning it into a percussive instrument as well as a melodic instrument would have made it so much more interesting because I could see the vision of that.

I could see the vision of being a rock piano player by banging on the instrument instead of it being, traditional and classical.

So I think with kids that you have to not only come down to their level, but you have to, you know, you have you have to show that is entertaining.

You know, something that's entertaining to a grown man is different than what's entertaining to, you know, a teen.

As a lifelong student of black history, is there any record or group of records that you think newcomers to this history just have to listen to, to fully appreciate the strides that have been made?

You got to go to The roots.

With black music, you you have to listen to Billie Holiday, you know, you have to hear Strange fruit.

You have to hear the political records, the Nina Simon stuff.

You have to know that music in the same way that you have to know.

Elvin Jones records or Count Basie or Duke Ellington or Miles Davis or, going into into the blues of Muddy Waters and Howlin Wolf.

You have to go all the way down through it.

You have to understand why shiny shoe suits were worn on stage.

You have to understand the chitlin circuit.

You have to understand why James Brown got on because he was impersonating Little Richard.

You know, it's like the the knowledge and the history is really important to be able to pour into, modern music because, the blues is the music that has always dominated, you know, American music, from the time it was race music, you know, these are, these are important milestones.

They're like little flags.

They're they're everything.

So even gospel gospel is another thing I didn't I grew up going to a Lutheran school.

My grandparents were preachers in the South, and I wasn't really I didn't really get the gospel thing until until I saw, a film of Aretha Franklin playing Montreal Jazz Festival, and it freaked me out and it freaked me out.

It blew me away.

It was just another level.

So when I, when I was watching another video of Miles Davis playing Montreal Jazz Festival, when he brought brought the electric organ on and wouldn't play his horn, you know, his roots are gospel.

Jazz goes into, and, the blues goes into his music.

He was able to morph it in the rock.

He was able to morph it into in the, in the, wherever he went.

So is you gotta know language.

It's it's like you, you know, as a, as a, as a black man getting a job in, Google or something.

You have to understand language that the people are talking, you know, within your environment in order to be able to, to that's for people.

That's right.

All black, white owners, once again, enjoy yourselves.

So we're gonna to take a moment now to acknowledge the recent loss of a Detroit broadcasting legend.

Award winning reporter Al Allen passed away this month at the age of 79.

His long career as a radio and television journalist ended in 2012, when he retired from Detroit's Fox affiliate Wjbf after spending nearly three decades there.

He was a guest here on American Black Journal in 2018 after releasing his memoir titled We're Standing By.

You got into radio?

Yeah.

Before TV, a lot of people don't understand.

You weren't always the the guy on Fox two in the morning on TV.

Talk about how you went into radio first and what you did there, how you made the transition.

You know, what I tell interns is, and, you know, this industry that we're in, because you were in print and I was in broadcast.

It is not easy.

You knock on the door, ringing the doorbell to pick up a phone.

No, they're not concerned about you.

We're not hiring today.

You don't have any experience, so I did.

I got my start in radio little Rock, Arkansas at karaoke was my first radio station.

I was a news director.

I my floors, I watched windows.

It was on the air too as well.

I worked with way, way, way.

You you cleaned up?

Oh yes.

You did everything.

You know, you get you your star.

And I worked with a guy named Jocko Smith, okay?

He was nationally known because he coined the phrase soul music as dirty, filthy black music.

And everybody said it, and he.

No, he.

That's the way he coined that soul music.

Wow.

So I work with some of those.

I worked at, in Detroit.

We came to Detroit, I worked at GPI, and I worked at job twice when it was and when it was at.

Oh, don't talk about that.

We we laughed when they said we're going to switch from Am to FM and we said, damn, that's not going to work.

Nobody's going to listen where we were wrong.

Al Allen was inducted into the Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame in 2021.

We thank him for his dedication to his craft and for the legacy he leaves in broadcast journalism.

That's going to do it for us this week.

We're going to close with a performance from Marion Hayden, the 2025 Kresge Eminent Artist.

You can find out more about our guests at American Black journal.org.

And you can connect with us anytime on social media and Joy, and we'll see you next time.

You.

I'm.

Across our Masco family of companies, our goal is to deliver better living possibilities and make positive changes in the neighborhoods where we live, work, and do business.

Masco, a Michigan company since 1929.

Support also provided by the Cynthia L Support Fund for journalism at Detroit PBS.

The Foundation is a proud sponsor of Detroit PBS.

Through our giving, we are committed to meeting the needs of the communities we serve statewide to help ensure a bright and thriving future for all.

Learn more at DTC foundation.com.

Also brought to you by Nissan Foundation and viewers like you.

Thank you.