The Third Eye

By Antonio D. Underwood

The Third Eye, is the story of an African American Fulbright Scholar on assignment to create a jazz program at the classically oriented Academy of Arts/University of Novi Sad, Serbia. The book shows him quickly assessing and creating a meaningful workshop for the classical students, who speak a completely different language, learn at a different rate, and follow a completely different economic system. Explaining in detail, and in his own words, the precepts, concepts, and methods of his creative 'thought' process

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Aug 31, 2017
• ISBN: 9781532350214

Book preview

BIOGRAPHY

INTRODUCTION

*English version translated from Serbian(Latin) by Olivera Ristic, Graphologist

"It is not an easy task to transform the philosophy of success into words and, in the same way, it is not easy to succeed in something in which you wish to succeed. To be the best is most difficult. The sayings say:

The journey to success is difficult

Per aspera ad astra / Through the thorns to the stars

And that is what it is actually like…"

I started to love volleyball at the age of 12 when I was at the seaside and watched the teenagers and some older guys playing it. I was little and I was not good enough to play with them, I just watched them. However, I had a strong desire to become a part of the team and I promised myself that one day I will be a great player. Then, they will see whom they have not accepted. They only cared to fill their leisure time and did not want to be disturbed by anyone. For them, volleyball playing was nothing else but having some fun, and since then it became my goal. Until then, I used to practice athletics, but as soon as I got back from the seaside, I joined a volleyball club in my city. In the beginning of this unpredictable journey of mine, I faced many different obstacles, dilemmas (whether I should take up a sport or something else), with crossroads, whether to stay on this path where one injury can change everything or to take some other, more foreseeable path with less risk. Struggle with myself, with people around me and my family, almost made me quit in certain moments. I had my objective, my polestar". One can be an Olympic Champion only through sport and that is why I decided that the volleyball would be my path. From that moment on, I myself was my greatest support and I endured all the challenges.

It is really important that everyone knows exactly what they want, to have an objective, not to give up and to work actively in realizing their objective. One should firmly believe in the correctness of personal decisions. When you are led by the love towards what you have chosen, you will not make a mistake. The decision is the right one."

YOU ARE GOING TO BECOME (YOUR OWN) CHAMPION!

ĐULA MEŠTER, Serbian Men’s National Volleyball Team Champion

1. Gold Olympic Medal, Sidney 2000

2. Bronze Olympic Medal, Atlanta 1996

An American Symphony

This is a story from the point of view that has been studied and documented, but not this way. A story that speaks of art in the modern era. To those who have ear for a progressive, documented account of the musical life and educational understandings developed by Antonio Underwood over the course of his professional performance, teaching, and composing career. Put to working development in a creative process in the comprehensive jazz workshop at the University of Novi Sad, Serbia.

Not everyone that reads this book should be a musician. There should be information for all people who study other things besides what is my passion. So, there will be things inside for everyone.

There have been many movies written about the life of African Americans and the essence has been captured by many of the great literature written. The sensibility of a people put through the most horrible capture in all the world. Over 13 million people, father, mother, and children, were brought out for slavery…over 2 million died on the way. Many are still dying-even the young. Jazz is the music of the survivors of the greatest business atrocity. Jazz is the music that captures the underground freedoms that come from the release of feeling, hope, and aspiration of a people that carry the depression of oppression. Pain watching grandparents and parents suffer with this undeniable pain that reeks of inferior treatment and generational carrying of sadness. Following the lead of those who had to suffer much worse that the dysfunctional treatment you receive is out of the need for control and to keep things the same. So, why does it sound that way? Why can’t I understand this music? Why do they make jokes about things that are not funny? Why are they making fun on stage? They must not be serious. Yeah, this is a story and experiences that may answer some of the questions that jazz improvisation embellishes in a standard melody. Extensions of chord changes and progressions that lead you further than you thought before. Jazz being that risk-taking music that dares to think, react, and present something different each time with a fresh cleansing regeneration for other generations to listen and learn from. An individual interpretation of what one unique thought at that very moment. Working well enough to say right then and now of true discipline and release. The relief comes from truth and pushing farther than anyone ever expected. Yeah! The middle of passages, Music in church, and in the street, give the emotional strength that is carried into everyday of great love and appreciation for living with such a burden. A burden carried by the world, who understand the music clearer than those who see business first. Bearing the pains of people that where taught not to show how it really feels in public. Having vigils to get a hold of that grip and what time it is… get with that grip! Never really expressing what has happened, even now. Books have been written, people have been left on the side of the road to find a way home, to a home that is taken from them for their selfish wealth. A slavery re-lived in modern. Jazz is that story in music…it is that truth without saying a word about how you are treated. It is the sounds and the voices of the once most able destroyed by the weak in spirit. In terms of frequencies, I began to hear music from the lower partials. The Tuba is in the fundamental range of the overtone series. That means that everything I was hearing was from the bottom up-no pun-yes, as you listen in band and other musical opportunities you listen differently than the other higher pitched instrumental performers. Fundamentally, through the series of sound to the upper extremities of voicings. As I began to listen to the upper instruments, I began to think from the top down. Meaning, I began to hear the upper notes[higher frequencies] in the musical arrangements more naturally. A total universal sound bank. No more than or less than anyone else, just called to receive, translate, teach, and sending a message. Silently passing it on to the younger for their survival.

