Giant Steps Press December 2022 Newsletter

The GSP Newsletter   December 1st, 2022 | Issue 1 Dear Giant Steps Press Reader, My name is Chelsea Debarros and I have recently transitioned from intern to marketing director at Giant Steps Press. I am excited to share with you our first quarterly newsletter which includes:  Titles Coming in 2023 The GSP Holiday Book Guide The Dual Internship Program  Recently Published at the Press Rocking Until We Drop! by John Rullo Review of William Seaton’s Planetary Motions  For the last year, Giant Steps Press has been working with authors and interns to update our website and increase our engagement with you and the writing community. While there is more to come, we want to spotlight our About page where we expand on our mission and vision for the future. As an indie press, Giant Steps Press is committed to establishing an environment that embraces equity, diversity, and inclusion. We work together to actively tear down racism, sexism, and economic inequalities in the art we make, and the communities we work with. To learn more about the press, our authors and their projects click here. If you would like to join our team, or would like to publish a book please reach out to us via our contact page. We are happy to announce that we have expanded as a new member of the Incubation Program at Common Tone Arts, a 501[3][c] non-profit organization, whose mission is to transform lives through artistic creation and education. Click here to learn more about Common Tone Arts.  Have a wonderful holiday and an upcoming New Year. Stay connected with us on Facebook and LinkedIn for alerts on newly released books, author events, and job openings.   Please feel free to share this newsletter.  Best Regards, Chelsea Debarros Marketing Director chelseadebarros@gmail.com Titles Coming in 2023 Warren Smith's Crossing Borders and Playing with Pioneers: My Life in Music  GSP author Warren Smith is a Jazz drummer, conservatory trained percussionist, founding member of the percussion ensemble M'Boom, composer, bandleader, Loft Era proprietor of Studio WIS and among the first generation of Jazz educators at the University level.  Bill Stepheny, music producer and Public Enemy executive member states "Throughout the history of civilization, the drum has served as a vital form of human communication. In traditional West African cultures, those so expert in the craft of speaking and motivating through percussion are bestowed with the title of "Master Drummer." Warren Smith is a Master Drummer inaddition to being a musician of prodigious versatillitv, in collaboration with Max Roach and their groundbreaking ensemble, M' Boom, as a session laver or pit drummer for Broadway shows, Smith is a highly respected educator who has taught the essence of music history by being the essence of music history. When you hear the polyrhythms of contemporary jazz or the syncopated funk breakbeats that became the sonic foundation for Hip Hop, you're hearing the influences of the legendary Warren Smith. Click Here to Learn More About Warren Smith Click Here to Read Smith's Post's on the GSP Blog Steve Hirsch's Demon Commuter: And Other Poems  Stay tuned for the debut of Steven Hirsch's Demon Commuter: And Other Poems. Click Here to Learn More About Steven Hirsch Kirpal Gordon's East River Fall Concerto  Kirpal Gordon's East River Fall Concerto will be serialized at the Giant Steps Press blog one chapter at a time with a featured photo every Friday starting 12/2/2022. Click Here to Learn More About Kirpal Gordon Click Here to Read Gordon's Post's on the GSP Blog The Ultimate Holiday Book Guide For those folks on your holiday gift list who read, we have suggestions. For lovers of poetry, we recommend Treasures for Heaven, Lyrical Miracle and Planetary Motions. For Beat Generation fans, we recommend The Correspondence of David Cope and Allen Ginsburg. For lovers of jazz and sci-fi, we recommend Go Ride the Music, Round Earth Open Sky and Through the Membrane. For an adventure in Hollywood, we recommendThe Three Extras and for lovers of New York City, we recommend New York at Twilight. Click Here to dive into the world of GSP books.    Dual Internship Program GSP Interns Chelsea and Helen Giant Steps Press is elated to offer the the Dual Internship Program. This program is offered to college students and recent graduates who are passionate about making positive impacts in their communities. During this one of a kind dual internship, interns are given the opportunity to write their own book or develop a project under the guidance of our editors, while also getting paid to assist the Giant Steps Press team in book design, digital publishing, public relations and social media. After an incubation period, Giant Steps interns choose an area they want to focus in learning more about and will map out with the team a series of learn-by-doing assignments for the press. Working with our teams, authors and other interns, creates a well rounded experience as Giant Steps interns grow an esprit de corps and increase their acuity at time management, problem solving and communicating with people from different generations, backgrounds and ethnicities.  Please note the program is completely virtual and interns have the opportunity to grow within the company. Here are some of our current interns who are success stories:  1) Chelsea Debarros is making an impact in the Guyanese American community as an author with her in-progress non-fiction book Backtrack Journeys: Life of the Undocumented in Little Guyana. Her goal with her first publication is to share the American identity of the undocumented Guyanese in Little Guyana and empower young people to be their authentic selves and embrace all of the parts that construct their identity. To learn more about her project click here.  