♪ Everybody get up on this number y'all ♪ - [Narrator] Tonight on stage, take a front row seat for the inspiration, connection and joy you've been missing.

♪ I feel like I could cry.

♪ - [Narrator] In honor of Juneteenth Stage celebrates black artists with performances from the MNO archives, featuring PaviElle French, BrownBody, Sounds of Blackness and more.

♪ You can do almost anything ♪ (soft upbeat music) - Home is the life that influenced me.

Home is like all the places that made me, who I am.

Home is Rondo.

(upbeat music) We are in the heart of Rondo.

And this is where I'm from.

The Rondo neighborhood was the first and original black neighborhood of St. Paul.

It's something to be said how these neighborhoods still stand no matter how many times it has been gentrified or people have come through and destroyed our neighborhoods, we have not gone anywhere.

This is the house.

This is where my mother grew up.

This is my grandmother's house.

Everything I learned about womanhood and life happened on this porch.

I can still see my grandmother open up the door and tell people to get off her grass.

That's why I'm not even standing on the grass right now.

She would open the doors and be that grandma, (laughs) Rondo is a culture of people, it's alive through my artists alive through me.

It's alive through anybody that's from here.

I am writing a symphony for my mother and to honor Rondo and it's about home and what home means to us.

It encompasses Rondo through what my mom was cause so much of her is rooted in that neighborhood for me.

And so much of her is a part of that.

And so it's all one and the same to me.

- Oh my gosh Rekhet.

- How are you?

- I'm good.

How are you?

- I'm good.

Your mom was one of the most beautiful people I have met.

Just everything about your mom just makes me light.

She was just really, really modest and humble with all of the talents and skills that she had.

The fact that she was a gardener and she was a musical genius.

(laughs) And that voice, oh my gosh.

- That was one of the most distinct things about her.

There's one thing I can't ever forget is the tone.

It was just a sweet tone.

It was like calming and it just it was musical.

- Oh man.

- I always, that's what I really remember the most and that and her eyes.

- [Rekhet] And you got them both.

You definitely got them both.

- Thank you.

I've written a symphony.

It's called A Requiem for Zula.

I will be presenting this in collaboration with the St. Paul Orchestra and also the American composers forum.

This will be my first time performing on this stage.

And I think the coolest thing of all is it's my own music.

How are you?

- Good to see you.

- Good to see you.

- How are you doing.

- Oh my gosh.

I'm good.

- Can I introduce you to PaviElle French.

- Hi, nice to meet you.

- Nice to meet you.

- What a pleasure.

- Nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you.

Thank you.

- Well, we're excited to hear your piece.

- Yes.

- Thank you for being willing and cause I'm, this is new territory for me.

So I really appreciate being able to do this with you and embark on this journey.

- And it helps us too.

Actually it's just exciting.

- Most of us moved here, not growing up here.

I mean, you grew up here, but a lot of people didn't even know what had happened... - Yeah, Rondo and everything.

I mean, my mom would love y'all and be just, this would just make her so proud.

And I just think that, yeah, this is what we're supposed to be doing.

I think it's kismet.

And I think it's meant to be.

(laughs) Yeah, that's right.

And it's about time.

Say that again.

(laughs) (orchestra music) ♪ Oh yeah ♪ - PaviElle actually came to us and said I'd love to work with you.

I'd love to be at the Ordway.

And we were really inspired by her story and just felt there was a real excitement and magnetism in what she had to say.

♪ Oh, I miss you Mama ♪ ♪ Ooo yeah ♪ - I'm looking at it like this is PaviElle does classical.

(laughs) This is PaviElle's Messiah.

You know what I mean?

This is a real kid from the block that gets to tell her story, look how beautiful that is.

It says, like, that's usually you see something to be like Amadeus Mozart.

It says, PaviElle.

That's a trip.

(laughs) ♪ I'm with you ♪ ♪ Always remember ♪ ♪ Into the truth just surrender ♪ ♪ For I had to birth a new life ♪ - This piece just it's bigger than me breaking the glass ceiling and getting into the classical world.

I think it's also a testament to how you can deal with trauma and stay on your feet.

♪ Feelings neglected ♪ ♪ And the healing accepted ♪ Everybody has that one person who loved on them in a way that broke through and you lose that person.

People understand whether it's death or that person's just gone.

People understand that.

