The women of the all-female jazz band Straight Ahead have an impressive history of recording and touring the US and Europe while still maintaining strong ties in the greater Detroit community. Throughout its 25-year history, the core of the band has remained constant: pianist Alina Morr, bassist Marion Hayden and drummer Gayelynn McKinney.
The current touring edition also includes vocalist Kimberly Wright and for the first time outside of recordings, a male saxophonist, Yancyy. Hayden and McKinney are known throughout the Detroit music community and beyond as first-call players for any project involving modern jazz. Morr is sought after as a solo artist and brings to the table her expertise in and affection for Latin music as well as blues and gospel. Wright comes from an R&B and pop direction, having sung with Mary J. Blige and Kid Rock, and Yancyy represents a contemporary jazz and gospel perspective.
The band was founded in the late 1980s as Miche Braden and Straight Ahead, but then vocalist and actress Braden moved to New York, where she has enjoyed a theater and cabaret career (most recently in the American Repertory Theatre production of “The Tempest”), while staying in touch with her Detroit roots.
That first edition of Straight Ahead also included violinist Regina Carter and it was this quartet (without Braden) that was selected as Detroit’s musical exchange band to travel and appear as part of the 1990 Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland. The quartet then added vocalist Cynthia Dewberry, and was signed to make three albums for Atlantic Records.
Carter left for New York to pursue her international solo career after the second album, and the third featured a number of guest soloists such as guitarist Fareed Haque and alto saxophonist (and former Detroiter) Kenny Garrett.
Over the years a number of other talented musicians have toured with Straight Ahead, including vocalist Fatima, flutist Althea Rene (included in the group’s two independent CDs from 2003 and 2010), as well as violinist Karen Briggs and saxophonists Sabrina Lamar and Norma Jean Bell.
Most musical decisions are made by the core trio of Hayden, McKinney and Morr. Hayden handles booking and related matters. She learned music in Detroit Public Schools, starting with cello in the fouth grade at Birney Elementary School, near the Russell Woods neighborhood of her parents, Marion Ford Thomas and Herbert Hayden.
She recalls, “I was tall and I thought cello just looked and felt better than being scrunched up around a little violin. I would take that school cello home every day, in its canvas case. I loved the look of the wood and the sound of it. But as much as I loved the cello, I really wanted to play bass, because I had seen a brochure for Interlochen (arts camp in northern Michigan) with a picture of a whole line of bassists playing their instruments in front of a lake.”
She started bass in the 7th grade at Winterhalter school, then for 8th and 9th grades went to Miller Junior High, where Ernie Rodgers taught a combined wind and string ensemble. He would also bring in some jazzier material.
“Also around this time my parents bought me a bass, and I would listen to my parents’ jazz records and try to play along and copy what I heard Ray Brown or Paul Chambers playing.”
“I went to Cass Tech in 10th grade, where Marilyn Jones conducted the Madrigal Singers and taught music theory. She brought in jazz greats to do special workshops for us, which is how I met Marcus Belgrave. Then I went to Marcus’ summer program at Metro Arts Complex where I learned from (bassist) Ray McKinney, (saxophonist/composer) Wendell Harrison and Marcus. Some of my fellow students were trumpeter Rayse Biggs, saxophonist Vincent Bowens and pianist Kamau Kenyatta. Kamau became one of my closest musical friends. “
Her last two years were ay Henry Ford High School where Ben Pruitt was the band director. Now retired from DPS, Pruitt leads the Ben’s Friends big band. Hayden earned a degree in entomology from the University of Michigan and did grad work at Michigan State University, but through it all, kept playing and opportunities kept coming.
“Those gigs and rehearsals and jam sessions formed what I call the Community School of Music, and it was authentic, rigorous and intense. So my mentors in formal education had been Ernie Rodgers and Ben Pruitt, and my mentors in the community were people like Marcus Belgrave, Wendell Harrison, Donald Walden Kenn Cox, Roy Brooks, George (sax) Benson and especially Charles Boles, encouraging me, pushing me to learn a broad repertoire of jazz and standard tunes.
“I should also mention vocalists Naima Shambourger and Ursula Walker and her husband Buddy Budson, who hired and encouraged me, and the late Teddy Harris Jr. Teddy led the house band at Dummy George, a great club Richard Garrett had on West McNichols. With Teddy, I got to accompany Spanky Wilson, Arthur Prysock, Marlena Shaw, Terry Callier, Charles McPherson and others.”
Marion Hayden’s background in the Detroit musical community is broad and deep, and so are Gayelynn McKinney and Alina Morr’s. All three also have deep and wide influence in the contemporary musical life of the region, as well as on the upcoming generations.
These ties and influences will be spotlighted in the continuation of this feature in the coming weeks.
