in a jacket, I lost my yellow basket.
Mute Theater, the Black Academy of Arts and Letters.
We're here tonight for fun and excitement.
Do you agree?
Oh, yeah.
I hope you came with that mindset,
because that's what we're here for.
Tonight, we introduce to the Dallas community,
as he premieres his new CD, Mr. Steven Meeks.
He's not new to many of us, because we
know him as a teacher, a composer, and an artist.
We will give him a grand introduction a little
bit later.
But right now, I would like to introduce
to you our official hosts for tonight's venue.
They're from Omega Psi Phi fraternity, Theta
Alpha chapter.
Representing that organization is the vassalist,
Mr. Clarence Moore, and the two co-chairs
of the Economic Development Committee, Earl Johnson
and Ron Patterson.
Will you join me, please?
Now, because we know they'll make us a party, people,
is that the best you can do? Yeah.
Thank you.
I certainly wasn't expecting this.
And the brothers was begging me to come up.
And I said, no, no, no, I don't want to do this.
I don't want to steal any thunder from these
two brothers here.
And it's with just, I mean, we're just really excited,
really elated about being here this evening.
And both Ron Patterson and brother Earl Johnson,
being our economic development co-chairs,
put this together for us.
And we're just excited about being here
and being a part of the Black Academy of Arts
and Letters
on Sid, Jr. And we're looking forward
to bigger and better things as we progress
through the year
and expand on this relationship with the organization.
So we're excited about being here,
looking forward to this event this evening.
Thank you.
Thank you, everybody.
I'm sure they're going to come back a little
bit later.
They're still thin.
They might want to come back and stop.
That's all right.
By the way, if you decide you want to party and dance,
feel free to move the table back.
If your maidens decide they want to shuffle a
little bit,
just come on up on the front.
We'll come and start.
We're going to have a good time.
The next person you will meet is the mastermind
behind the Black Academy of Arts and Letters.
He's the founder and the president.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the stage, Mr.
Curtis King.
Thank you.
Thank you, Sir.
I'm about to fall.
I guess I have to suit my own little
organization, right?
Good evening!
Good evening.
We have a name in the Muse Cafe theater.
the person's name is called, that's right. So
whenever you want somebody to support the
arts, and they say, oh, I really love your
organization, but they didn't show up for
jazz, blues, gospel plays, or whatever, and you
say, oh, you should have gone to that.
Yeah, I should have gone to that, but I didn't
go, but that's right. Isn't that right? Come
on. Y'all don't even understand that. The black
folks understand that's right. Oh, I'm
just going to go on my back, that's all they're
paying me to do there. Isn't that right? Y'all
don't understand that, right? Oh, you got it.
First of all, before you leave here, I
know you're not a member of the organization.
But before you leave, you will be a member,
right? Okay, good. Now, we accept Visa,
MasterCard, Bank of America, American Express,
cash, and
postage checks. Postage checks, that word.
Again, we are so excited. About two weeks
ago, Kim Jordan was on this stage, and she left
a spirit in here like you would not believe.
And we're so excited to have another great jazz
artist here. And if you've not bought
the CD, you must buy the CD. That's right. Some
of them say that's right. Y'all. But
this brother, he's been out there a long time.
I've known Steve, actually, ever since I've
been in Texas. I met him right after I got out
of grad school at TCE in 19 and something.
19 something. So you don't know my age. But
will you please put your hands together and
help us to welcome to the stage a wonderful
artist. All this is original stuff. His brother
is brilliant. And it's just so wonderful to
have you here to be able to support the arts,
support the organization, and more
specifically, to support the artist. So give it
a Dallas
welcome to the stage, Steven Meeks. That's
right. He's paying me to do this. Oh, before
you do that, do y'all have a drink? Okay, but
don't make that right. You can get up
any time with your drink. Okay, now put your
hands together and bring on a great
Dallas artist to the Muse Cafe theater stage,
Mr. Steven Meeks. That's right. I don't think
I'll need this, but I'll use it. I certainly
appreciate everyone for coming out and supporting
the music tonight. Of course, yes, I do write
the music, but without the musicians, there
would be no music. So I'm very appreciative of
their lending their support to portray
what I do when I write music. I'd like to go on
and bring them out. They can go on and
come out, and we're going to get started. This
is somewhat a result of a project that
I've been working on for quite a while. Over
the last quite a few years, numerous friends
of mine have always been on me to buy an album
or CD. They've always had concern that they've
never been able to listen to what I do at home.
So this is a result of that. We recorded
in January. It was pretty much a different band
from tonight. I think on the flyer that
was passed out, it named some of the musicians,
and a little later on I would name the musicians
that are on the recording. But nonetheless,
we're going to go on and get started with
what we have here. Our first song is entitled
Emerge. I think I wrote the song, let's see,
probably about 1988 or so, and I look at the
song as somewhat of a metamorphosis, emerging
from something into something else. So that's
our first song tonight, Emerge. Thank you.
