Arts & Entertainment

Musiqology According to 'Dr. Guy'

"I like to pay attention to those artists who are doing creative things-- who are not part of the marketplace." -- Guthrie P. Ramsey, Jr.

Dr. Guthrie P. Ramsey, Jr.-- a Bed-Stuy resident, jazz musician and music professor at University of Pennsylvania -- has been followed by private investigators.

The way he tells the story, it begins in the mid-80s when he was a music teacher at Crown Elementary on the West Side of Chicago-- one of the poorest neighborhoods per capita in the country at the time.

“It was a place a lot of people discounted,” said Ramsey. “But I found the most talented kids in that neighborhood, and I taught them with every ounce of whatever I could give them.”

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Well, almost 15 years later, he was contacted by a private investigator who had been hired by one of his former elementary students. That student was planning her wedding to another one of Ramsey’s former students. The engaged couple had never forgotten Ramsey, his love for them as students and his dedication toward cultivating their inner creativity.

The bride wanted to surprise her groom, who not only was now a successful music producer, but also had composed all of their wedding music. And so as a gift to her soon-to-be husband, she decided to fly in Ramsey.

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“When he saw me, he almost jumped out of his skin,” said Ramsey. “And the music was so awesome. I think that was probably the most touching thing I had ever experienced.”

As an accomplished pianist and music scholar, Ramsey’s love for music is palatable. His ability to reach people is equally potent, evident from all of the amazing relationships he’s made along the way—some, his fans; many, his own music idols.

While still a music teacher in Chicago he met Samuel Floyd, then-director for the Center of Black Research in Chicago. Floyd gave him a glowing recommendation that helped secure his acceptance at the University of Michigan in its music history program, where he earned his Ph.D.

After getting his Ph.D., he married, moved to Brooklyn, had children, went on to do his postdoctoral research at Dartmouth College, worked as a professorship at Tuft University and ultimately landed at the University of Pennsylvania, where he currently works as a music professor.

His latest book, The Amazing Bud Powell: Black Genius, Jazz History, and the Challenge of Bebop, was just released in May 2013, and it tells the story of one of the greatest yet lesser-known jazz pianists of the 1940s, a contemporary of Charlie Parker, Dizzie Gillespie and Thelonius Monk.

“When I was coming up in the jazz scene in Chicago, he was the pianist all of the older guys would say that a pianist needs to listen to,” said Ramsey. “Although there have been other biographies written on him, in my estimation this is the first study by a scholar. 

“It’s not only a biography, it’s a historiography that integrates key elements of jazz history, including gender issues, drug use techniques for writing. I wanted to write about Bed Powell, because I felt his work needed to be as well known as the others.”

Ramsey’s first book, Race Music, published in 2004, Race Music, a history of African-American music, from the mid-40s to the present, meant to be a companion to Amiri Baraka’s “Blues People: Negro Music in White America.”

“Before it was called R&B, it was called race music. It wasn’t until 1949 when Jerry Wexler at Atlantic Records felt race music was a pejorative term, so he re-named it Rhythm and Blues. 

“One of the things I did in that book was include a narrative history of my own family’s history from the Deep South to the South Side of Chicago,” said Ramsey. “I tried to demonstrate how our histories are dragged along with us in cultural forms—not just the experiences tracked by statistics, but the feelings and structures we bring to our cuisine, our language, our music.


Ramsey – known to many in the music world as “Dr. Guy,” -- has a band called "Dr. Guy's Musiqology," which has produced two albums, The Colored Waiting Room and Y to the Q. He also now runs a music blog, musiqology.com

Ramsey said, on musiqology.com, he pays attention to the musicians who are not the mega-billionaires that everybody’s going to write about, “Not just because I’m not making millions, but because I like to pay attention to those artists who are doing creative things-- who are not part of the marketplace,” he said, “because their motivation will be the art itself and not the money. 

“There have been a generation of men like Archie Shepp and Amiri Baraka that have treated me with such kindness and respect… they have my back you know?

“It really makes you feel like fighting on and keep doing what you’re doing.”


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