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Frank Adams was six years old when he first entered Lincoln Elementary School in 1934.   A decade and a half later-- fresh from a gig with the Duke Ellington Orchestra—he returned to the school as a music instructor.  He imagined the position was a temporary gig, but he would stay at Lincoln for 27 years, ultimately becoming music director for all of Birmingham City Schools.  Today he continues to work as an educator, offering music lessons to new generations of students.  He is also passionate about educating the community about Birmingham’s unique jazz legacy.
In 1978, Dr. Adams was one of the first inductees to the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame.  He has since served as the Hall of Fame’s Executive Director, and is currently its Director of Education, Professor Emeritus.  He remains an active part of the Hall of Fame’s educational and cultural programs.
It is fitting that Adams’ life would be devoted in equal parts to jazz and education.  The history of Birmingham jazz is bound inextricably with education in the city’s historically black schools.  The most influential figure in shaping Birmingham’s jazz community was the printing and music teacher at Industrial High School (later Parker High School), John T. “ Fess” Whatley, whose program turned out a long run of professional musicians.  Many of Whatley’s former students—among them Erskine Hawkins, Paul and Dud Bascomb,  Amos Gordon, and Teddy Hill —became successful jazz players across the country; others—Wilson Driver, Ike Williams, Melvin Caswell,  John McAfee—stayed  in or returned to Birmingham to teach music in local schools, influencing still more generations of Birmingham players.   Birmingham’s jazz community grew from a rich culture of education and apprenticeship, a culture rooted squarely in the schools.
In the decades before integration, Adams remembers, there was a “spirit of excellence” in Birmingham’s African American schools: a spirit, a sense of community, and a level of achievement too often overlooked in our historical memory.  In no arena was this commitment to excellence more evident than in the field of music.

You have to understand: Industrial High School was started around 1900, and it was a school where industrial arts were taught, such as sewing, cooking, and woodworking, and then band—which was not an industrial discipline, but it was taken and taught in that manner.  Of course, they had more conventional courses like social studies and that kind of thing, which were all taught in the main building.  All the industrial work was done in two separate buildings, one for girls and one for boys. 

The school was based on the philosophy that you had to do things with your hands: it wasn’t preparing you to be a lawyer or a doctor, but just preparing you to do practical things.  I guess it followed the theory of Booker T. Washington, that felt that you should do those kinds of things and then develop into the other more scholarly areas.  It was not like you were being prepared for college; you were being prepared to go out and work after the four years of industrial training.  And it was known all over the world for its curriculum.Music was just as important as history—because, they said, this may be your life!

The curriculum had basic subjects—reading and writing and arithmetic and history—but the other part of the curriculum would be: band, every day; or workshop, every day; or cooking, sewing, every day.  It wasn’t a thing where you had a schedule that you went to this person for this every other day, maybe once a week.  Those things that we call “frill” courses were major courses.  When you got to the high school and you took music, it wasn’t just playing in the band: they were teaching a vocation in that study.  Music was just as important as history—because, they said, this may be your life!  You don’t have a chance to be a doctor or a lawyer.  You might get to be a schoolteacher—that was a high place in the professions, you see—and then, if you didn’t do that, you had your band; you had your music to survive on. 

So this music thing was really serious business.  In the school system, so far as music was concerned, segregation actually worked to our advantage, because the black schools had more time on task.  We had to do it perfectly, because if Fess Whatley assigned you to the auditorium period—they had auditorium period every day—and you were in charge of the band, you were a professional musician.  Listen: you went to the regular class; you went to the band practice, that was scheduled during the day; and if you were directing something, you did that for an hour a day.  So you spent three and a half hours working on your craft: your music.  Then if you had a football game, you’d be there after school!  That’s ridiculous, that’s too much time on it, but it was what they wanted to do with you.  If you flunk music, that was just like flunking English, you know what I mean?  It would be worse, because this was what you were going to make your living off. 

That’s the difference with an industrial high school, you see.  People look and it and say, “This is out of balance.”  But it’s not out of balance when you’re looking at the end result.  If you want a plumber, everything else is nice, too, but you concentrate on his plumbing. 

Those were times when certain people would say, “Well, my goodness.  I’m going down in the mines and digging coal, and this guy’s going to New York City—playing a doggone horn!”  You understand?  And when parents saw that, they said, “Uh-huh: my child is gifted.”  Gifted for what?  “Gifted for what he’s trying to do.  He’s motivated.”

