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James Baldwin

Adrian Lester reads from the novels and essays of Black American writer and activist, James Baldwin set alongside music and archive recordings of Baldwin.

Adrian Lester reads from the novels and essays of the Black American writer, James Baldwin; set alongside Music and Archive recordings of Baldwin. This programme contains some strong discriminatory language.

Writer and civil rights activist James Baldwin was born in Harlem, New York on August 2, 1924, the eldest of nine children.

To be a black person in America, Baldwin once said, was to be “in a state of rage almost all of the time.” The racial injustices he witnessed and endured were compounded by his experiences as a gay man, and his writing is deeply embedded in the nuances of racial and sexual identity.
Baldwin’s first collection of essays, Notes of a Native Son, includes a haunting memoir of the life and death of his stepfather, an evangelical preacher, with whom he had a fraught relationship. During the summer of his fourteenth birthday, Baldwin underwent a dramatic religious conversion and served as a junior minister for three years in a small Pentecostal church, a period he wrote about in his semi-autobiographical first novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain. His second collection of essays The Fire Next Time is told in the form of two intensely personal 'letters', one of which is addressed to his 15-year-old nephew, James.

We’ll hear an extract from Giovanni’s Room – the novel he published in 1956 which follows a young American man in Paris and explores bi-sexuality, power balances and social isolation, and he became a public figure, taking part in debates and TV shows and publishing books which have been turned into Oscar nominated films, documentaries and have inspired many later activists and writers.

Although Baldwin would claim that he didn't ‘know anything about music’, the prose of his novel Another Country attempts to emulate the sound of jazz musicians, and his fiction and non-fiction is punctuated with references to the blues, gospel and jazz and today’s Words and Music includes performances by Bessie Smith, John Coltrane and Nina Simone. We also hear classical work by Florence Price, George Walker, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and Margaret Bonds and an extract from an artwork by Tavares Strachan called There is a Light in Darkness Blue neon, yellow neon and synchronised audio art installation courtesy of Marian Goodman Gallery and the Artist, 2024. This is currently on show in the Hayward Gallery exhibition of Tavares Strachan's work which runs until Sept 1st.

Producer: Cecile Wright

Readings:
archive of James Baldwin
excerpts from Giovanni’s Room
No Name in the Street
Another Country
Go Tell it On the Mountain
The Fire Next Time
Baldwin archive
Notes of a Native Son*
Another Country
Sonny’s Blues
Letter to my nephew
*permission was granted by Beacon Press, Boston, Massachusetts

1 hour, 14 minutes

Last on

Sun 4 Aug 2024 17:30
±«Óătv Radio 3

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Music Played

Timings (where shown) are from the start of the programme in hours and minutes

  • James Baldwin

    archive interview with James Baldwin

  • 00:00

    Duke Ellington

    Paris Blues

    Performer: Duke Ellington and His Orchestra.
    • Master Classics Records.
    • 1.

  • James Baldwin

    Giovanni’s Room, read by Adrian Lester

  • 00:05

    George Walker

    Prelude and Caprice

    Performer: Alexandre Dossin.
    • Naxos.
    • 1.

  • James Baldwin

    from No Name in the Street: ‘Take Me to the Water’ read by Adrian Lester

  • 00:08

    George Walker

    Prelude and Caprice

    Performer: Alexandre Dossin.
    • Naxos.
    • 1.

  • James Baldwin

    Another Country read by Adrian Lester

  • 00:12

    John Coltrane

    A Love Supreme

    Performer: John Coltrane.
    • Black Sheep Music.
    • 1.
  • 00:13

    Samuel Coleridge-Taylor

    Deep River arr. for violin, cello and piano

    Performer: Braimah Kanneh-Mason. Performer: Sheku Kanneh‐Mason. Performer: Isata Kanneh‐Mason.
    • Decca Music Group.
    • 1.

  • James Baldwin

    Go Tell It on the Mountain, read by Adrian Lester

  • 00:17

    William Grant Still

    Symphony No. 1, "Afro-American": I. Longing. Moderato assai

    Orchestra: Royal Scottish National Orchestra. Conductor: Kellen Gray.
    • Linn Records.
    • 1.

  • James Baldwin

    The Fire Next Time: ‘Down at the Cross Letter from a Region in My Mind’ read by Adrian Lester

  • 00:23

    Meshell Ndegeocello

    Hatred

    Performer: Meshell Ndegeocello.
    • Blue Note.
    • 13.

  • James Baldwin

    archive interview with James Baldwin

  • 00:32

    Margaret Bonds

    The Negro Speaks of Rivers

    Performer: Robert Honeysucker.
    • Watch and Pray: Spirituals and Art Songs by African-American Women Composers.
    • Koch International Classics.

  • James Baldwin

    from Notes of A Native Son:’ Notes of a Native Son’ read by Adrian Lester

  • 00:34

    George Walker

    Response from Nine Songs for Voice & Piano

    Singer: Phyllis Bryn‐Julson. Performer: George Walker. Performer: Gregory Walker.
    • NEW WORLD.
    • 10.

  • James Baldwin

    from Notes of A Native Son: ‘Notes of a Native Son’ read by Adrian Lester

  • 00:42

    Miles Davis

    Blue in Green

    Performer: Miles Davis. Featured Artist: John Coltrane & Bill Evans.
    • Kind Of Blue (Legacy Edition).
    • Columbia/Legacy.

  • James Baldwin

    Another Country read by Adrian Lester

  • 00:48

    Bessie Smith

    Back Water Blues

    Performer: James P. Johnson.
    • Legacy Recordings.
    • 1.
  • 00:49

    Florence Price

    The Mississippi River: Adante- Allegretto- Allegro

    Performer: Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra.
    • Naxos.
    • 1.

  • James Baldwin

    Go Tell It on the Mountain read by Adrian Lester

  • 00:57

    Mahalia Jackson

    Go tell it on the Mountain

    • Joy to the World - A Gospel Christmas.
    • Intermusic S.A..
    • 8.

  • James Baldwin

    from Going to Meet the Man: ‘Sonny’s Blues’ read by Adrian Lester

  • 01:03

    Oscar Peterson

    Oscar's Blues

    Performer: Oscar Peterson.
    • : Documents 2.
    • 1.

  • Tavares Strachan

    There is a Light in Darkness Blue neon, yellow neon and synchronised audio art installation

  • James Baldwin

    from The Fire Next Time ‘My Dungeon Shook: Letter to my Nephew on the One Hundreth Anniversary of the Emancipation’, read by Adrian Lester

  • 01:12

    Nina Simone

    To Be Young, Gifted And Black

    Composer: Weldon Jonathan Irvine Jr.. Performer: Nina Simone.
    • Forever Young, Gifted And Black: Songs Of Freedom And Spirit.
    • RCA/Legacy.

Broadcast

  • Sun 4 Aug 2024 17:30
    ±«Óătv Radio 3

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