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Book Review: “Finding Samuel Lowe: China, Jamaica, Harlem”

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Your last family reunion was a big one.

 

It was fun, too, and eye opening. You hadn’t really stopped to think about how many people are related to you until you saw aunts you hadn’t seen in decades and met cousins you didn’t even know you had.

 

That one had Grandma’s eyes. This one has the distinctive family laugh. And, as in the new book “Finding Samuel Lowe” by Paula Williams Madison, there were many more surprises to come.

 

Finding Samuel Lowe author CREDIT Kwaku Alston

Paula Williams Madison. Photo: Kwaku Alston

Growing up on the roughest block in Harlem in the early 1960s, Paula Williams Madison knew her family was unusual, starting with her Chinese-Jamaican mother. Nell Vera Lowe Williams was fierce and fearless – she once held a meat cleaver to a man who’d threatened her son – but she was also quietly sentimental.

 

To Nell, nothing was more important than family and she insisted that her three children remain close, maybe because Nell had no parents or known siblings of her own.

 

Though they were estranged, Madison knew her mother and dad loved her. That, in fact, was a repeated theme she heard as a child: Nell often said that Madison was lucky to know a father’s love.

 

On that, Nell didn’t elaborate much and she rarely discussed her childhood, leading Madison to wonder about her mother’s father.

 

Over time, she learned that Samuel Lowe had left China for Jamaica in the early 1900s and later became a shopkeeper, having little-to-no contact with his “outside child” before returning to China in 1933, when Nell was 15.

 

This, perhaps, caused the “persistent and painful sense of loss” Madison felt her entire life: her mother’s hurt had become hers. She imagined finding her grandfather.

In late 2011, she finally seized the chance.

 

“Samuel Lowe” was too common a name for online searches, but querying elderly relatives offered clues and a long-lost cousin who informed Madison about an “alumni reunion” in Toronto.

 

Someone else led her to a contact who knew some Lowes in China.

One of them was Samuel Lowe’s son.

 

There’s a lot to like about “Finding Samuel Lowe.” There’s a lot to learn here, too, but first, you’ll have to ready yourself.

 

Be prepared, for example, not to fret over things that are hard to follow in this book.

 

Author Paula Williams Martin includes a lengthy and highly convoluted family tree that’s often “duppyproofed” with false names and birthdates. Seriously, the Book of Genesis is easier to follow than those sections; you’re best off just accepting that it mightn’t make sense.

 

Get past that, though, ignore the repetition, and you’ll find a fascinating family memoir that peeks inside the life of a 1960s Harlem kid, takes readers back a century to Jamaica, and then reads like a detective story.

 

In those parts, pay attention: Martin writes with such passion that it’s a treat to see how finding her grandfather means finding herself.

 

Historians and genealogists will love this book but for everyone else, it’ll take some getting used to. You’ll enjoy “Finding Samuel Lowe,” but you may also find it confusing.

 

“Finding Samuel Lowe: China, Jamaica, Harlem ” by Paula Williams Madison, c. 2015, Amistad, $25.99/$31.99, 276 pages.

Arts and Culture

Faces Around the Bay Dr. Carl Blake, Pianist

Born in Liberty, Missouri, Carl Blake, a virtuoso and respected pianist, made his most recent migration to the East Bay in 1999. One might have seen him performing recently at Noontime Concerts in San Francisco, or at the Piedmont Center for the Arts in Oakland. He is Director of Music at The Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples in San Francisco. He was also co-organizer and collaborative pianist at Herbst Theater for The Majesty of the Spirituals concert in 2022 and has held several church positions in the Bay Area.

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Dr. Carl Blake
Dr. Carl Blake

By Barbara Fluhrer

Born in Liberty, Missouri, Carl Blake, a virtuoso and respected pianist, made his most recent migration to the East Bay in 1999.

One might have seen him performing recently at Noontime Concerts in San Francisco, or at the Piedmont Center for the Arts in Oakland. He is Director of Music at The Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples in San Francisco. He was also co-organizer and collaborative pianist at Herbst Theater for The Majesty of the Spirituals concert in 2022 and has held several church positions in the Bay Area.

Blake obtained a Bachelor of Music from Boston University and continued post-baccalaureate studies in Jamaica before earning a Master of Arts in Music at San Jose State University. He was the recipient of two Fulbright residencies in Honduras and completed a third residency at the University of St. Petersburg in Russia. He has a Doctor of Musical Arts from Cornell University.

At age 19, Blake, then an undergraduate piano major at Boston University, was “discovered” by Impresario Dr. W. Hazaiah Williams, who is the Founder and Director of Today’s Artists/Four Seasons Arts.