And that's what this is about.

♪ Mama ♪ ♪ Go into the light ♪ ♪ Go into the light ♪ ♪ Go into the light ♪ Mom found out she got cancer in September 2009.

And I stayed right with her to her last day.

After that, I just, I really felt like I didn't have a life to live anymore and I didn't really want to.

And so I've found myself through these past eight years, it has taken this long for me to come back to the person that I once knew.

(laughs) - Hi.

- Hi.

- How are you?

- Good.

- We haven't been here since mom's memorial.

That's the last time we sat right up in those front pews.

Mom loved us so much.

- We were her life.

She would tell me all the time you can do anything you want in this world because that is the truth.

- And we're living it.

- And we're living it.

And she living, she living through us.

She's still here.

I just hope that tonight honors my mom in a way where people really conjure her spirit and think about her and keep her memory alive.

(applause) - I'm excited beyond, but there's that one missing link (mumbles) kind of sad that she won't be there 'cause I keep thinking like she should be in the front row.

That's the trip of it all.

Everything is right, except for that one thing.

♪ It seems we've come to the end ♪ ♪ It's been truly bittersweet, ♪ ♪ My friends ♪ ♪ But I'm blessed ♪ ♪ To honor this woman ♪ ♪ To whom so much she meant ♪ That's the point of why I'm doing this piece is to give the lessons that my mom gave me.

The lessons that life taught me Rondo taught me is to give that back in a way in which that can help heal others.

♪ Save a place for me ♪ ♪ When I get there ♪ ♪ When I get free ♪ ♪ Yeah ♪ ♪ You're the first I want to see ♪ I believe in that alchemy stuff, I believing in that taking your pain and doing something positive with it.

And I ain't going to let it hurt me.

♪ Oh music was your heart ♪ ♪ So I wrote you a symphony ♪ ♪ This one is for ♪ (crying) (applause) (soft upbeat music) - My baby was fine.

She was dark and smooth and made me understand God through love making and laughs.

I'm a person that loves to just take walks.

So like at night I'm taking a walk and I see a sign that says Free Black Dirt that someone had just posted up.

She brought me to the rooftop of her tenement and we saw the moon was full and laid in it's blue light naked and made seven wishes of peace.

Free Black Dirt has been the importance of freedom and access blackness and it's limitlessness and its sort of soulfulness dirt as far as a space of burgeoning growth of possibility of nourishment.

- In the summer between black father and white father, when I was no longer toddler and not yet kid.

Free Black Dirt, is the idea of liberation, the idea of rooted in black people and black lives and it's a name that's elastic.

It's something that can grow to hold so that all the things that we dream to do.

- I love what we got.

Free Black Dirt forever.

Four E V A forever.

(applause) - Thank you to all our readers.

(soft upbeat music) - So Junauda and I met in a class at MCTC LGBTQ literature class.

Junauda sat down next to me and she told me that we were gonna be friends and I thought that's kind of forward.

(soft upbeat music) Free Black Dirt, is a vehicle that we use to work together.

But we also are individual artists and we do lots of projects individually.

As a collective, we started with the theater production called They're Other Worlds.

And then we have done everything from curatorial work and event management, event planning all the way to art making and parade work and film production.

(mellow music) - I think our bravest work happens together.

I dream things all the time.

Erin dreams things all the time.

And then when we bring our forces together it's like we really have more capacity and energy.

- Being an artist can be really isolating and you can be really insecure about it.

So it is nice to have someone who's like, yeah confirming you.

It's a real gift to make together.

(soft upbeat music) - I think Erin is an amazing writer.

I often compare her to forces of nature.

There's something really transformative around her mind in how she approaches things.

I really love that sense of curiosity.

She spends a lot of her time researching for fun just researching for fun.

And I think it's just finding things that, just her spirit needs to digest about being in this world.

- Junauda is deep, intensely deep, ocean deep.

She's also fun and she can make play out of anything really.

I know her as a writer primarily.

And then I also know her as a builder, an artist that's making puppets and she's a film director and a stage director and she's got this really great way of creating ritual and creating sacred space with performers to really evoke something specific from them.

- You need to write my bio dude.

(laughs) - I will.

I'd love to.

(soft upbeat music) Sweetness and Wild is a film project that we've been working on.

It's episodic, it's lyric and imaginative.

It's our love letter to black Minneapolis.

