Episode 4
In defense of Matilda Sissieretta Jones
Episode 4 Transcript
INTRO
Hey Y’all, and welcome back to classical queens. I’m Jessica Joy and I’m here to introduce you to the Black women composers and musicians in classical music you probably haven’t heard about. Today, I want to share why I came to want to study Matilda Sisseretta Jones, and why I felt the need to bring helpful light to the complexities of her experience.
I really enjoy staying up late and readying. Now even though this seems really studious and I would love to pat myself on the back, about this great night time habit, I’ll be real with y’all. I do this while aalso watch reality tv at the same time… or a favorite episode of Insecure… I don’t know why, but this is my life, and sharing it means apparently I’m accepting my strange habits! So no judgments, thank you. Lol Now, one of these nights about 3 years ago, I stumbled across a blog by a scholar who was doing something similar to what I am doing, sharing the lives of Black classical musicians. The article was about Sisseretta Jones, or as many know her The Black Pattie. Now I wasn’t hugely interested, because at the time I wanted to find early black female string players, for obvious reasons- I’m a violinist- but since this was early days in my research I skimmed through the article.Ya’ll I turned my show off. Because, I was left astonished and sick after what I read. It had me going back and re-reading, going through the sources, really trying to understand the hatred and anger that the author had in their tone, as they worked to share the life of black pattie, all while throwing serious shade to Sisseretta Jones life and work. The basic conclusion the author had, was that she was a race traitor. I was honestly shocked, because I didn’t see the proof in the work. So I went about my own. I did this, not because people do not turn their back on those that color their identity, because they do. I see it all the time. I went about this research, because I wanted to know why, right after emancipation, why this woman would be so callous as to abandon the only honest support she could have had in America.
Now that I have continued my understanding of her life, and that I better understand the social/political context during her lifetime, I am focusing this show as a defense of Sisseretta Jones. I have said this so much, but here we go again, we must just work to see their world, their circumstances, and those finite details that really dictate why they moved the way they did. As I have looked back, I have yet to find hatred for this woman who lived one of the most grand and I think, also horrendously difficult touring lives. You know, Something that is very me, is my need to help people, and for treating people and situations justly. This concept truly rules how I move, how I act, and although this path is probably more difficult, and doesn’t always come across in ways I would hope it to, I see the just path, and discovering the truth as a way to let ourselves live more freely. I really wanted that for her Sisserettas memory.
Without further ado, I’ll now leave you with a very unspun understanding of the Prima Donna Matilda Sisseretta Jones, who slayed through her 30 year long career, despite never being able to live her dream.
TERM DROP
Blackface Minstrelsy: Originating in the White man's characterizations of plantation slaves and free blacks during the era of minstrel shows (1830-1890), the caricatures took such a firm hold on the American imagination that audiences expected any person with dark skin, no matter what their background, to conform to one or more of the stereotypes: Such as Jim Crow, zip coon, mammy, and Uncle Tom to name a few.
Y’all have seen black face, from a classical film like Holiday Inn, or to the head of Bon Appetite black facing for a party. It’s a thing that continues to happen and many make excuses for, because “its fun”. Although this is such an uncomfortable conversation, particularly for me, this directly effects Jones career, so we need a slightly detailed understanding of this.
Now, blackface, was created as a way for white people to act out their most base instincts and not be judged for it by their social groups, because they had the face of what is deemed to be the most base, the black person. Utilized were stereotyped traits of slaves, black indigenous music and dance, and also the black slave dialect. Through this ability to not only make a lot of money, but also let horrible action and language be acceptable publicly, blackface flourished. Now Black people did participate in Blackface. But for alternate reasons, as a way to make money being an artist, as a means of protest. But obviously the intention behind the work was very different than those of the originators. The last thing, and its still something I struggle to wrap my mind around, is that blackface, the act white people participating in blackface, it had white people realizing that black people were just that, people. Honestly, I don’t understand this concept, as the disrespect and exploitation within this act are obvious to me, but I’ll leave this here for you to ponder anyway.
