Youthful Blues and Ballads in Cleveland Heights

It occurred to me tonight that I have listened live to Freddy Cole more often than any other world-class performer. While the man gets older — he’s a reported 82 — listening to him never does. He’s wise, self-possessed, and knows how to tell a story through song. While his voice is no longer the pure instrument it once was, he knows how to compensate. And just when you close your eyes and hear echoes of his famous brother Nat King Cole — and not just when he’s crooning “Sweet Lorraine” or “Unforgettable” — he might captivate you up with a song that that reminds you “I’m Not My Brother, I’m Me”.

Freddy Cole says blame it on his youth

Freddy is a consummate storyteller. He paints pictures of life and love with few words, using intonation, innuendo, and impeccable timing. His piano style is of course accomplished, and features lovely block chords. The man can still summon a mean blues as he did tonight with an encore to the encore he appreciatively delivered to a devoted second show audience at Nighttown in Cleveland Heights.

Freddy Cole will be back for two shows tomorrow [Thursday Nov. 21], at 8 and 10PM. So will his tight Grammy-nominated quartet that features Randy Napoleon on guitar

Freddy Cole at Nighttown with guitarist Randy Napoleon.

and Curtis Boyd on drums. Tonight’s bassist was publicized as Elias Bailey but I thought I heard him introduced as Matt Matthews.

Before I wrote this I checked my past posts and was surprised to find that I have mentioned him only once before in The Real Deal. As he might say, “Blame It On My Youth”.

Running mate for FitzGerald; Julian Rogers resigning from County Council; Headen victory confirmed

FitzGerald selects Kearney as running mate; Rogers to resign County council seat; mayor-elect Headen’s victory confirmed in Richmond Hts.

Two big announcements today have given additional heft to what was going to be an important day politically on the local political scene in any event.

Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald, the presumptive Democratic Party nominee to take on Gov. John Kasich next year, has announced that

State Senator Eric Kearney of Cincinnati

state Sen. Eric Kearney of Cincinnati will be his running mate. Kearney, who is the Senate Minority Leader, is term-limited and would be ineligible to run for another Senate term.

Today’s second announcement is the report that Cuyahoga County councilman Julian Rogers of Cleveland Heights will be resigning his seat at the end of January to comply with the terms of a new job he just started at Cleveland State University. Rogers is CSU’s new director of community partnerships, a job that will pay him nearly double his $45,000 part-time council salary.

County Councilman Julian Rogers of Cleveland Heights,
attending a meeting in East Cleveland earlier this year

Rogers won in a crowded field in 2010. He was unopposed in 2012 when he ran for a full four-year term. Under terms of the county charter, his successor will be chosen by Democratic central committee members from his district, which includes Under the county charter, precinct members from Rogers' District 10, will have 30 days to pick a replacement after his resignation becomes effective. County District 10 includes Cleveland Heights, East Cleveland, University Heights, Bratenahl, Cleveland Ward 8, and part of Cleveland Ward 10.

The County Board of Elections met this afternoon at 3PM to certify the Nov. 5 election results, which may trigger either some automatic recounts by statute, or encourage some diehards to pay for a recount.

Miesha Headen, Richmond
Heights mayor-elect

The official election results will likely be posted on the elections board website later today. But we can with pleasure and assurance that the reign of Richmond Heights mayor Dan Ursu is at an end. His 55 vote Election Day deficit grew to a 71-vote margin once all qualified provisional and absentee ballots were counted. The final tally was 1021 for Ursu and 1092 for mayor-elect Miesha Headen. Her 2.5% margin of victory is well beyond the .5% margin requirement that would have triggered an automatic recount.

Headen will be sworn in December 1 and assume office the same day.

"12 Years a Slave" is History as we have seldom witnessed it

Last night my wife and went to see “12 Years a Slave”, the much-talked about historical drama based on the true story of Solomon Northrup, a free black man in antebellum New York State who was abducted and forced to live as a slave for twelve years.

I was thinking about writing superlatives about the film and its importance to our nation’s unmet need for open and honest discussion about our national history and its unhealed racial wounds when an email from Dick Peery arrived.

Dick’s take on the movie parallels my own, and I am delighted once again to share here something he has sent out into the ether.

November 12, 2013

The searing honesty of "12 Years a Slave" makes it the most important movie I have ever seen. Based on the autobiography of an educated and cultured black husband and father who was kidnapped and sold into bondage in the 19th Century, it depicts the ugly heart of American history in a way that has not been shown in a major movie before.

Throughout the picture, I could not stop comparing it to its polar opposite, "Gone With the Wind," that piece of racist fiction that reinforced white supremacy for generations of 20th Century Americans.  GWTW defined chattel slavery as a meritocracy in which intelligent whites naturally ruled over simple-minded happy slaves incapable of fending for themselves.

With its superb acting, "12 Years a Slave" makes it clear that American slavery was simply an economic power relationship rooted in terrorism. Its horrors brought out the worst in the oppressors and made them incapable of recognizing the dignity of their victims.

In the scene that spoke the deepest truth to me, a docile young slave is viciously whipped because her male owner likes her too well and his wife hates her too much.  It reminded me of what my mother told me of when she was a little girl at the beginning of the 20th Century. Her grandmother would ask her each day to rub oil on her back. Mother said tears would run down her face as she ran her tiny fingers over the welts left by an enslavers lash. "I couldn't understand how anyone could do that to such a sweet and gentle person," mother said. 

It is important that popular history gives us the truth. Our understanding of the past tells us who we are. America would be a different place if the insights of the movie had been contained in public policy over the last century and a half. Or even if they were recognized today.

Actually, I never saw all of "Gone With the Wind." One of the great frustrations of my childhood was that almost everyone I knew had seen it, but somehow I had missed out. Even when it made the theater rounds again in my late teens, I was too busy to  get there. When it finally came on television decades later, I could only stomach first half and had no desire to torture myself further.

"12 Years a Slave" tells me why.

— Dick Peery

Director Steve McQueen
of Great Britain

The movie is directed by Steve McQueen. Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael K. Williams, Michael Fassbender headline an extraordinary cast that also includes Brad Pitt, Alfre Woodard, and Paul Giamatti.

 

Local movie venues for the film are the Cedar Lee Theatre, 2163 Lee Road in Cleveland Heights and Cinemark at Valley View, 6001 Canal Road in Valley View.