When jazz composer Wycliffe Gordon first saw “Within Our Gates,” a pioneering 1920 film by Black director Oscar Micheaux, he was startled at how familiar he found the nearly century-old tale of love, betrayal, and racial tension.
“The story takes place in rural Georgia, and that’s where I was born,” says Gordon, a renowned jazz trombonist, bandleader, and educator who was an original member of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra and is Director of Jazz Studies at Augusta University. “There were things I related to. It touched on subjects that were close to me. Even as a silent film, it addresses issues still prevalent today.”
Gordon responded with an original 78-minute live score for the film, “Within These Gates of Mine.” Premiered in 2011, it brings Micheaux’s silent film to new life with a rich panoply of jazz, blues, work songs, classical music, and improvisation that draws on Gordon’s deep musical and cultural background.
Now, Gordon’s powerful fusion of social history, drama, and music is coming to the Frost School of Music. On Thursday, November 21, Gordon will lead the Frost Studio Jazz Band in a performance of his score, accompanying a “Within Our Gates” screening at Gusman Concert Hall.
Professor Etienne Charles, who has a long relationship with Gordon, brought the project to the Frost School. They met in 2002 when Gordon was a guest artist at Florida State University, where Charles was a first-year music student. Gordon was subsequently one of Charles’s professors at the Juilliard School and hired the up-and-coming trumpeter for early gigs in New York. In 2016, Gordon booked Charles to play in the orchestra for a performance of “Within Our Gates” at the Savannah Music Festival.
“I thought it was an incredible movie, and his music with that film was an incredible concept,” says Charles. “The score speaks to the film and supports what’s going on in the film. Wycliffe is a great composer who knows how to channel the sound of the Black South and the sound of New York.”
Charles began working with Frost School Events staff on bringing “Within Our Gates” here about two years ago. The event is supported by a prestigious grant from the National Endowment for the Arts for Black and Hispanic concerts. It will be Windowcast, or screened for free, on the soaring exterior of the Knight Center for Music Innovation.
Gordon has had a long journey to “Within Our Gates.” It began when he was commissioned by Jazz at Lincoln Center to compose a score for another Micheaux film, “Body and Soul,” a 1925 movie that featured the debut of legendary Black actor and singer Paul Robeson. That project was presented at Avery Fisher Hall in collaboration with the New York Film Society in 2000.
“Body and Soul” led Gordon to Micheaux’s “Within Our Gates,” believed to be the oldest surviving film by a Black filmmaker, a historically significant film in the collection of the Library of Congress. As an author, director, and producer of over 44 films, Micheaux is regarded as the first major Black filmmaker. He was part of the Harlem Renaissance, a circle of Black artists and thinkers in the early 1900s in Harlem that included celebrated figures such as Langston Hughes, Robeson, and Duke Ellington. Micheaux’s films were groundbreaking in showing the complex reality of Black life, depicting their lives, including their struggles with racial injustice, with depth and sensitivity.
“Within Our Gates” centers on a young Black woman, Sylvia Landry, who works to save an impoverished Black school, pursue love, and confront betrayal and secrets in her past. The story includes references to mixed-race relationships, which were illegal at the time, and a hidden episode of shocking violence.
“It was really brave that Micheaux put that in a film in America,” says Gordon. “It was pretty astonishing.”
Gordon persuaded Harlem-based organization Jazzmobile to commission his score for “Within Our Gates,” which premiered in 2011. Since then, it has been presented at New York’s Symphony Space in 2013, in Savannah in 2016, and Augusta University in 2020, making the Frost School the fifth organization to present the work. It is one of multiple Gordon projects that meld music and Black cultural history.
Gordon’s score for “Within Our Gates” is an intricate musical and expressive tapestry that deepens and amplifies the story. The template is jazz, but he weaves in blues, gospel, work songs, and classical structures. Gambling scenes with villainous characters are matched by a theme in a minor key, while exchanges between brass and woodwind or brass and rhythm instruments echo conversations. Gordon has created space for improvisation, where the musicians react to what’s happening in the film.
All of this creates tremendous demands on the performers, who must read the score, follow a click track that keeps them in precise time with the action onscreen, and watch the film on monitors (crucial for the improvisational sections.)
Nineteen musicians from the Frost School’s Studio Jazz Band and a male and female vocalist from the contemporary program will perform. Gordon will join them on trombone, tuba, and vocals.
“It’s a big undertaking,” says Gordon, who sent the film in advance for students to practice with before arriving for several days of rehearsal and a masterclass the day before the show. “Normally I wouldn’t be able to do this with students. But the Frost School has the caliber of students to pull it off.”
Gordon learned to appreciate Frost School students’ abilities on previous visits. “They were prepared on every level,” he says. “They learn musicianship. If I said something about dynamics or articulation, I didn’t have to say it ten times; they nailed it the first time. Playing with them was like playing with pros.”
“Within Our Gates” will be performed at 7:30pm on Thursday, Nov. 21 at Gusman Concert Hall on the University of Miami Coral Gables campus. Tickets are $15 to $40 here.
“Within Our Gates” can also be enjoyed in a free, simultaneous Windowcast with HD audio and video at the Knight Center for Music Innovation. Attendees are encouraged to bring a picnic, blanket, or lawn chairs. A food truck will also be on site.