Vaudeville: Vaudeville was popular in the United States from the 1880s until the early 1930s. It offered a more family-friendly atmosphere than the variety shows that had come before, which catered mostly to rowdy working-class audiences. The heritage of blackface minstrelsy played a major part in the evolution of the song, dance, comedy acts and routines that vaudeville popularized, but actual performances in blackface were mostly relegated to a single skit or a song. However blackface in vaudeville also provided opportunities for Blacks who performed in blackface. The success of Black comedians such as Ernest Hogan, Bert Williams, and George Walker opened the door for multiracial casts and for later black performers to take the stage without blackface.
When Blackface was meant for middle to lower class entertainment, and performed by white and black people alike, vaudevill was was meant for almost anyone, no matter the class. It was this genre that allowed for Black musicians to participate in music outside of blackface. Music of opera, parlor music, popular tunes, and folk tune would be heard in Vaudeville. Artists would also dress in full costume and put on a rather detailed production. It is this genre that allowed Jones to find stability in her career.
LET’S MEET THIS WEEKS QUEEN!
Past Queen- Matilda Sisseretta Jones (1868-1933)
Matilda Sisseretta Jones was born in Portsmouth Virginia, January 5th 1868. She was originally named Matilda Joyner and was the eldest off 3 siblings. Her fathers name was Jeremiah, he was a carpenter, and her mothers name was Henrietta, and she was a vocalist, and both were apart of the recently emancipated, as the emancipation of slavery was 1863, just 6 short years before Matilda was born. Much tragedy was experienced in this family early on. Both Matilda’s siblings died, one of intestinal disorder, and one, as the death certificate describes as teething… soon after these events, between 1876 and 1878 they moved to Rhode Island Connecticut, as Jeremiah was called there for work.
Now before I continue on, you must know about the conflicting information on Matildas life. Her touring life is easily mapped, as she was one of the most written about black vocalists. So through that, and her scrapbook that she made of her major performances, she can be tracked throughout time. However, the information, the way she remembers events and shares stories with the press, vs. other written proof often do not exactly collide. Sometimes Matildas recollections are years off from written documents. Or there isn’t enough proof of her recollections in general. So throughout, I will be very clear about what we factually know, and what is just a determination.
Rhode Island Is where Matilda began studying music. Like most musical prodigies, her abilities were noticed by her mother at a very young age, and as her mother was a vocalist, she began teaching Matilda how to sing. Eventually around the age of 12, she began studying with a local vocalist. The information on where and who exactly that was is tricky, but most believe that her first teacher outside her family was a Mr. Munroe, who also lived in Providence. In 1883 at the age of 15, Matilda met a man named David Jones, who worked as a bell man for a major hotel, and was 20 years old. They fell for each other and married that same year. In 1884 they had a baby who they named Mable Adelina. Adelina, in homage to the famous opera singer of that time. Now, Matildas father and mother had been estranged from for some time. So to be close to her mother, Matilda, David, and baby Mable lived with Henrietta for a few years, that is, until more tragedy struck. At age two, Mable died. After years of grieving, and Matilda singing only through their local Baptist church, she eventually decided to leave her hometown, and move to Boston to study music.
As far as professional study is concerned, some information says that she studied at Boston Conservatory, others at New England Conservatory, but as far as I am aware, there is no proof as to where the study actually occurred within either of these institutions. Some information which seems to make sense to me, is that she studied with a vocalist who happened to work at one of the Conservatories, but that she didn’t actually attend. We do know that she studied with vocalists Louis Cappiani, and no matter how the education occurred it did, and she would end up taking the world by storm.
Matilda began concertizing in a professional capacity in 1888 after the building up of a musical relationship with Flora Batson- a woman who we will have an episode about in the future- who asked her to perform with the Bergen Star Company, a musical touring group. It was her work with this group that placed her in the path to attain a white manager, who booked her on a tour to star as the prima Donna for the Tennessee Jubilee Singers (Tennessee standing for black people, and Jubilee Singers a stolen name from the Fisk University singers, as a means to boost concert attendance). It was with this group that she toured the West Indies, and the music they performed was a combination of plantation tunes, parlor music, and opera. This tour was a difficult one. They were a popular group who made plenty of money, but the traveling was difficult and they had trouble with their tour manager, who would not be transparent about bookings. After a year they returned home. Enjoying the travel, but not the treatment of the manager, Matilda hired her husband as the tour manager and gathered most of the same singers as before, and they (without alternate funding) took a troupe back to the West Indies, made even more money, were gifted with gold and jewels and other items of appreciation, and were this time, after being gone for over a year, coming back to America, famous.