Few Jazz musicians go to the Ivy League. Few Ivy Leaguers go into the field of Jazz Music Performance. Few Tuba players play Jazz. Few professional Tuba players are featured Jazz soloists, either. Most Tubas are left in the Mezzanine section or in the background for the other instruments at the Big Game. Way up there, high in the fundamental low grooves in the band, while the real game is on the field or court. Or, maybe just put in the game near the coat racks or in the back closet, fighting with the other unused hat racks. Usually, dented and one valve is missing, and filled with old sneakers, soda cans, bottles, orange peels, and sweat shirts from days gone by. This is how it starts out in many of our unfunded communities. The Bullies dream, unless you play varsity in two sports in high school that are revered in the area. Never missed many shots during the game or missed a rebound off the ‘rack’ that was on my side of the floor. Most garages have them on the wall and the lacquer is worn off. Never noticed or even thought about until it’s time for Spring-cleaning or something is lost that needs to be found. It makes for a great mantelpiece or conversation piece when people are looking around the filled room, at a party, searching for something to talk about when things get too ‘boring’ for words or there is no more to drink. The New York-New Jersey area. I say this because most people don’t equate Englewood, New Jersey with the rest of the state. I talk with people from central or south Jersey and they sigh when told where I come from. It is like another planet influenced by New York City, 4 miles away. I understand for many are Hell raisers and a very aggressive environment.

Though the sound is low in pitch, you feel it. Still, the interesting music seems to be played by string players or higher pitched woodwind or brass instruments. That’s the frequencies most people can hear. It is familiar and easy-don’t have to think about. The ears hear what is easily absorbed, but feelings still do matter, as Max Roach, the great drummer and percussionist, told me on stage, Tony, play ‘God Bless the Child’, and people will feel it. We were right on stage and he would call out tunes we didn’t rehearse…like when my mom had passed he had me play off the top of my head, the Negro Spiritual, ‘Sometimes I feel like a Motherless Child’. Maybe not in those words, but in the songs, he had me spontaneously play during a down moment in the first set, I found myself. I found what made me tick. The down moment when the crowd needs to know there is more there than has been presented; something fresh or innovative in an art form that is to be known for its originality. A music that has since turned in on itself like everything else trying to re-invent the wheel rather than accept something new. The song was God Bless the Child, and the venue was the Blue Note jazz club on 3rd Street in the Village, New York City on opening night with the music critic from the New York Times in the audience. Yeah, the Strange Fruit, like the song by Billie Holiday, was being played by this instrument that most people never really noticed until Max Roach had Ray Draper play with him. Ray had me play with him before he passed. He encouraged me to stay in school and learn as much as possible…New York is great that way. Music and creative expression is promoted. Tuba is not usually on the solo ‘court’, even first chair orchestra tuba players are anything more than the reserves for extra padding to the lead instruments, like flute, clarinet, oboe, trumpet, violin, or guitar or voice.