Click Here to view Chelsea's latest interview in her Women in Writing Series with Mary Louise Kiernan, the author of The Gift of Glossophobia.  Click Here to read Chelsea's interview Unacceptable Rules Made to Be Broken with author Jim Cohn on the GSP blog.   2) Helen Izbor is of Ukrainian and Polish-Romanian heritage but born in Moscow, Russia, and has spent the last five years in New York studying Political Science and Criminal Justice at Hofstra University. She is currently writing Russia’s Post-Imperial Trauma: What Putin Learned from Hitler.  Click Here to read Helen's latest post at the GSP blog Putin Robbed Russians of $1 Trillion. Click Here to read Helen's latest post at the GSP blog Viewing Russia and Turkey through the Lens of Post-Imperial Trauma.  3) Emily Rivera joined Giant Step Press as an intern in January of 2020 at the start of her final two semesters of undergraduate study. Bringing her skills in public relations, her major, and in photography, her minor, she began to build her career. Since taking a full-time position for a marketing firm as a premium content specialist where she earned a promotion, she now volunteers her services consulting on media. Click here to connect with Emily on LinkedIn. Click Here to read Emily's Interview with Kirpal Gordon on his book Lyrical Miracle.  For inquiries on our internship program, or if you would like join the team as an intern, please reach out to Chelsea Debarros (chelseadebarros@gmail.com) and monitor our LinkedIn page for job openings.    Recently Published Jim Cohn's Treasures for Heaven: Collected Poems 1976-2021 Buy Now In author, poet, and spoken word activist, Jim Cohn's Treasures for Heaven: Collected Poems 1976-2021, his poetry reflects a unique compendium of lineages: Black Mountian, Beat Generation, New York School, Black Arts, Feminist Poetry Movement, Environmental Jusitce poets, and countercultural luminaries which he identified with since his days as a student at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics.    Mary Louise Kieran's The Gift of Glossophobia  Buy Now Giant Steps Press has founded the Women in Writing series where woman authors, writers, and poets are featured.  In the first video episode of the series, Giant Steps Press features Mary Louise Kiernan, the author of her new poetry collection The Gift of Glossophobia. In Part one of Mary Louise's interview, she speaks with GSP intern and host Chelsea Debarros about her journey as a writer and how she turned glossophobia into a gift. Click Here to watch the episode. To be featured in the Women in Writing series click here to get in touch with the GSP team.   William Seaton interviews Jim Cohn in Poetry Is My Instrument: A Discussion of "Treasures for Heaven: Collected Poems 1976-2021"   Click Here to Read Rocking Until We Drop! John Rullo playing in his band The Cocktails during the Covid-19 Pandemic.  It was a given that during the fifteen years The Cocktails had been together as a band, we would have a gig on the weekends somewhere. We were booked to play at a private party on March 14, 2020, just a few days after a pandemic was declared in the US. It was a strange night watching those who attended keeping a distance, tapping fists, and bumping elbows. There was no hugging, kissing, or shaking hands. It was the last time we played as a band for almost two years.  Just a month later, we got word that our booking agent died in a hospital while on a ventilator. Not long after, the news would periodically leak out about some fellow musicians getting seriously sick from this new frightening disease. Sadly, a few had the same fate as our agent.  Although the pandemic was inspirational for me, as I continually wrote new songs, I wondered if the band was ever going to play again as clubs were closing and the demand for live music had vanished. But then the vaccine came along, and even though we were first reluctant to comply, we knew if we wanted to perform in public places again, we had no choice.  Slowly but surely, things returned to semi-normal. On Thanksgiving Eve, 2021 we played at one of our regular venues only to learn that a couple of days later the gig turned out to be a super spreader. Someone in the crowd must have been infected and in turn infected 75 percent of those in attendance. Thankfully, however, everyone fully recovered, and nobody died. We felt terrible about it since most came to see and listen to us.  We have been gigging regularly again, but those two years made us aware that at anytime, anywhere, anything can happen. We know not to take things for granted and will probably keep rocking until we drop!   - John Rullo Review of William Seaton's Planetary Motions William Seaton's Planetary Motions  William Seaton's October 2020 release Planetary Motions is a collection of poems that provides readers the ability to explore the wonders of the world despite the frustrating human inability to fully comprehend it.  Karen Corinne, an author with poetry publications in American Book Review, Compulsive Reader and North of Oxford reviewed Seaton's Planetary Motions on book and poetry review site Compulsive Reader. Corrine's review breaks down her interpretation of highlighted poems such as On Ganges Shore and reflects on Seaton's citizen of the world perspective.   Click Here to Read Karen Corinne's Review Click Here to Buy Planetary Motions HAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM THE  GIANT STEPS FAMILY!