In 1892 at the age of 23, much had changed for Matilda. She no longer used her given name, as she needed a name that would fit larger venues, so she altered her name to M. Sisseretta, or just Sisseretta. Now her managers had been promoting her not by her given name but the moniker Black Pattie, inspired by her white vocal equal, Adelina Pattie. This title was meant as a compliment by the press, as there was no one else whose singing could even be compared to Adelina Patties besides Sisseretta’s. However, the press, managers, and then the world began to call her Black Pattie, which was unwanted by Sisseretta. There are many quotes in newspapers and such, where Sisseretta speaks about her feelings on this matter, but alas, she was not famous and the nickname stuck.
Something important to note, is that nicknames during this time, were a standard for female vocal divas. For example Jenny Lind- the woman who worked with PT Barnum, she was called the Swedish Nightingale, the OG Adelina Pattie, she was know as the Queen of Song.
From the years 1886 - 1895 Sisseretta performed all over the United States and Europe, and eventually broke a major barrier as being the first Black Vocalists to tour both those countries and the West Indies. She went from performing for all black audiences, with all black musicians, to being the only black person, with a white band, and performing for all white audiences. It became like this because of her fame. Fame meant broader audiences, but because of segregation it also meant that black people couldn’t come to her performances, or be on stage for white audiences in the same way she could if she had a white band. This shift occurred with her constant rotation of Managers, as this altered her career in many capacities. The first manager to mention would be Pond, Major Pond. Now Pond was a well known manager. He offered her, which at the time was an unprecedented contract. 1 flexible year of contract, with the option of 3, and she was paid no more than 300 per performances. In contrast, its important to understand own much someone like Adelina Pattie was earning for her performances…$4000 per performance. Now Pond altered her career in many other ways. He was the one who gave her an all white band, continued to push the nickname black Pattie, and with his help, she did succeed. However, as she toured, after a long night of performing, she often was left without lodging, because she wasn’t allowed to stay in a hotel, because she was black, and Pond did not fulfill his part of the contract in ensuring her safety. She eventually wanted out of that contract, and so she contested it. The result of the first lawsuit did turn in Sisserettas favor, she was able to receive more fair pay. However there was a second lawsuit, where she tried leaving the contract due to inequitable pay and Pond not following through on his end of the contract . He disputed it, and the Judge ruled in favor of Pond in his verdict, stating, and I quote “ She is a pronounced success, so much so, that she feels and acts as if she can get along hereafter without further assistance form her benefactor, and she has therefore thrown down the ladder on which she ascended to the position she now enjoys. Every sense of gratitude requires her to be loyal to the manager who furnished her the opportunity for greatness…” This was the response when she asked for more fair pay, and for Pond to follow through on her accommodations so she had a safe place to stay on tour.
After the second case, Pond quietly leaves the picture around 1895, and Sisseretta finds another manager Mary A Rodman, which leads to her European tour. This was 1894-1896, she was 26-28. She was able to collaborate with Dvorak in NY, performed with William Henry Harrison one of our past presidents (this by the way was the second president should performed for out of 4). In 1896 she arrived in Europe and had an immensely successful tour with a 6 week stay at the palace theatre in London, and glowing reviews from her performances in Germany. She ended up concluding her tour because she missed her mother and wanted to come home (as she told a newspaper reporter), also in that same interview also spoke of a Vaudeville performance she put on in London that was extremely successful. She said this “ I have been very successful, but I think I prefer to sing in concert. There are so many things in a vaudeville performance to distract the attention of the audience that they are not in the proper frame of mind to enjoy straight singing.”