Let's go.
I'll be right back.
Thank you so much.
That was entitled Emerged.
The next song we're going to do is entitled Road.
And my mother's name was Rosalee.
She was from Waxahachie.
And not Waxahachie, but Waxahachie.
Waxahachie, but it's Waxahachie.
So my mom's nickname has been Rose for many years.
And I wrote this, oh, I think about, gosh, I'm
not sure.
It says on the CD, but I think it's been about
nine years
or so since I wrote this.
It's entitled Road, and here we go.
I'll be right back.
Thank you.
Let's see.
I'll introduce some of the members here.
We have Quamon Fowler, 18 years old.
I believe Quamon is a student at Weatherford.
He actually participated in the NAACP Axels competition.
What did you win?
I won first place in Instrumental Contemporary.
First place in Instrumental Contemporary.
Was that on a national basis? Yes.
Next right next to him, we have Ron Roberts.
I think he's on staff at North Texas.
Right, right.
He's just with us today.
Actually, the two musicians here, this is the
first time that this particular set of
musicians has come together to do a concert.
As many of you may know, Tom Braxton, Shelley
Carroll, and Marshall Ivory, and Ira Bassett
were on they are on the album.
And they cannot be here tonight because of
prior engagements.
We had to change the date, so they're not here.
So they do fly a plane on the release.
Over here, right here, the percussionist is
Lynn Barnett.
Lynn has been with me many times.
Without the color of what Lynn adds, and Rob
Davidson, that's also doing percussion over
here, a lot of the sound would just not be here.
And behind me is someone I've been associated
with for quite a few years now, George Florence
on piano that I have to say is one of the
finest composers that I know.
He does some really good music in there.
George has a group called G-Pop, and George's
music is really awesome.
And I really hope that everyone here eventually
will get a chance to hear George's music.
George and I are like this, we click really
well when we do music.
In back of George is James Gilbert on the
acoustic bass.
James is on the release also, and we also have
an electric bass player by the name of Chuck
Smith that is on the release.
He's not here with us tonight, so we're just
going to be listening to the sound of James.
And also James has two or three albums that are released.
Yeah, three.
Does that include the one that's just out?
Okay, yeah.
He just finished an album, and it's not quite
ready, but we have two or three out on the table?
Yeah, we have a few on the table of James's.
James has a really nice band, a really good band.
Okay, so on that particular release of James's
is the poetry read by Ron Davison, the percussionist.
It's his own poetry, and that's a little change
for a music album to have poetry on it.
But Ron has some really nice work, really nice poetry.
Kind of in back of Ron is Alan Green on drums,
cat drums.
Alan has played with us many numerous times
over the years.
He is on the album also.
So let's see, did I get everyone?
I will mention that one of our key players, Jay
Garrett, who is a student at North Texas State University,
called me yesterday, and he was very ill, so he
could not make it here today.
And then I talked to his family today, and they
had to rush him to the hospital to emergency.
So that's who is missing is Jay, and Jay is a
really fine player.
He's also playing on the album.
And this whole thing of vibes and that whole
vibraphone sound adds another dimension to the music.
I started writing music in high school, and
have been writing it since then.
And so that's what you're hearing tonight, all
music that came through me from some source
over the past 20 years or so.
We're going to move right ahead.
A lot of the tunes I wrote, I write them for someone.
This next song is a tune entitled Thing for Khalil.
Now, Khalil is my play son.
When I first saw Khalil, he must have been
about three, and I immediately said,
that's my son right there, that's my little boy.
So I kind of adopted him as a play son, a
little brother over the years.
And I'm taking places every now and then, and
when people see him with me,
even people that have known me for a long time,
they ask me, is that my son?
Most people know I have one daughter, so he's
only my play son.
So we're going to go on and go ahead with Thing
for Khalil.
Thank you.
Thank you . so much.
I have a 16-year-old daughter that's almost 17.
She made the comment, why don't you write these
things fast?
You write all that slow stuff all the time.
You need to write something up-tempo.
I like that up-tempo jazz.
So, I mean, that's her.
But I do like ballads.
Ballads are so beautiful.
The next tune is entitled Up Lately.
And it says I wrote it here in 91, March of 91.
And I don't remember writing it exactly at that
time, but I did.
And this particular tune I wrote for my dad.
And my dad is a man that is very laid back.
We talk on the phone maybe about two or three minutes,
no matter who it is, and then he'll get off.
He's like that with me.
He does not talk on the phone.
He says hi, bye.
You know, he's very hard to hold a conversation
with my dad.
My mom on the opposite was just different.
She would stop the garbage man, the postman, everybody,
and start a conversation.
So that's how my mom was.
Anyway, this is Up Lately written for my father.