Wait a minute; Jazz is the music of the unique voice, isn’t it? So, why can’t the Tuba play on the same field as the ‘Big Boys’? It may take more practice, more patience, and it may take more figuring out how to become flexible, and with more maneuverability; to be able to execute the melodic passages and slick melismatic runs-or vomit, as the kids say today- the other instruments perform, but if you have eyes for it, and enough air in your lungs-flute takes more air-you might just sprint up those bleachers and get that instrument and bring it down low enough to the ground, where people can see and hear it presented so new and uniquely and starting out totally naive, without being aware of how hard it is to be that different. These words would go through my mind as I developed Tone East Music, to feature the tuba in different musical landscapes. When I was learning how to play the Blues, Howard Johnson, the great Jazz musician, would take me to his home in Woodstock, New York, playing the chords on piano. He would say, Now, just keep playing the blues scale that I taught you, find just a few notes and play them the way you want. Play them ‘til it makes you happy! I still do…

In my paranoia, maybe the audience will ask, What would make a person devote so much time to this one thing that no one wants to hear during their daily routine? Everybody else is listening to ‘Cool and the Gang’, Earth, Main Ingredient, The Whispers, Hall & Oates, Queen, Heatwave, Minnie Riperton, The Jackson Five, Chicago, or other popular artists. How do you practice eight hours at a time each day, playing improvisations with no memorable melodies? For that matter, Why devote so much time and so many years to any one thing that can’t guarantee you a lot of money, when there is no guarantee that the money will make it worth it, anyway? People have a hard-enough time staying married to anyone and they say love ‘til death do we part!" And is, in some cases, the main reason they part in death. Even things that are pleasurable can grow tiresome with time. But, somehow, love and living it, wins in the end?

*** So, this book is primarily to introduce concepts that can help young people navigate the style of music and get to the answers so not to waste time during this changing world. Our parents and us could stay in a profession for years through the life of a career. Our generation not as much. I am blessed to be able in the field of music, to sustain a bit of the pie. Many musicians are not as lucky. Young millennials may not be able to sustain a job throughout their life time. I feel it is so necessary to help get to the point of disciplines for application. Because this generation of our youth must be more flexible in their ability than ever before.

INT. EYE EXAM ROOM – LATER

Close Shot of female, 30ish, Caucasian doctor’s blurred identification tag. Pull Back to her face and full body sitting in an office chair. Room shows fully equipped room, with medicine cabinets, eye charts, mirror. FEMALE EYE DOCTOR gives TONE, middle aged male, a preliminary eye exam. Doctor’s eyes are compassionate. ASSISTANT stands behind her. GIRL FRIEND, a cute blonde, with hazel eyes, short frame in shapely body, sits in a comfortable chair watching. The room is very modern with plenty of space, cabinets, medicine examples, eye information posted on the walls, and state-of-the-art eye exam equipment.

Tone is seated in a large ophthalmic chair surrounded by eye exam instruments and equipment. [Connected to a wall stand is a light fixture called a Phoropter-with multiple lenses, and adjoining table. On the wall stand, a Tonometer with Prism, connected to Slit Lamp, for checking eye pressure]

Doctor reaches to nearby table and takes a large plastic Medieval spoon, called an Occluder, and hands it to the Tone.

FEMALE EYE DOCTOR

Please, take this and put over your left eye.

Points to the light switch and the Assistant turns the light down.

[The Patient’s Point of view is blurry. There are floating black hair-like strands covering ‘grayed’ vision. Nervous, so Girl Friend stands up, goes near, and touches his arm for comfort.

FEMALE EYE DOCTOR

Please read the letters on the third line of the chart, please.

[The chart images on a 55" LED super-slim professional-grade large screen display monitor on the wall]

Point of View of the Patient-Tone, there is a haze on the lower half of his vision in the right eye. He struggles to see everything except the larger letters in the left corner of the eye chart. The angles of vision have him see certain letters phased out. Tone is upset.

TONE

I can’t see anything on that line

Then tries to get composure to talk.

TONE

I see larger ones. Looks like…E…B…

FEMALE EYE DOCTOR

Switch to right eye, please.

Changes the plastic patch to the right eye. Point of View from the left eye is clearer. He becomes more optimistic.

TONE

I see better, now. U…S… B…Y

FEMALE EYE DOCTOR

Ok….

Doctor shows no emotion. Assistant takes the Occluder from the Patient and smiles. Doctor swings the stand with Tonometer and Prism around in front, places the head brace for the Tonometer in front of her. The stand fits right to the front of chair.

FEMALE EYE DOCTOR

Now, put your chin up over here.

Doctor guides his head to the brace, resting comfortably and with no hesitation. John moves the prism away from the right eye. He turns the slit light on and opens Tone’s eye wider with her index finger and thumb while adjusting his head on the brace.

The light shines to different areas of the left eye during this examination, showing the internal structure. The Assistant is writing down the assessments called to her.

