LA Blacksmith and his band share MLK’s story

Jazz and history at Uniondale library

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Last Saturday, two days before Martin Luther King Jr. Day, musician LA Blacksmith and his band played jazz and shared some history about the civil rights leader with community members at the Uniondale library.

LA Blacksmith, a funk, jazz and soul artist based in New York City with a long history of performing with famous musicians, played flute and saxophone and sang, accompanied by Dave Brown on guitar and vocals, and James Prescott on keyboards. Blacksmith explored King’s history chronologically, performing songs that related to periods of his life. Throughout the concert, audience members clapped, sang along and danced in the aisles.
Just before singing Aretha Franklin’s version of Otis Redding’s

“Respect,” Blacksmith described how King was born with the name Michael, as was his father. His father traveled to Germany with the Baptist World Alliance, and was deeply moved by stories of the atrocities against the Jewish people and others who were persecuted by the Nazis. After learning about the Christian reformer Martin Luther, King’s father changed both of their names.
Blacksmith emphasized King’s great oratorical skill when he mentioned the 1963 March On Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

“A lot of time, the media thinks that it’s the only good speech he had,” Blacksmith said. “But he gave many, many good speeches.”
Later in the concert, Blacksmith explained that King was considered a radical by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. Then he sang Sam Cook’s “Change Is Gonna Come.”

“Change is never easy, but it has to happen in order for movement to happen,” Blacksmith told the audience.

This kind of concert was appropriate for Blacksmith’s intentions as a performer, he explained. “I like it when people can walk away feeling inspired,” he said, “and feeling like they’ve had a good time.”
Among the audience members who were inspired was Karen Johnson, who decided to attend on a whim.

“I said, ‘Let me come on over,’” Johnson said, “and I was so glad that I did. Because while I enjoyed the music, I liked that the gentleman in the band talked about different things that happened, giving us news as well. It’s important for the library to do these types of things for the community.”

Coyscao Patterson came specifically to see Blacksmith and his band. “I had missed him the last time and I wanted to really see them,” Patterson said. “And something to do with Martin Luther King, to celebrate his life and his legacy, I definitely wanted to see that and experience it.”

Near the end of the concert, Blacksmith shared his own memory of when King died in 1968. Blacksmith was in his first year of high school.

“The whole school just emptied out,” he recalled. “And we started rolling through the streets. It got bad, it wasn’t pretty.”
A woman in the audience, Catherine New, also shared her story of that day with Blacksmith and the other attendees. She was shopping in Brooklyn, and passed a woman who owned a record store on the block. The woman screamed loudly and said that King had been shot, and the entire street stopped dead in its tracks.

“There was no movement in the older adult people,” New recounted. “We just stood and cried because there was nothing else to do.”

Blacksmith spoke about the history of memorializing King in the decades after he died. He sang Stevie Wonder’s “Happy Birthday Song,” and ended with “We Shall Overcome.”

“His desire for fairness and equality could not be extinguished,” Blacksmith said of King. “Martin Luther King never advocated for Africans to act like our oppressors.”