May 4, 1974: Imani (Faith) with Ann Harris and Beverly Simms

 

An up-from-the-roots ensemble that provided a springboard for not one, but two jazz singers. 

May 4, 1974

From Community Choir to Commercial Band 

SETTING THE SCENE is one of those things Imani has held onto a sense of in their two-year evolution from community choir to commercially viable band.

          Even when it’s something like opening the show for the O’Jays in the steamy Buffalo State University College gym last weekend, they take the time to lay down a mood, coming on with a sweet, tantalizing stick of musical incense – the lazy, jazzy “Theme from M. A. S. H.” It hangs there in the air.

          “We want the people to be able to relax and feel good,” pianist and musical director Ann Harris was saying earlier in the week.

          “We try to set a pleasant tone ‘cause there’s so many unpleasant things happening every day. It’s not exactly a house party sort of setting. It’s kinda intimate.”

          Otherwise, there’s no specific plan for the O’Jays show. Ann Harris never writes down sets. Too inflexible. This’ll be just like other Imani gigs. Lay down a mood and see where you can take it.

          Obviously Imani isn’t going to take things too far too fast. The four singers come on for “Till You Come Back to Me (That’s What I’m Going to Do),” but slip into a background role, doing harmonies behind Ann, who does a neat job on the Aretha Franklin lyric.

          Vocals got a lot of attention as the group made its commercial transition. At Ann’s urging, all the singers are taking lessons.

“I’ve got to practice what I preach,” she says.

Ann, once a music major at UB, has been preaching ever since she organized the Imani Music Workshop in the Humboldt YMCA on East Ferry Street in 1971.

* * *

“I WASN’T doing it to get a group out of the thing,” she explains, “but that’s what happened. Music is my thing. I guess that’d be my life’s work.”

          The community choir’s theme was pride and self-awareness. It blazed with creativity. Poems were written. Songs were composed. But it had limitations.

          For one thing, all they were set up to do was special programs, which are a sometimes thing. It’s hard, Ann discovered, to build discipline and determination when you aren’t performing regularly.

          If the vitality of Imani (which means “faith” in Swahili) was to survive, the only thing to do was to get some instrumentalists, hit the clubs and aim for the top.

* * *

“SEEING AS the music industry is such a set kind of thing,” Ann says, “we learned we have to compromise a little. We lost some people and we gained some. We’re a unit now, a family, eight brothers and sisters getting’ together and doin’ our own thing.”

          The new Imani was baptized and sorted out at Maxl’s, that ancient watering spot at Main and Ferry.

          “We went through a lotta stuff at Maxl’s,” Ann remarks, “but it gave us confidence as a group.”

          The vocal unit was condensed to David Lang, Albert Garrison and Helen Sherrod (“I was studying to be a nurse,” she says. “Not any more.”). Beverly Simms, who wears large abstract earrings and wrote poetry for the community choir, came back not long ago as a singer.

          “Johnny Ray, what made you want to join our group?” drummer Arthur Johnson asks guitarist John Oliver.

          “I wanted to be doin’ somethin’ instead of James Brown all the time,” he answers from under his hat.

          “We’ve got like a spiritual type thing,” bass guitarist Allen Sims says, “’cause the music expresses our feelings.”

* * *

“I THINK part of being an artist as opposed to just being a musician is knowing how to be sensitive,” Ann says. “About yourself and other people. I think every one of these people is like that.”

          There’s no trace of James Brown in Imani’s Buffalo State set. Stevie Wonder instead. Black progressive. When the music hits that transcendent point, it’s usually Ann’s piano and Johnny Ray’s slick guitar taking it there.

          Generally the group only falters when their arrangements get too complex. For instance, in “I Believe (When I Fall in Love It Will be Forever),” the cascade of voices works well in the beginning, but the flow of the song is lost.

          Their straight commercial stuff has the most spark. Gladys Knight’s “Imagination” cooks. “Bennie and the Jets” ignites the crowd with those piano chords, but then is dragged out too far in extra choruses.

          Flaws like that which might be overlooked in a club setting are magnified on a concert stage. David Lang had talked earlier about needing more pizzazz.

* * *

“YOU KNOW, clothes, showmanship,” he says. “People pay attention to things like that. As soon as we get some money, I can assure you we will be definitely decked out.”

          All of them feel as if they’re on the brink of something big.

          “1974-75 is going to be our your to be movin’,” Ann says. “We’re not going to be here this time next year.”

          The first step, after they play an Erie Community College prom tonight at the Holiday Inn downtown, will be a trip to New York City to see if they can line up a producer and some recording sessions.

          “Last year,” Ann says, “we went to New York with a tape and got doors slammed in our faces and all kinds of good stuff like that.

* * *

“BUT THERE’S a good brother that I met. He’s been a producer for a while and he knows what it’s like to work from the bottom up. Hopefully by the end of the summer he can get us into the studio, ‘cause it’s gonna be ba-a-ad.

          “Now we have a direction to go in. A year ago we weren’t ready, but now we have confidence as a group and in ourselves personally.

          “Consciousness-raising. That’s what brought us together and that’s what’s gonna keep us together. We’ve got the same sort of ideas we had before. We’ve just learned how to express them in a more commercial way.”

* * * * *

IN THE PHOTO: Imani at Buffalo State, from left, Ann Harris, Beverly Simms, Helen Sherrod and Arthur Johnson. Rear, extra conga drummer Charles Perkins, David Lang, Allen Sims, Albert Garrison (kneeling) and John Oliver.

* * * * *

FOOTNOTE: Ann Harris has become Faith Harris and after Imani was over, she shared stages as a solo performer with a variety of high-profile jazz artists, from Pharaoh Saunders to Jack McDuff. Now in Atlanta, she has played jazz clubs and other venues. When she finally released her first CD in 2012, “The Time Is Right,” she followed it up with a club appearance here in 2013. Her second CD, “What Matters,” was released earlier this year. You can hear some of her music on her website – faithharrismusic.com.

          Beverly Simms has become Nas Afi. According to her LinkedIn page, she performed with the group Birthright from 1974 until 1992. Featured on these pages in August 1974, before she joined them, Birthright was one of the city’s top jazz groups, given a lineup that included such bright lights as saxophonist Joe Ford, drummer Nasara Abadey, guitarist Greg Millar and keyboardists Onaje Allen Gumbs and Tom Schuman. Beverly/Nas was with them for their second recording, “Breath of Life” in 1976, and got good reviews. She spent some of those Birthright years attending UB, getting a master’s degree in elementary education. Now based in Maryland, she’s been an organizational specialist with the National Education Association since 2003.

          I’m pretty sure Helen Sherrod became Helen Sherrod Bibb and, if so, she died in Vancouver, Wash., in 2019. One of her three daughters, Daynelle, started Helen Rose Skincare, an all-natural skin care products line named after her. According to an article on Black-owned businesses, Helen created a hair oil for Daynelle’s “waist-length, tightly coiled hair” when nothing else would work.

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FURTHER NOTE: All of these transcripts of old feature articles about the Buffalo music scene can be found in a somewhat more legible and searchable form on my Blogspot site: https://www.blogger.com/blog/posts/4731437129543258237.