BLM/Independence Day: Drummer Warren Smith Reflects on Growing up on Chicago's South Side in the 1930s

KIRPAL GORDON: I had a peek at the memoir you are writing on your life in music. On Independence Day during this national moment of Black Lives Mattering, would you share some of your experiences coming up in Chicago?

WARREN SMITH: At the time of my birth (5/14/1934), Black people lived south of 12^th Street. Chicago was fast, hip, intense---whatever was in style at the time. There was music, dance, theater, opera, night clubs, blues joints, jam sessions. Prohibition had just been rescinded, and now marijuana was illegal. I remember my father, a musician, putting on his tuxedo and tying his bow tie to go to work at the establishment whatever it was (sometimes the establishment was run by gangsters like Al Capone). Here it was right after the Depression, and everyone dressed up formally to go to work. It never occurred to me at that time to ask, who covered the costs of all that production?

We lived south of the Loop between 12^th Street and 31^st Street next to the Lakefront. The real estate phenomena that continually occurred when Black residents moved across that line resulted in their getting harassed and/or vandalized initially. Then there would be a “White Flight” as the Caucasian residents moved further south to avoid integrating with Black folks. The family rumor has it that our Uncle Steele and Uncle Lloyd had bought a house on 37^th Street and Ellis Avenue, in which several of our families were living along with our paternal grandfather, James Madison Smith. Someone set off a bomb in front of the house and blew out most of the windows. My younger brother Frank and I were untouched, but there was glass embedded in the wall above our crib. Our grandfather died not long after, certainly not helped by the experience. Other cousins and friends had similar experiences as we gradually expanded further south, but eventually the violence stopped, at least the physical violence. Until I left for New York in 1957, not much had changed. But things are quite different now for our next generation of cousins, at least geographically, as far as I know. I don’t live there anymore; I’m going on hearsay.

The important point I want to make is that this segregated segment of Chicago society felt completely empowered and pretty much self-sufficient. We had our own school system with Black superintendents, principals and associate principals. For context, let me add that I started teaching in “integrated” New York City in 1958. They got their first Black principal in 1966.

We had our own Musicians Union, with its own Credit Union. The first building it owned was on State Street at 40^th Street. When urban renewal caused that whole neighborhood to be raised, the Union bought another on Cottage Grove and 61^st Street. And they owned an apartment on Drexel Blvd in Hyde Park which afforded many of its members an affordable home during trying times. Many of these resources were lost to us when the AF of M integrated Local 208 with the White Union Local 10 becoming the present Local 10-208. Chicago’s South Side, however, has retained its power as a thriving black community. And it was so much that way during my youth that I almost never ventured outside of it except to go to school. I joined the Musicians Union at the age of 14 and got my driver’s license as well. I didn’t realize there was a Local 10 until I was 21. I was playing music in church, in social affairs, in parades and summer concert bands. 

KIRPAL GORDON: You also lived in Maywood? How did that move come about?

WARREN SMITH: Moms did not like the environment around A.O. Sexton Grade School, so in my second year my brother Frank and I transferred to Washington Grade School in the mostly Black school in District 89, Maywood, Illinois, where my maternal grandparents lived, some twenty miles due west of the Loop. Chicago’s South Side was completely urban and paved with asphalt, but Maywood had cobblestone streets.  We lived in a big two-story house with a basement, large side yard and a back yard that featured a vegetable garden cultivated mostly by my father, produce we ate daily. There were cherry trees, a rhubarb bush, currants and my grandfather’s herb garden with mint and other medicinal plants. We had a well from which we drew water daily and a rain barrel for utilitarian purposes. We raised chickens.