I remember vividly, we had an assembly program, and we all had to wear uniforms: khaki pants, and the girls wore skirts, blue skirts and white blouses.  You had to be in uniform all the time.  And every day there was an assembly program.  We had these slogans—you know, this year’s “Making Work Worthwhile”; “Being Honorable”; “Count on Education”—every year there was a slogan.  And Eleanor Roosevelt, President Roosevelt’s wife, even W.C. Handy, and Mary MacLeod Bethune would come and talk to the students.  We’d have people come and speak on these slogans.

Mrs. Roosevelt came and she made a speech, and the high school choir was just magnificent.  Because if you went to the school there, you had a certain section to seat yourself—the altos would be in one row, and the tenors would be in another row—and that went for the whole school, thousands or more students.  You’d know that you were a soprano, so you’d sit over here; if you were a bass, you knew that you sit in the back somewhere.  They had these little young voices, they had the tenors and all—and that was organized in your schedule, for thousands of youngsters.  At most schools, in an assembly program, somebody just comes and sings “My Country ‘tis of Thee,” and it sounds good.  But when Eleanor Roosevelt stood up and heard this mass of people, the whole school, singing in harmony—that was such a thrilling sound that she said on stage she had never, never heard anything like it.  It sounded like a cathedral choir.  No other school had thought to do that.

See, they had at that time a certain spirit about education.  In fact, they felt at that school for years and years that they were not equal to Woodlawn High School, up the street: they felt they were better.  They were, because they concentrated on what they were doing.  They had oratorical contests and that type of thing all the time; an assembly program, where they had to put these plays together.  And so far as music, it was just like you were a professional musician because you led the orchestra up in the balcony. 

I remember, for W.C. Handy, when he came for one of these assemblies: Professor Whatley would just pass the music up for his “St. Louis Blues”—and you’d better not miss a note.  So you have W.C. Handy down on stage with his trumpet, and we’re playing “Dah dee-dah daaah”—the "St. Louis Blues," baby, looking at it for the first time!  Those were the kinds of things that you had:  you were intensely being trained.  You had no way out of doing that because they put the responsibilities on you.  So when I left there I was probably as knowledgeable as I am now about instruments, because we had to go through all that. 

Most people would say, “Well, it was just bad.  The conditions: it was just bad, and the reason I’m so poor and so ignorant is because I came from a bad environment.”  That’s the biggest lie ever has been told.  People now use that as a cop-out.  The opportunities we had were concentrated opportunities.  See, you had superior singing groups, and my dad’s newspaper wasn’t a slouch at all.  He was the editor of The Birmingham Reporter for 30 years, and he had people that could really write. 
Most people would say, “Well, it was just bad.  The conditions: it was just bad, and the reason I’m so poor and so ignorant is because I came from a bad environment.”  That’s the biggest lie ever has been told.
Now, when I started teaching school, we had those old potbellied stoves and things, but there was a great deal of discipline there.  Another thing was that the general populace of uneducated blacks respected highly those teachers who had graduated from school, or had made some success.  That respect made them understand that their children had to do what you said they do.  You wouldn’t have anybody come in there and question you about what you were teaching their children.  If you gave them an F, the parent would give them an F at home.  They wouldn’t come up there and challenge you to see what did you know—because you were a teacher.  You were a teacher, and you were the parent in their place while their children were there.  You would tell the parent that the child wasn’t doing anything, and the parent would do everything that they could to support you.  That was an advantage that people don’t understand today.

I had no idea that I wanted to teach—and it wasn’t for any altruistic reasoning.  What happened is, I started teaching at this school, and I had no reason to ever think that I would stay there; but I’d go there at 9 o’clock, and I’d sit at my desk, and the little ones would make so much noise.  It would be such a bad sound, I couldn’t stand it—I couldn’t last till 3 o’clock.  You can’t develop a good band unless you put your time into it after school and everything, but I was thinking that I wouldn’t be there too long; I’ll just sit here.  But, see, it got to be torture.  So what I started to do: I started getting up from my seat, going out there starting to teach them.

That’s what I might call a profound experience: when you find within yourself and in spite of yourself that you need to do some good, for your own sanity.  So I got up selfishly and started teaching them—so they wouldn’t sound so bad! 

Then I found out: Hey.  Here’s this band, maybe over the mountain, like Shades Valley; they’re getting all of these honors for their performers.  And these youngsters of mine never even go to a concert like that.  Then it was a challenge: how can you overcome this?  How can you get competitive?  So, you have to add more time to task.  You have to practice regularly.  Then, if you practice five mornings a week, and two afternoons a week, on your own time—you start getting results.  You start closing the gap.  And once you do it consistently, you end up superior.  You end up better than Mountain Brook, or those schools that have all the equipment and everything; because music has become a daily part of your students’ lives, you see. 