Despite all this fame Sisseretta experienced, there was one part of her career that she was never able to reach, and that was to be an Opera star. From time to time, she was offered operatic roles, but she never took them. She wanted to perform a full scale opera with the Metropolitan Opera, but the organization stood firmly against black performers until the 1955 debut of Miriam Andersen.
On returning from Europe, and experiencing more managerial changes, Sisseretta makes a big career decision. She decided to forgo her dreams of being an opera star, and of concertizing, and decides to perform solely in Vaudeville Houses. As you heard her statement above, this career change may come as a bit of a surprise. But just hold, let me explain what she did. She got rid of her all white band, and hired blacks people, so she could help support their careers and the building of black communities up. She decided to perform Vaudville because she knew she couldn’t ever perform for the Metropolitan Opera due to their racist views, and she wanted Black people to be able to attend her concerts. An experience she had in her past explains this.
“It’s so strange; I never had met with anything like it before…, putting the colored people off in the gallery and leaving all those vacant seats down stairs. Why, the house would have been crowded if “they” had allowed them to have seats down stairs. I felt very disappointed. I never before had such an experience, and I could not help feeling it…I think people of my own race ought not to be shut out in this way.”
Her struggles with living while on the road was taken care of if she performed at Vaudeville Houses. Those houses would give her and her band a safe place to stay. In this portion of career, she went on to perform for 18 more years with her group The Black Pattie Troubadours.
Eventually, Sisseretta gave up her career, after becoming ill and needing time off. The rest of her life was spent in obscurity. She passed alone in 1933, succumbing to stomach cancer, surrounded by all that she had left, her beautiful clothing, her gold and Jewles, Such a diva till the end. The american public had forgotten her existence, and only one paper, mentioning the loss. It was actually just recently in 2018, that a headstone was created in honor of Sisseretta Jones in providence, RI. On it, she was thanked for what she gave to the American Public and for paving the way for many other Black Classical Vocalists.
QUESTIONS ABOUT OUR ROYALTY
What is so bad about the nickname Black Pattie, why Sisseretta have a strange relationship with it?
I wonder if any of you ever enjoyed being compared to someone who many deem as the best? I had a teacher who did that all the time. The comments on my playing were mostly just, see her, play like her. Did you notice her, why cant you really try to be like her? This of course, was a long time ago, but my playing was never looked at for review, I never got tips, or help to achieve any of my goals, I was just always not good enough because I wasn’t her. A nickname like Black Pattie is really one and the same. She was always just the runner up to Adelina Pattie, her predecessor. Not good enough on her own, to just be her own. As you heard, the early part of Sisserettas career was spent with her managers tokenizing her, in a time where people were curious about high achieveing black people, and saw her abilities as an oddity. To me, and after all that I know of her, I see continuing to use this monecur as a perpetuation of the tokenization that happened to her, during her life. So to bring her the respect that the pervasive culture could not give her at the time, to see her not as an object, an oddity, but to just see her, an amazing singer, who broke a lot of barriers, who dealt with racism at every turn, and who never got to truly live her dream as the prima Donna opera star…. To her, I want to give her respect now. She was a person, who realized the worlds implications on her life, and once she understood that, worked to change her situation, to build up the communities she came from, and live as much of her dream as she could, for all audiences. She was not a object, she was a person, and her name was Matilda Sisseretta Jones.
How was Matilda’s family able to afford music lessons for her?
There is a question as to how music lessons were affordable for Matilda. But they were a black middle class family who were also affiliated within in their church circles. Although there is no exact information as to how lessons were possible, historians know that it was access through something within these structures that made it possible for Matilda to study music.
Why was Matilda’s husband only her manager for one tour?
I wondered this myself as I ways studying. I came to find out that after the West Indies tour that her husband managed, that he gambled away all the money she earned. He often never worked, and relied solely on her for financial backing. Part of me wonders why she passed on without any financial backing, maybe this is a clue as to why.
WHAT DID WE LEARN FROM OUR ROYALTY?
I don’t know about you, but the story of Matilda Sisseretta Jones had me seeing what the world placed on her as a trailblazer. So naturally, that had me considering what the world continues to press upon BIPOC people in classical music. What are the expectations of fitting into a culture that is deemed high brow, cultivated, and educated? Can BIPOC people ever be seen as enough as they are in this culture? Or do we have to conform in order to be apart of and to fit in?
