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If I have failed to illustrate the confusion afforded by the source situation for a single year of Dett’s life, well, please be my guest and write Dett’s biography because I do not believe I can fix this by myself. As I understand it, Simpson thinks Dett took one group of courses, while Shipley thinks he took a different group of courses. Both Simpson and Shipley use materials from the Hampton Archives almost exclusively. While they present different conclusions on the details, both Simpson and Shipley agree that Dett’s supervisors (Davison, Gregg, Peabody) did not know what Dett was actually doing. I believe that DettRead More →

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Lori Rae Shipley’s dissertation, A History of the Music Department at Hampton Institute/University, 1868-1972, has a wider focus than Simpson’s biography of Dett. Because of her broader scope, Shipley examines administrative documents from Hampton that are not included in Simpson’s work. Thus, we receive a fuller picture of how Dett’s Harvard sabbatical arose. Archibald Davison, who is reported to have invited Dett to Harvard, initially became acquainted with Dett through Davison’s role as a “visiting music consultant” per Hampton’s 1920 President Annual Report [p. 138]. In essence, Davison was brought to Hampton as part of a Visiting Committee, which is usually used to review anRead More →

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In a previous post, I (outrageously) argued that Dett’s time at Harvard University was not spent in the way that current research presents it, namely, that he took coursework with Archibald Davison. In that post, I showed the courses that Archibald Davison taught on the (Harvard) record, which means that it probably happened that way because, hey, that’s how Harvard rolls. I would like to present how Ann Key Simpson reports Dett’s Harvard year, because her reckoning lies at the heart of a crucial research issue for Dett (and likely others from this time period): sources collide and spawn most of the difficulties with whichRead More →

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Originally published 2.06.23 Legend: Dett was enrolled at the Conservatoire Américain de Fontainebleau, France. Status: Untrue. There are no records establishing his enrollment there. In early January 2023, I corresponded with Joe Kerr, current Program Director of the Conservatoire Américain de Fontainebleau. Without any prompting from me, or even knowing what I was actually seeking, Joe wrote me the following: “It would be very exciting for us if R. Nathaniel Dett studied at Fontainebleau, but I have yet to see his name show up on the student lists I have scanned … It was not unusual, however, for students to study privately with Nadia Boulanger orRead More →

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Originally published 1.05.23. Legend: Dett studied with Arthur Foote at Harvard. Status: Misleading. Dett was granted a sabbatical that paid his Harvard tuition and lodging in Somerville, but he studied privately with Arthur Foote off campus. 1. Arthur Foote did not serve on the Harvard faculty, at least not while Dett was there in 1919-1920.Foote was a famous graduate of Harvard and noteworthy composer who taught out of his home in Dedham, a suburb of Boston that is not Cambridge. That is, he did not teach students on the Harvard campus.​OK, so how did Dett meet him?  The 1919-1920 Harvard University Catalogue lists Foote asRead More →

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Orignally published 1.04.23. Legend: The NBC radio broadcast of The Ordering of Moses on 7 May 1937 was cut off because of racist complaints at stations in the South. Status: Untrue. However, this does NOT mean that racist complaints were not made. We need to put blame where blame is due, namely, what I have been calling the “long arm of the radio schedule,” which still serves as the primary means to frame on-air advertisements. Newspapers printed the day’s radio listings ahead of time, such as you see here, which is a clip of the schedule from Rochester’s Democrat and Chronicle. Mind you, Dett was livingRead More →