FEMALE EYE DOCTOR

Greater than twenty-one

(Beat)

Cornea clear anterior chamber deep and quiet.

Doctor swings the Prism around and uses his fingers again to open the eyelid further, while placing the Prism directly against the eye. The patient naturally flinches with caution. Doctor’s hands are steady and calms him.

[The blue light from the meter is reflecting the interior of the eye as the doctor skillfully adjusts the Prism to read the pressure]

Doctor reaches into the cabinet and puts medicine into a needle container.

It is a slow-motion graphic design showing ophthalmic medicine being put directly in the right eye with a thin needle. The true visual components of the eye being punctured.

When done, Doctor turns her chair around to the desk, situated to her right, and writes down the findings as the Assistant looks over her shoulder.

FEMALE EYE DOCTOR

Tone, I’m sorry to break it to you, but we have to continue this procedure for the next two weeks.

Tone takes a deep breath in and exhales furiously.

FEMALE EYE DOCTOR

After which there will be a series of other procedures and possible operation to relieve the pressure in your eyes.

Doctor gets very sad. Tear eyes as another doctor enters the room.

FEMALE EYE DOCTOR

Hello, Doctor Gold. Glad you could join us

Turns towards Tone.

DOCTOR GOLD looks over at Girl Friend. She becomes sad.

DOCTOR GOLD

Hello, Tone. I wanted to come see you today to discuss our evaluation of your eye condition. It is a tragic occurrence to have to tell you after the past weeks…

(He starts to cry)

I don’t know what I would do if I were in your position. Not being able to continue as an eye surgeon!

(He tries to look away)

We have no choice but to inform you, there is no way you can resume your performance career on the tuba. I know it will be a burden both financially and emotionally

(Face reddening, tears flowing from his eyes)

EVERYONE in the room is shocked! Tone sits in the chair staring at himself in the mirror on the wall. Girlfriend leaves the room wiping her eyes. He slowly pulls glasses towards his face, showing things in room coming clearer-right eye with grey haze, left eye semi-clear.

EXT. NORTH HOLLYWOOD ST. NEAR LANKERSHIM AVE -- DAY

Scene blends with the sound of the doctor telling Tone the sad news…

DOCTOR GOLD

We will schedule you out front around the same time each day, if that can be arranged with your schedule? We will do a number of procedures over the coming year… to save your eyes

Tone is walking in a daze after needle in the eye and seeing his new future. The pain is excruciating and tries to block it out. He keeps saying a mantra…Louder and Louder and Louder to match sounds of the city cars in next scene. We see the long straight road he walks…

TONE

HIS love endures forever…his love endures forever…his love endures forever…his love endures forever. His Love Endures Forever!!!

From My Life Story, An American Symphony-Other Side of Consciousness

14 or 15 years of constant treatments to save my eyes. The 1st 3 years where 2 or 3 times a week. Gradually settling into 3 times a year. {Thanks Dr. T and Dr. G for your patience and goodwill}

