House of Blues program teaches students about the blues

Tuesday, May 23, 2000 | 9:32 a.m.

Tears turned 5-year-old Allyessa Tefft's eyes into small, dark pools as she listened to a blues musician singing in mournful tones about moving to Chicago.

Finally she could no longer hold back the sorrow that filled her tender young heart and the tears spilled from her eyes and rolled down her freckled cheeks.

"My uncle's moving to Chicago, and he's never coming back," she sobbed.

Allyessa had her first lesson in the blues.

"It is the voice of human tragedy and the optimism of human triumph," narrator Theodore "Teddy" Davis told 25 children who recently visited the House of Blues at the Mandalay Bay hotel-casino. They were there to learn the history of the music genre and experience its emotions through the artistry of the six-member Blues SchoolHouse Band.

The free program sponsored by the International House of Blues Foundation is called the Blues SchoolHouse. Similar programs are conducted at the four other House of Blues locations around the country. Las Vegas is the latest to join the foundation's effort to instill in students a love of art and music in all its diversity.

Since the program began here in January more than 3,500 students from the Clark County School District have participated in the two-hour field trip.

The foundation not only provides the narrated history and the band, but it also pays for the buses that bring the students to the club. "Our mission," program director Kim Russell said, "is to promote art and music in the schools and to help create cultural understanding."

She titled the show she wrote for the Blues SchoolHouse "Seeing Blues and Hearing Art."

Each Monday, Wednesday and Friday students from across the valley arrive at the House of Blues where they listen for an hour to a narrator tell the history of the blues and describe its impact on most forms of American music. The live band performs examples of blues from various times in its history.

A second hour is devoted to folk art. Students are taken on a tour of the art displayed throughout the club and then they create their own art.

Allyessa's group was from the Sunrise Community Center, which is part of the Las Vegas Parks and Recreation Department. The students, who range in age from 5 to 12, are on track break from school.

She was part of a relatively small group. Most sessions have between 50 and 100 students from kindergarten through grade 12. One day almost 200 students attended.

Russell said that in the beginning the program was only for middle schools but it became so popular so quickly that it was expanded to include all grades.

Being a unified part of something is one of the most important lessons the students can take home with them when they leave the House of Blues, according to volunteer Debby Goldberg.

The former teacher and entertainer has been helping Russell with the community outreach program since it began. "I am a firm believer in bringing in culture. Music and art override all racial and religious barriers," she said.

Goldberg has watched thousands of students of all ages and backgrounds pass through doors of the House of Blues. "They sit here at first in awe," she said. "Many of them have never been in a place like this before. Their response is absolutely wonderful."

As the blues play on, the children become less inhibited. They begin singing, clapping and dancing. Some get on stage and sing the blues. Others dance in the aisles, enjoying their history lesson.

Blues from Africa

"This is the House of Blues," Davis said to the children. "We are paying a tribute to a kind of music and art which come out of pain and joy. We will introduce to you a style of music that is sister to jazz and gospel ... grandma of ragtime, boogie woogie and rock 'n' roll ... and mother of reggae, rap and hip-hop."

The roots, he said, go back to the music of West Africa. It was brought to this country by slaves more than 200 years ago and reshaped into something peculiar to America.

"Blues is an evolution of African storytelling," Davis said. "The blues were unique. It came out of a new culture that developed in the American South. No one heard anything like it before.

"The blues that evolved out of the tragedy of slavery became the foundation of most popular music in America today."

Helping the children relate to the blues, Davis told the young students: "You can have the blues if you have a test today and you haven't studied for it. Or you can have the blues if you have a crush on someone and that person has a crush on someone else."

Or, as in Allyessa's case, you can have the blues if a favorite uncle is moving to Chicago.

"Blues songs can express hope for a better day in difficult times," Davis said.

The narrator named a few of the more well-known blues singers and other singers who were influenced by the music.

"On Elvis Presley's first album he remade five blues tunes and five gospel tunes. The Rolling Stones' name came from a Muddy Waters tune. The godfather of soul, James Brown, he sang blues before soul was popular," Davis said.

Russell developed the blues program. Besides her work with the foundation she is an actress who performs at colleges and other venues a highly acclaimed one-woman show called "Sojurnor Truth: I Sell the Shadow."

The cast of "Seeing Blues and Hearing Art" includes blues musicians who play late-night gigs at local clubs in addition to their early morning stint at the House of Blues.

The Blues SchoolHouse Band includes: Davis, a musician when not narrating the program; Willie Jaye on lead guitar; musical director John Torres on drums; Darryl Williams on bass guitar; Junior Brantley on keyboards; Brian O'Shea (a blues artist from Scotland) on trombone; and Janyce De Levon on vocals.

They don't mind giving up a few hours of sleep to help the young students gain a deeper appreciation for the music to which the musicians have dedicated their lives.

The recent morning of music won at least two new blues fans, second graders Robert Turic and Kyle King. The two 8-year-olds walked away with a greater appreciation for the blues, which they say they had never heard before.

"My dad likes old rock and Mom likes country," Robert said.

"My dad likes country and Mom likes hip-hop," Kyle said.

Robert said he likes jazz and, now, blues.

"I like the harmony," he said, "and I like it that right when the music was getting low it popped right back up."

Music scores with teacher

Hyde Park Middle School Band Director Rogers Tyler recently took 165 of his students to the House of Blues and he came away singing the program's praises.

"From the standpoint of having been involved in other things like this, this probably is the best program in the way of relating true facts and social involvement with music that I have come across," Tyler said. "The way they present the program, the student can learn a little about history and hear pieces of the music from that history. It's a great history lesson as well as a lesson in social awareness."

Tyler said that his students were surprised at how much musical styles overlap.

"And they were really surprised to hear music they thought became popular just recently," he said. "For them it made a connection between their parents' music and what they (the children) listen to."

Jerry Fink is an Accent feature writer. Reach him at jerry@lasvegassun.com or 259-4058.

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