Williams honored Blake by awarding him the first Marian Anderson Young Artist Award.  Anderson personally presented the award at the Masonic Auditorium in S.F.  Subsequently, Blake was presented by Dr. Williams in his San Francisco debut at The Herbst Theatre. Williams subsidized a year of study abroad for Blake at the Paris Conservatory of Music. Additionally, Williams sponsored Blake’s New York Weill Hall debut, where he has performed twice since.  Blake performed several times at the Yachats Music Festival in Oregon.

Blake continues to perform nationally and abroad. His hobbies are reading, baking and travel. He says, “I’m still pumping ivories, as Belgian pianist Jeanne Stark described the disciplined practice of concert piano.”

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Arts and Culture

Oakland Jazz Great Offers Master Class as City Declares “John Handy Day”

World-renowned jazz master saxophonist John Handy, a McClymond’s High School graduate, was presented with a Mayor of Oakland Proclamation declaring Feb. 12, as John Handy Day in the city. Handy is most notably known as the featured saxophonist for Charles Mingus on “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat” from the album “Mingus Ah Um” (1959) and on “Hard Work” from his own album “Hard Work” (1976).

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(L-R) Del Handy, John Handy, Roger Glenn, and Joe Warner celebrate John Handy Day at Geoffrey’s Inner Circle, Oakland. Photo by Lady Bianca.
(L-R) Del Handy, John Handy, Roger Glenn, and Joe Warner celebrate John Handy Day at Geoffrey’s Inner Circle, Oakland. Photo by Lady Bianca.

By Conway Jones

World-renowned jazz master saxophonist John Handy, a McClymond’s High School graduate, was presented with a Mayor of Oakland Proclamation declaring Feb. 12, as John Handy Day in the city.

Handy is most notably known as the featured saxophonist for Charles Mingus on “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat” from the album “Mingus Ah Um” (1959) and on “Hard Work” from his own album “Hard Work” (1976).

“John Handy is a jazz icon and an inspiration to musicians everywhere,” said Ayo Brame, a 16-year-old Oakland tenor saxophone player who is enrolled at the Oakland School for the Arts.

In celebration of this day, the reception in downtown Oakland at Geoffrey’s Inner Circle was a gathering of artists, young and old, coming together in his honor and celebrating his 91st birthday.

Handy presented a Saxophone Colossus free masterclass for musicians. This class afforded a rare opportunity to learn about the saxophone from an aficionado. The class was free and open to all – saxophonists, vocalists, aficionados, students, and casual listeners.

“As a longtime friend for over 60 years, and fellow musician who has had numerous opportunities to share the stage with John, it has always been a pleasure performing with him and hearing his creative interpretations of the music and his gift of ease inspiring the next generation of jazz musicians,” said Roger Glenn, a multi-instrumentalist.

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Arts and Culture

Musical Chronicling Life of Betty Reid Soskin Set for Bay Area Debut

Betty Reid Soskin’s storied 102 years includes time spent as a WWII defense worker, activist, business owner, songwriter, National Park Service park ranger and so much more. Now the Richmond icon is the subject of a musical based on her incredible life.

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Betty Reid Soskin. Photo courtesy of Rosie the Riveter/WWII Home Front National Historical Park in Richmond.
Betty Reid Soskin. Photo courtesy of Rosie the Riveter/WWII Home Front National Historical Park in Richmond.

The Richmond Standard

Betty Reid Soskin’s storied 102 years includes time spent as a WWII defense worker, activist, business owner, songwriter, National Park Service park ranger and so much more. Now the Richmond icon is the subject of a musical based on her incredible life.

Sign My Name to Freedom,” a San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Company (SFBATCO) production which will focus on the life, music and writing of Ms. Soskin, will premiere at San Francisco’s Z Space Friday, March 29 and continue through Saturday, April 13. Tickets range from $15–$65 and can be purchased online at https://www.sfbatco.org/smntf

The musical is directed by Elizabeth Carter, while playwright Michael Gene Sullivan integrates Ms. Soskin’s own music throughout dialogue between what SFBATCO calls “The Four Bettys” as they progress through a century of experiences of this awe-inspiring American woman.

The cast of “Sign My Name to Freedom” features Tierra Allen as Little Betty, Aidaa Peerzada as Married Betty, Lucca Troutman as Revolutionary Betty and Cathleen Riddley as Present Betty Reid Soskin, according to Artistic Director Rodney Earl Jackson Jr. and Managing Director Adam Maggio. Other casting will be announced in the future.

Jackson said that having Soskin’s blessing to steward her life’s story is an honor and career highlight for him and that her journey stands as “a beacon for Black Americans, women and people of color all across the world [and] is a testament to the strength of the human spirit.”

San Francisco’s Z Space is located at 450 Florida St. in San Francisco. Check out the trailer here at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-ap9N2XBB0

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