Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

CUTLER is in his mid-fifties, as are most of the others. He plays guitar and trombone and is the leader of the group, possibly because he is the most sensible. His playing is solid and almost totally unembellished. His understanding of his music is limited to the chord he is playing at the time he is playing it. He has all the qualities of a loner except the introspection.

CUTLER: Slow Drag’s all right. It’s you talking all that weird shit about art. Just play the piece, nigger. You wanna be one of them...what you call...virtuoso or something, you in the wrong place. You ain’t no Buddy Bolden or King Oliver...you just an old trumpet player come a dime a dozen. Talking about art.

LEVEE: What is you? I don’t see your name in lights.

CUTLER: I just play the piece. Whatever they want. I don’t go talking about art and criticizing other people’s music.

CUTLER: Well, until you get your own band where you can play what you want, you just play the piece and stop complaining. I told you when you came on here, this ain’t none of them hot bands. This is an accompaniment band. You play Ma’s music when you here.

LEVEE: I got sense enough to know that. Hell, I can look at you all and see what kind of band it is. I can look at Toledo and see what kind of band it is.

TOLEDO: That’s African.

SLOW DRAG: What? What you talking about? What’s African?

LEVEE: I know he ain’t talking about me. You don’t see me running around in no jungle with no bone between my nose.

TOLEDO: Levee, you worse than ignorant. You ignorant without a premise.

(Pauses.)

Now, what I was saying is what Slow Drag was doing is African. That’s what you call an African conceptualization. That’s when you name the gods or call on the ancestors to achieve whatever your desires are.

SLOW DRAG: Nigger, I ain’t no African! I ain’t doing no African nothing!

TOLEDO: Naming all those things you and Cutler done together is like trying to solicit some reefer based on a bond of kinship. That’s African. An ancestral retention. Only you forgot the name of the gods.

LEVEE: See, I told you! It don’t mean nothing when I say it. You got to wait for Mr. Irvin to say it. Well, I told you the way it is.

CUTLER: Levee, the sooner you understand it ain’t what you say, or what Mr. Irvin say...it’s what Ma say that counts.

SLOW DRAG: Don’t nobody say when it come to Ma. She’s gonna do what she wants to do. Ma says what happens with her.

LEVEE: Hell, the man’s the one putting out the record! He’s gonna put out what he wanna put out!

SLOW DRAG: He’s gonna put out what Ma want him to put out

TOLEDO: See, now...I’ll tell you something. As long as the colored man look to white folks to put the crown on what he say...as long as he looks to white folks for approval...then he ain’t never gonna find out who he is and what he’s about. He’s just gonna be about what white folks want him to be about. That’s one sure thing.

TOLEDO: It ain’t just me, fool! It’s everybody! What you think…I’m gonna solve the colored man’s problems by myself. I said, we. You understand that? We. That’s every living colored man in the world got to do his share. Got to do his part. I ain’t talking about what I’m gonna do...or what you or Cutler or Slow Drag or anybody else. I’m talking about all of us together. What all of us is gonna do.

MA RAINEY: I’m gonna tell you something, Irvin...and you go on up there and tell Sturdyvant. What you all say don’t count with me. You understand? Ma listens to her heart. Ma listens to the voice inside her. That’s what counts with Ma. Now, you carry my nephew on down there...tell Cutler he’s gonna do the voice intro on that “Black Bottom” song and that Levee ain’t messing up my song with none of his music shit. Now, if that don’t set right with you and Sturdyvant...then I can carry my black bottom on back down South to my tour, ‘cause I don’t like it up here no ways.

CUTLER: You talking out your hat. The man come in here, call you a boy, tell you to get up off your ass and rehearse, and you ain’t had nothing to say to him, except “Yessir!”

LEVEE: I can say “yessir” to whoever I please. What you got to do with it? I know how to handle white folks. I been handling them for thirty-two years, and now you gonna tell me how to do it. Just ‘cause I say “yessir” don’t mean I’m spooked up with him. I know what I’m doing. Let me handle him my way.

MA RAINEY: They don’t care nothing about me. All they want is my voice. Well, I done learned that, and they gonna treat me like I want to be treated no matter how much it hurt them. They back there now calling me all kinds of names…calling me everything but a child of god. But they can’t do nothing else. They ain’t got what they wanted yet. As soon as they get my voice down on them recording machines, then it’s just like if I’d be some whore and they roll over and put their pants on. Ain’t got no use for me then.

MA RAINEY: If you colored and can make them some money, then you all right with them. Otherwise, you just a dog in the alley. I done made this company more money from my records than all the other recording artists they got put together. And they wanna balk about how much this session is costing them.

MA RAINEY: White folks don’t understand about the blues. They hear it come out, but they don’t know how it got there. They don’t understand that’s life’s way of talking. You don’t sing to feel better. You sing ‘cause that’s a way of understanding life.

LEVEE: […] That’s what’s the matter with you all. You satisfied sitting in one place. You got to move on down the road from where you sitting...and all the time you got to keep an eye out for that devil who’s looking to buy up souls. And hope you get lucky and find him!

CUTLER: I done told you about that blasphemy. Taking about selling your soul to the devil.

TOLEDO: We done the same thing, Cutler. There ain’t no difference. We done sold Africa for the price of tomatoes. We done sold ourselves to the white man in order to be like him. Look at the way you dressed...That ain’t African. That’s the white man. We trying to be just like him. We done sold who we are in order to become someone else. We’s imitation white men.

LEVEE: It don’t matter what you talking about. I ain’t no imitation white man. And I don’t want to be no white man. As soon as I get my band together and make them records like Mr. Sturdyvant done told me I can make, I’m gonna be like Ma and tell the white man just what he can do. Ma tell Mr. Irvin she gonna leave...and Mr. Irvin get down on his knees and beg her to stay! That’s the way I’m gonna be! Make the white man respect me!

CUTLER: The white man don’t care nothing about Ma. The colored folks made Ma a star. White folks don’t care nothing about who she is...what kind of music she make.

LEVEE: […] Come on and save him like you did my mama! Save him like you did my mama! I heard her when she called you! I heard her when she said, “Lord, have mercy! Jesus, help me! Please, God, have mercy on me, Lord Jesus, help me!” And did you turn your back? Did you turn your back, motherfucker? Did you turn your back?