Maywood was just west of Oak Park/River Forest, a rather affluent area with many Frank Lloyd Wright Prairie houses in the residential neighborhoods. Maywood went from 1^st Avenue in the east to 26^th Avenue in the west and from St. Charles Road on the north to Madison Avenue on the south. All the Black people in the town lived between 10^th and 14th Avenues. One wealthy businessman owned a nice home on the corner of 15^th and Oak Street. The renowned scientist Dr. Percy Julian lived on the corner of 14^th and Oak. A few years later Dr. Julian had the temerity to move to Oak Park itself, and of course his house got bombed in true Chicago style.

Now here’s where fate gets tricky. During the Second World War the common thread of thought was that Black men weren’t courageous enough to go into serious battle with the “enemy.” So all the Black soldiers from Maywood were sent out as orderlies, cooks and other non-combat duties. A battalion of soldiers containing all the White enlistees from Maywood was sent to the Pacific where they were wiped out by Japanese forces in the battle of Bataan. There was a Hollywood movie, starring John Wayne, made years later by that name. All the Black soldiers came back from the war and the town turned BLACK within that generation.

When we started school in Maywood, during the first week we had to fight our way back to our grandparents’ house every day after school, until the neighborhood kids got to know we were “Mr. Derrick’s grandkids.” Then we began to make friends that lasted for a lifetime. And we had lots of cousins from my mother’s side of the family. We all went through grade school together and high school as well. Most of our parents also had attended the same school before us.  

KIRPAL GORDON: Would you take a chorus on your family’s “pilgrimages” to North Carolina?

WARREN SMITH: Yes, but first here's the background: My mother had an older sister and a younger brother; my father had ten siblings. I never saw them all, but the ones present in my life were very influential. All my role models were organically related to me. I grew up with my younger brother and more than a dozen first, second or third cousins. They were all like brothers and sisters. We lived together, often ate together, slept together and frequently traveled together from Chicago to North Carolina to visit the Smith family homestead. I guess that was James Madison Smiths’ 40 Acres, and there was a mule involved also. In North Carolina we also raised pigs and grew peanuts. We could walk down the red dirt road in the morning and pick wild berries and fruit from the trees and bushes for our breakfast. Sometimes my brother, my cousin Ethan and I would bring back enough blue berries for our aunts to make a couple of pies. We’d go fishing and cook outside in a big kettle over an open fire. Both sides of the family preserved canned fruit and vegetables for the winter. We made wine from fruit or even dandelion flowers! We cooked the dandelion leaves as greens or used them in salads. Very little was wasted in those days.

The trips to North Carolina took several days. We would leave Chicago with enough food to last us until we got to Washington D.C. In the 1930s and 40s we didn’t know where we might or might not get served or abused so we drove straight through to where we knew it was safe. In D.C. we had relatives. We’d spend the night, re-supply our food bank and drive the last five or six hours to the homestead. After a week or two we would all pile back into the two or three car caravan and travel back to Chicago the same way. We did this annually until our grandmother died at 103. Now we occasionally return for periodic reunions or meet at some other hosting location every few years. Somehow the tradition is still intact.

KIRPAL GORDON: You were born into quite a musical family. What was that like?

WARREN SMITH: My dad played saxophone and clarinet; my mother played piano and harp. Literally every one of our aunts and uncles were musicians and were always preparing to perform somewhere. Often even as infants we went along with them, to drop them off or pick them up and sometimes even allowed to come inside and see what was going on. This was live theater with full orchestras, dancers, singers and stage lighting. You can’t imagine how early this captured my imagination. I had decided to be a professional musician by the time I was three!

One of the most exciting times was when one of the bands was getting ready to go on the road. Maybe they had a three-week engagement in Detroit or six weeks in Buffalo. The morning of their departure, women would be cooking and preparing bags of food. There would be three or four cars lined up at the curb, all being cleaned and simonized, the white walled tires painted with white wash, a water-based paint. Then the musicians would appear, each one dressed stylishly and sharper than the last. Finally, after all the loved ones got their hugs and kisses and the food bags were distributed in all the cars, the motors would start up and they’d be off to cheers from the crowd. Boy, how the young kids longed to go with them. We couldn’t wait for them to come home and tell all the funny stories and strange adventures they had experienced.

Every once in a while, one of our special talents would get the opportunity to go to New York City, Harlem. Almost all the aspiring musicians from Chicago wanted to follow the footsteps of their musical idols to the Big Apple. As Black kids our idols were entertainers, the few professional athletes who managed to break through like Jack Johnson Joe Lewis or “Sugar Ray” Robinson, and the doctors, lawyers, and educators from our neighborhoods. Our families probably had a lot more power and influence over their lives than we do now. We certainly didn’t have as much then, but it wasn’t necessary either.