Then, what you do to a community: they see you demanding that they be in the practice.  You don’t accept any excuses.  Or, they see that Johnny can play something—and he’s made F’s all this time! Now here comes an A?  What in the world?  “I don’t go down to the school, because my child is flunking and they say he’s handicapped and he can’t learn anything … but then here’s this crazy man sending an A home; what is this?”  So they’d come out of inquisitiveness.  And then they’d see you working at it.

 Then, it travels through the neighborhood: “If you want to learn music, go where that man, Frank Adams, is.” 

“Who is he?” 

“Oh, he grew up in the neighborhood, right down the street!” 

They start trusting you.  And they start saying, “Well, I’ll get my child over to you—you do what you can with him.”  I remember, I would always have my free Christmas parties, you know; it would be elaborate, I would have candy and fruit, and all that kind of stuff.  I would go buy all of these things, and the kids would come by my house and fix up these little baskets.  All of them wanted to do that.  You get into the community, and the word gets around that something’s going on.  Then all of a sudden, you go to one of these competitions and you get a Superior rating. 

“Superior?”  

“Yeah, we got Superior.”  They start pushing their chest out, man.  Then, they’d look for success.  “What are we going to do next time?”  “The basketball team never got a Superior—never.  But here’s this band getting Superior.” 

Then, you get to the point where they value being uniformed, and obeying orders.  Everybody sits down at the same time, like Fess Whatley used to do.  Everybody up at the same time.  Military. 
One of the defining moments was the first time we went to a competition.  We went to Shades Valley.  I had my students uniformed, and they went on the stage, and they stood there—everybody else would walk on and get their instruments out and start relaxing and playing; and the band directors would wear that little blazer, relaxed and cool with their collar open.  I had my John Philip Sousa uniform on—white, with the cap on—and walked up to the stage, man, and when I made a motion they all sat down together.  When they left the stage, they left in a line.  They didn’t leave with everybody going this way and that way.  The other band directors, they were talking up to the judges and everything; I didn’t say anything to the judges.  I just stood there.  I had my John Philip Sousa uniform on—white, with the cap on—and walked up to the stage, man, and when I made a motion they all sat down together.

When they started playing, oh my God!  They were just magnificent.  Then they give you your grades, where if you pass you go to state competition.  A guy came up—and turned his back on me—and said, “Y’all passed.”  The kids knew then that they accomplished something. 

The next year, all the seniors, the good players, had gone to high school.  And I said, “Well, this will be an off year.  We won’t go to state this year.  We’ll practice for parades and all,” I said, “but we’ll go next year.”  I thought I had reached closure on it.  And here comes a committee of youngsters, man: “We want to go to district.”

I said, “We’re not able to go to district.”

“Yes, we are.  We can play better than those other folk!”  Talking about the old students.

I said, “You can’t go this time”; they said, “Give us a chance.”

“Give you a chance?”

Man, they went over there and blew Shades Valley out!

What happened is, they made up in their minds that once they got on the top, that they could not stop going forward.  The thing about it was, the community was so poor.  And I found out that, no matter what the conditions are in a school …

I remember when we were trying to get some money to buy majorette uniforms.  We had just about enough, but we didn’t have enough for the shakos—that’s the hats.  And one of the ladies that I never would have expected said, “Mr. Adams, I’ll make them for you.” 

I said, “What do you mean, make a shako?”  Because I had seen Phillips High School, all those bands with those expensive hats that go on top.  And she said, “If you can get me”—what?—“twelve oatmeal boxes…” 

She took those oatmeal boxes and put some satin around there, and you had the darndest shakos in the whole world!  And they’d last, you know.  This lady out in the street, her idea, you see: “Just get me some oatmeal boxes.  Get me twelve of them.”  So we had to buy twelve boxes of oatmeal.  And they ate the oatmeal and she made the hats, man. 

That’s what you call ingenuity. 

When Dr. King came along, the Civil Rights Movement was at its peak, and there was a thing about non-violence; he got ideas from Gandhi that led him to believe that he could be more successful—with his speeches, with his organizational skills—without violence.  In fact, violence, if it had been let loose, would have torn our country apart.  And I think that Dr. King, who was not without fault, understood that.

Dr. King couldn’t have done it all by himself.  He had to have people that would see more than one side of the thing. 

It was against the law to dismiss the schoolchildren to go on those marches.  That came from the supervision on both sides.  It got to the point that some of the blacks said, “I don’t want my child going down there.  I don’t believe in what Dr. King is doing.  I’m afraid to say anything about it, but I don’t want my child getting hurt.”  All during my teaching at that time, what I would do: they would give a signal, and I would turn my back, you know, writing on the board.  All of a sudden, they would be out, except a few who were still sitting there.  I couldn’t get on them about not going, and I didn’t wish I could; because that was their parents’ prerogative, to let them go or not.  Now, I would go, on the other side of the street, to try to do what little protection I could do. 

