As our so-called government actively works to bury and dispute any history that includes people of color, queer citizens and the poor, my activity of Great Migration story-gathering sometimes feels futile. Like trying to swim against a giant ocean wave. (Which I would never even come close to doing because I’m scared of those things). But my understanding and observation is that when one is swimming or surfing or in some way contending with the ocean’s overwhelming power, if one works with it, swims through it, then success might be possible.
And so we amplifiers of history continue to share these often-unknown stories, not in an attempt to push back against the prevailing wave of racist, xenophobic, homophobic forces but simply to continue what was started so many centuries ago, a story-telling tradition that has held up through constant intentional erasure. Story as resistance is a real thing. And when we can employ the people’s own words – as I am able to do here – even better!
Today I want to share a few notes about the fabulous, under-recognized, Los Angeles musician, Vi Redd. While this piece intersects with my first post on Club Alabam and the Central Avenue jazz district of LA, it also continues the theme of my last two posts, centering as it does an enormously talented, intelligent, thoughtful Black woman who went through some things and yet came out willing to share her gifts with others. And so thanks to a few good sources scattered hither and thither, here’s a (not the) story of Vi Redd, singer, saxophonist and — I’m going to go ahead and say — feminist.
Vi Redd is best known for her singing and saxophone playing. Check her out here doing both with Count Basie. She was also known as the daughter of the famous Louisiana-born musician, Alton Redd; one more Louisiana-to-LA Great Migration tale. She was, of course asked about him in an oral history interview:
In this oral history conducted by Steven Isoardi for UCLA’s Center for Oral History Research, Ms. Redd relays her experience, without animosity. And yet I cannot help but wonder if this experience of being recognized as much as someone’s daughter as instead a woman and musician in her own right, in some way informs a person’s identity. (Perhaps I am simply projecting based on my own personal experiences).
Elvira Louise Redd (having the same middle name as I) was born in Los Angeles in 1930. It was in 1949 that a fellow musician started calling her Vi, and that became her name going forward. Both sides of her family came from Louisiana, again highlighting the centrality of a few states’ migrants to certain points across the country. As mentioned before, Los Angeles had a preponderance of people coming from Louisiana, Arkansas and Texas during the Great Migration.
Vi started high school at Jefferson, where so many of the “Eastsiders” went back then. The school is full of famous alumni, from Dexter Godon to Alvin Ailey. But Vi’s dad wanted her to go to a different school, perhaps deemed a “better” school by some, as it was on the west side. Dorsey High School was her father’s choice for his daughter, and so he bought a house so they could live in the school district. This was pushing the western geographical boundaries for a Black family at the time, around 1944. But Ms. Redd reports that they didn’t have any kind of “trouble” from her new mostly Jewish and Greek neighbors. That said, some African Americans tried their luck a little too far west. Vi remembers when singer Nat King Cole had moved to the Hancock Park area. That was pretty much Hollywood back then and, while Cole was able to buy the house, “there had been problems,” said Redd.
Another “problem” that the women musicians endured was verbal, physical, and emotional abuse – by men who were sometimes domestic partners, and other times fellow musicians. Redd said she really didn’t deal with those issues herself but remembered a fellow musician’s plight with an abusive husband. She and another woman musician ended up “rescuing” her one night.
Trained by her aunt, the famous Mrs. Alma Hightower, Redd grew up with a slight naiveté when it came to being a woman in the music business. Hightower played all instruments and took no tea for the fever. Redd would often be surprised by the responses that she got from the male musicians.
Some men would simply walk off the bandstand when a woman took the stage. Looking back she also realized that her famous father didn’t hire a lot of women for his band either.
Music writers often deem that Redd was “underecorded.” While she toured with all the great (male) names, her own music is not so easy to find. She has but two albums under her name and was recorded as a part of other bands on a few records. While playing music full time in Los Angeles, Redd had to secure a job as a teacher in order to make a living. This is such a familiar story for so many African-American women, getting their flowers only years after they pass – if at all.
Vi Redd died four years ago, at the age of 93. She knew everyone and they knew her back. Her story is a lived history of Los Angeles, jazz music, feminism, racism, and global relations. What I offer here is simply a sample of her very full life. I urge you to read the oral history I previously linked if you are interested in one or more of the many subjects that encompass her life.
Love the story and the pictures