I started trying to play my Dad’s saxophone at around four. In a couple of years I could play what I could think of (not much) by ear. Being precocious, actually arrogant, I thought I knew more than I actually did. I began to tinker around with the piano, by ear. My mother and no fewer than three aunts had degrees in piano and organ, but I never thought to consult them at all. I just did it by ear and my folks were wise enough to let me find my own way. Then one day at about six I went into a ballroom called the “Rum Boogie” with my mother and brother to pick up my dad from his gig. The ballroom was on the second floor. When we entered, I immediately saw in the corner of the stage a scene that changed my life. There was the drummer and he had a set of flashing lights inside his bass drum! I immediately decided to become a drummer right then.

Times were quite different then. I remember that there was a place called “Bacon’s Casino” on Wabash Avenue. It was a Quonset hut structure, that is, a long tent with a curved roof and flat sides. On many Sundays they would have jam sessions at this place in the afternoons after church and the kids could come and hear the music. Naturally the Smith clan was usually in full attendance. We heard all the cats that were in town at the time or passing through. Roy Eldridge or Coleman Hawkins or whoever, they would make that session on Sundays and we would be there listening.

My first gigs as a drummer were at the Elks social club, with my father. Actually, my very first gig also included a young baritone player named Laurdine Patrick. Everyone called him Pat. He went on to play many years with Sun Ra, touring and traveling across the world. Pat was also on the faculty of SUNY Old Westbury for many years. His son Deval Patrick is the former governor of Massachusetts. I continued drumming during my teen years and playing in the marching and concert bands in high hchool. After my freshman year I stopped taking weekly lessons from my most significant teacher, Oliver S. Coleman, because of the commute to Maywood, an expanding social life, athletics (I started running distances around 8^th grade) and just being a teenager; I grew away from music for probably the only time in my life. I still played in the school bands and did gigs with my father and cousins, but I stopped taking lessons. I also developed a greater interest in architecture, through my friend Joe Black, one of my high school teachers at Proviso, and my dad making me aware of Frank Lloyd Wright and the Bauhaus gang with their glass and steel buildings in Chicago. One of the things that kept me connected with music was the opportunity to perform with Capt. Walter Henry Dyett and his summer concert band. in Washington Park. I would go to DuSable High School every year to see the legendary “High Jinks” show the students put on with live music. My older cousin Eddie played in the sax section with Johnny Griffin, who was also a student of my father.

I mustn’t forget to mention the constant reinforcement I received within my social environment. When we had a social occasion, there was never a question about who would entertain us. We provided our own music for all occasions almost spontaneously. My maternal grandmother’s genesis came about as the result of my African great-grandmother, Nora Sellers, being raped by a white Doctor of Music, Dr. Foxx, who fathered a famous baseball player, Jimmy Foxx. However this worked, my grandmother had 11 children. All of them were thoroughly educated in music. And this musical tradition has continued through another three generations and counting.

KIRPAL GORDON: You were exposed to European classical music as well?

WARREN SMITH: From my family and my studies in school. I managed to get into the District 89 School Band, the only black musician in the band at that time. As a result of this experience, I was immediately accepted into the Proviso Township High School Concert Band. It proved a quantum leap in my exposure as the director, J. Irving Talmadge, was a big fan of Richard Wagner. So I leaned about everything from the “Ring of the Nebilungen” to “Taunhauser Overture.”

I spent four years in the high school marching band (which I abhorred except for the football games). Then at the University of Illinois I spent another four (out of five) years marching with the ”Marching Illini.” The pattern was interrupted in my fourth year when composer Harry Partch did a year’s residency. I quit the band to play tympani in the university’s symphony orchestra. All my extra non-class time was spent in Harry Partch’s ensemble. The previous summer I had received a scholarship to Tanglewood, the summer camp of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. I studied with retiring Roman Shultz and the incoming tympanist, Everitt “Vic” Firth, as well as Harold Faberman, on snare drum techniques.

It was on my summer in Tanglewood that I realized how strong my cultural attachment was to my upbringing in Chicago’s South Side. I borrowed the car of my friend and fellow Illini, Harold Jones, to go into Pittsfield and get a haircut. As I drove, I turned on the radio of the car, and the first thing that came out was the blues! I, in my early arrogance, had lost respect for the form because I had not yet been exposed to its more intricate forms and variations. But the power and familiarity of what I heard changed my opinion of the form forever. I got so homesick I never forgot it. And the next time I got back to Chicago I started hanging out at all the old blues clubs and learning a lot more.

It’s been that way for me ever since.