So a lot of children in my class, my band class, were jailed—but the thing about it was, they didn’t want any special credit for going.  Now, you have other people who say, “I was in the movement!  I won a medal for doing this; I was one of the Freedom Riders; I was one of those who marched; I was in jail, and all--.”  Well, that’s good.  But there were some people, they didn’t want any recognition.  I see some people now, they walk up in the grocery store and say, “Doc, this is my child here.  Do you remember when we walked, man?”  I say, “Yeah.”  And you have some that come and say, “I know you know I was there, Doc, but that’s over now.”  You had some cool ones, you know, that didn’t want to dwell on it—you know, they did it, but so what?  This is 2010.  They don’t want to go through that again.  They’ll say, “Well, I tell my child about it, and I work to educate my child so it won’t happen.” 
This is 2010.  They don’t want to go through that again.  They’ll say, “Well, I tell my child about it, and I work to educate my child so it won’t happen.”
One day when they were doing the marches, and Dr. King was here in Birmingham, I was going to the drug store.  I was playing an engagement that night at the Woodland Club, where I played for 14 years.  It was out on the highway going towards Leeds, and all the rich children, over-the-mountain children, would come over there, the youngsters going to college and all; it was an old broken-down shack.  I was playing out there and my wife was singing at that time.

Anyway, there used to be a drugstore, the Temple Pharmacy, where we all would go.  I was at the drug store, and this man walked up to me, and he said, “You’re Frank Adams, aren’t you?” 

It was Dr. King. 

I said, “Yes, sir.” 

He held his hand out, and I shook his hand.  He said, “You’ll be at the meeting tonight, won’t you, brother?” 

I looked at him—I was at that meeting.  I turned my gig down that night, man.  It was something about him.  I don’t know whether it was all the talk about him, but you could look at him and tell there was something about him, for good or bad, that wasn’t inherent in others that I had touched.  Now, I don’t put any religious connotations to it, but it was different; it was a different experience.  So was that movement, was a different experience.

Now, this jazz thing, it went beyond segregation to a certain extent.  When I was playing music in different clubs, I’d look up and there were a lot of whites that would come out to play.  And in jazz, you’re always welcome.  We learn something from you, and you learn something from us.  Then the reputation goes around that, “Hey.  That guy is good.  I want to play with him, you know.”  So late at night, regardless of segregation, they would come and play.  At the Woodland Club, and different clubs, they would play. 

In other words, it’s a thing that: “Hey, man, we play for different clubs and things, but when it comes to jamming and playing this music, this soul music, we get together on it; and we’re brothers in this.  And we go our separate ways—but at night, when you’re asleep, then we get together and work on this jazz music, you know.  We respect each other.  We can’t show this kind of love out in the open, because we’ve got so many that feel that this is crossing the line, that it shouldn’t be that way.  But the musicians, you know: we’re brothers.  We don’t show it, but we’re just like each other.  Look at Jack Teagarden; look at Benny Goodman; look at all these guys, man!” 

But what happened is, sadly enough, we didn’t include everybody.  We had these reservations.  Whites had reservations against other whites.  Jazz musicians had reservations about Muddy Waters and those kind of folk: “They’re country stuff.”  But see, that’s against each other, you know what I mean.

Even now, there’s this great divide between what kinds of music—whether the blues brothers, or the jazz people, or the Cuban music—it’s something that you can’t translate over to.  How many musicians do you know that are this way: “Man, they’re not playing anything; doo-doo-dah-doo-doo, that’s all they do”?  And of course, rap musicians: “That’s horrible!”  See, there’s this divide.  The symphony musicians.  They don’t necessarily frown down on jazz, but most of them can’t play jazz, you see; and a lot of jazz musicians don’t have enough interest to try to play their music. 

This is one of the things that impressed me about Duke Ellington’s band:  he had this diversity from the very beginning.  He had Juan Tizol, the guy from Cuba; he had Barney Bigard, the Creole from New Orleans; he had the trumpet player from Mobile; he had the conservatory guy on clarinet.  He mixed all this stuff up together.  That was his thing: the mixture, you see.  And he knew how to mix it! 

Now, you take the musicians coming along now that are schooled musicians, like Wynton Marsalis, they go across all lines.  And that’s how it has got to be now; it’s not one way, all of it has its place.  What we have to do is train youngsters to be able to do all of it. 

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