This had me contacting friends in artistic fields, and asking questions of them on this topic, because I want to offer information outside of my experience in this realm. Because I think its important to not impose solely my opinion in this space. What I got back from almost everyone was, yes. They all felt that they had to become something else in order to be taken seriously in classical music spaces. But why? What is the long term view of POC people in America that forces POC to address the inequity by molding themselves to this pervasive culture?
Honestly, I see much longstanding black stereotypes found in blackface minstrelsy as being a huge part of the problem. Not only was black face extremely popular and offered conflicting social information, it also has yet to leave the American culture. As stated earlier, blackface made its way from the minstrel stage to Hollywood. It’s seen in our films, in product advertising, and in the stereotypes that most subconsciously think is innately black. So I’m going to lay out some details about this, and I’ll of course leave sources so you can all understand even further.
As you do know, Blackface characters have specific traits that were used as ways to make fun of Black people, and black culture.
Oppressive traits and characters of Blackface that many still believe?
Pikananny: Known for watermelon eating and bad hair
Zip Coon: Known for being stylish, arrogant, ostentatious, while also not being able to speak in the cultivated way
Uncle Tom: Know as good, religious, kind, think Bill Cosby- except yikes….
Mammy: Know for being an open hearted woman that you wouldn’t mess with. It was until 2020 that Mammy was represented on a syrup bottle as Aunt Jehmima.
Looking further into these characters, these stereotypes, I began asking myself more questions. Have I as a Black woman had some of these traits assumed upon me? The answer to that was definitely, yes. On more than one first date, or in meeting a new person, people have always jokingly said, well you must like watermelon. Obviously I need to date more carefully, but that’s beside the point. I love dressing well and feelin’ myself, but some have been shocked when they find out I also have a mind (Zip Coon), and I cannot describe the annoyance I have has people not only mess with my hair, but make comments about how it feels like a dog, sheep, you name the animal, I’ve been called that. Or that, if my hair was straight I would actually be beautiful. Yet another Pickanany reference. So, even subconsciously, or consciously, these thoughts perpetuate the standard white perception of POC, not being enough, just being base, just being too much, not anything that is important enough to fight for, important enough to offer entry. Based on these simple understanding, its no wonder that POC struggle to feel included into a culture that holds itself to the upmost standard of class and education. Not because they aren’t classy and educated and everything, but because they are never seen as that. This deeply held bias that most don’t know is instilled in their thought process places pressure on BIPOC peoples that are not about them, and more about perpetuating racial biases and stereotypes.
So, those of you who are not POC, or those of you who are POC but have not afforded yourself time to be okay with that part of yourself because of this confusing world we live in, I want you to ask yourself, What are we asking of BIPOC people in classical music or really in any arena? With these historical understanding, are we offering POC people the same respect we would if they were white? Are we seeing them and understanding they have something valuable to offer any experience, because we all have something to offer, or are we assuming that they must not know anything? Are we working to understand varying cultures and respecting them, or are we just afraid of what is not us?
I want to leave you all with this plea, please consider these things for yourself. Like that flag I see flying around town, don’t tread on me, can you insure you have not tread on someone else, due to a limited understanding of what racial bias really is? And please, like that famous Hollywood conductor who came to my stand on orchestra rehearsal to joke around about his racist comment to me, saying he was colorblind and grew up around black people so his racism was okay, and worked to ask me to okay it. Don’t. Just please don’t. Please, don’t be him. Please don’t perpetuate stereotypes just because its easy for you. Let’s just all grow together.
CONCLUSION
Well, yall, thank you joining us this week. If you have any suggestions on black women in classical music you would like to know more about, drop me a DM on my instagram @ClassicalQueens. I would love to hear from you all, and understand the ways you have been able to implement information such as this into your spaces.
As you know, for now this is a bi-weekly podcast, and if you like it, you should subscribe, and leave a five star rating and a review! Till next time.
See ya, Classical Queen’s!