Precepts & Concepts

With no solutions other than conditioning the spontaneous improv. The most important thing about this book and all the time spent developing this rather innovative approach to teaching jazz to classical artist, is there is not standard protocol for, or one type fits all. I speak for the point of view of a professional musician-composer-producer, who played organized sports for the age of nine years old. I played high school varsity sports and still practiced the tuba music on my clear time. It was very important for me to practice tuba before school, during my lunch break, and when there wasn’t sports practice or a game, afterschool. It meant enough for me to when All-Bergen (County in New Jersey) Regionals, Junior year, and All-State my Senior, in music. At this point I really removed the organize part of sport and pursued music full time. I began my professional jazz career in New York City, at the age of 19. Sometimes I think I was actually 18…one of the two. My high school was unique musically, because we had professional New York City musicians as teachers. I was playing tuba concertos at 15 years old. Learned the Ralph Vaughan Williams tuba concerto at 16 and was featured with the jazz band for 2 years. Our jazz band was touring and playing college concerts, Like Amherst in Massachusetts. It was a great group of performers, many who are professionals on the scene for years. Every type, from Broadway to popular genres. My teacher, then, John Purcell was very young and one of the top call studio recordist’s on the woodwind circuit. He was playing all the time. I would go with him to many Fania All-Star recordings. He was doing it… Our high school jazz band was playing original arrangements of the great Count Basie saxophonist/arranger Frank Foster. It was so cool to play the music that Bill Davis played. With all this going on, John took time, after a gig, to take me to my All-State audition in South Jersey. This is the type of teaching dedication I saw and am used to. We as human beings want to centralize things, compartmentalize what we bring close to us. Even at that time, back in the late 70s, jazz had moved passed the basic 2-5-1 progression or spend your time playing within the confines of that sequence. Create something we can absorb on your time and in our schedule. Changes to our routine is what makes us agitated. Why should I have to listen to this that is so different to what I believe or want to get close to? Our points of view, our sense of our surroundings, our sense of interaction with other people. I think in most cases, people by nature in the human condition have a sense of territorialism, Nationalism, What’s mine and what’s yours…how I feel…my opinion. My sense of what I’ve been through and what I have learned from the experience. What I’ve come to realize in most cases, a color of the skin or background mores, cultural indifference, still is all a part of a collective instinct. A part of a collective understanding and human condition that wants to encapsulate and think of ourselves as being different or more than the norm, even more than we can see in an objective way. I think this is the beginning statement of a book that speaks to my experiences. My road that led me away from what was normal or comfortable for me many years ago when I left the African American life style and started a journey to learn classical music and the life style changes than are necessary to peruse truly and truthfully anything outside of home. I know, it seems small to many who have not been African American and wanted to learn something outside of the people you associated. Some call it a class change-in some ways without the pun-but more like an advanced lesson in tolerance. When you must leave what gives you strength to be around those that never left the world they are born to, changes you in ways you can only imagine. It gives you an objective perspective that is very useful when drawing the necessary elements from both worlds to create something that can benefit the far left and rights of each opinion. Because the book is about my feeling, thoughts, and my reactions emotionally and empirically and integrally to this new experience of teaching non-jazz students and what is important for the fundamental learning experience. These students don’t need to be heard from as they find this new way of thinking close enough to trust. Kept quiet, in terms of what we really know about them and what we can learn from the humble and unheard. The privilege I’ve had from an African Cultured American stand point is immeasurable. Like most things, while you are inside of the experience it is very hard to see the benefits of the moment to moment interchange. Survival is the difference it makes for thoughts to focus on different things, something all at once. Grasping at a faster rate to continue the conversation. To truly share in their lives. To truly share in their lives and their feelings, unabashed feelings, un manicure fields, and opinions of diverse topics. To see these unfamiliar people as human every day portions of their lives and how they live under Socialist rules. This book has taught me something about myself in this environment and how much I miss those that I became close to, as I reflect a year later. Being back in America, my birthplace, my home, and how much Television teaches us Capitalism and money first…Those I eat with and talked and walked with and share my thoughts and feelings with know things are more than is. Media doesn’t create the environment.

TEACHER/STUDENT RELATIONSHIP

I found something important in teaching the Serbian Students the approaches to understanding and relating to the music. It was more than just teaching how the Blues plays in the feeling, chord analysis, and application of scales that work as sound banks or schematic colors. Each student has diverse needs. Some students had some familiarity of the music and need more practical experience or encouragement. Others never thought about the styles, essence, characteristics, and working with their instruments in this manner. So, how can you have one formula for all? How can you devise one lesson plan to teach a room full of diverse individuals?

I think it’s important for you to know this thought process comes from my background studying and performing with the most influential instrumentalist and composers of our time and the time before. I have taught in many different communities and have with the helping of the University of Novi Sad/Academy of Arts, developed a unique way of seeing this thing. My time there was very fruitful with ideas on how to expand the concepts and precepts I started developing back in 2012 when I contacted Fulbright. Before then, I spent 14 years working on my computer music software and virtual instrument skills-adding programming, editing, and mixing skills as well. With all the eye procedures, I couldn’t play the horn regularly, so the managing job, at the Camarillo Imperial, came in handy as I built the company and my ability to score films on computer. I had friends who worked with the handicapped in films. Inclusion Films, in Burbank, Joey Travolta and my man, Ray Martino, give a vehicle to do additional work in scoring. I must have scored about 3 or 4 films for them. It was cool, because I needed the practice and it helped a very good cause.

Asked why Serbia was important, I met a fan on my radio station that contacted me and we talked. I found her very smart and aware of jazz. I considered the language and felt it was Cyrillic and Latin. I am not very language oriented, so I knew it was in my eye to see. There was no Serbia Fulbright in application, so I began the process of contacting the Cultural Affairs office in Belgrade and asked if