(soft upbeat music) - For me in writing it I felt inspired initially by a storyline of three girls based in Minneapolis.

After the beginning of the black lives matter movement.

(soft upbeat music) We're wanting to amplify narratives that speak to aspects of who we are, voices and feelings that we would love to see in the world.

(instrumental music) So whether it's coming from an aspect of queerness an aspect of Afrofuturism an aspect of social justice.

(instrumental music) I certainly think so much of my creativity is for a younger self of mind.

As a young black person growing up.

I didn't think I was important.

We're having to battle systems that have excluded us that have marginalized our stories and our narratives.

(instrumental music) - So many images that we get of of black folks and black experience is this oppression and being oppressed and the sort of hardship.

But what I know is that we are so funny and so loving on each other and so generous.

We are not just surviving, but really thriving and innovating and making gorgeous things we deserve those kind of images too.

(applause) - Now, thank y'all so much.

This is like the best.

I keep on saying this like being at my own funeral just getting to see everybody I love unhappy.

Thank you so much.

- I feel so proud within the work of Free Black Dirt that having a sense of when people engage our work that they feel better about themselves.

And I think also charged to be a part of liberation and transformation for everybody.

(soft upbeat music) (piano music) - I think I like music better than anything.

Ice cream don't match.

Cornbread.

I like cornbread, but the cornbread I like is me.

♪ Cornbread in the morning ♪ I am James Samuel Cornbread, Harris, Sr. ♪ Cornbread every night ♪ I have been making music for 65 years and I'm still going.

(piano music) I'm primarily a blues man.

What I love about the blues is the feeling of the music.

♪ I feel like I could cry ♪ ♪ I feel like I could cry.

♪ I was born in Chicago, Illinois by three years old, my parents died.

I was sent to foster homes from three until 11 or 12, maybe.

So my grandparents decided to take me in that was in St. Paul.

So when I went to St Bernard's my grandparents decided that I should have piano lessons before that I had been learning from my friends.

My friends taught me a lot of stuff and then, dig dig this.

(piano music) Oh yeah.

I was a fantastic piano player.

(piano music) So when I went to the service, I would play in the day room.

They'd kick their chairs and sit around the piano and listen to me play my little three or four songs.

(piano music) One more time, one more time.

(piano music) And when I got out of the service, I said, "Well, you know what?

"People like the music."

So I went to Smith's music company and bought a guitar book.

So I learned to play many, many songs.

As long as I got the words the melody and the chord progression, I can play any song not the way it's written, but really close to the song.

(piano music) - Mr. Harris is a wise and gentle soul.

Many of the musicians in town would refer to Cornbread's outfit as a cornbread school of finishing musicians.

- I taught many people little pieces of the genre of music.

- He was in the very first Rock and Roll band in the Twin Cities, Augie Garcia - Augie Garcia, he wears Bermuda shorts and he dances on top of the piano.

And he walks the railing playing the guitar.

Three years we packed River Road Club, Mendota, Minnesota.

Augie kept his showmanship up playing our same 20 songs right on the spot.

We were just ad-libbing this thing.

"Hi, ho silver".

That got to be the first hit record in the Twin Cities.

And it just became a big hit.

♪ Fried chicken and cornbread ♪ ♪ Pig feet and cornbread ♪ ♪ Dandelions and cornbread ♪ ♪ Pork chops and cornbread ♪ ♪ Lucky lips and cornbread baby ♪ ♪ Cornbread ♪ ♪ Cornbread ♪ ♪ Cornbread ♪ ♪ Lovin' that cornbread ♪ - Mr. Harris' commitment to jazz and blues music is a lifestyle and he likes to spread his knowledge.

And in that way it kind of keeps growing as a genre.

♪ Cornbread ♪ (applause) ♪ (piano music) - Hello, pretty lady.

- Hello.

- How are you this morning?

- I'm doing good.

- We are going to Camden.

We go there two times a week and I'm gonna play and they're gonna applaud for me and say "Oh, that was too good Cornbread."

Or whatever.

(laughs) (piano music) - Camden Neighborhood Center, all right.

- Camden Neighborhood Center focuses on adults and adults with different degrees of disabilities and their families.

So every Tuesday and Thursday, Mr. Cornbread is here with our senior group.

It's very lively when they get in, he always sits up front and they always reserve the front seat for him.

And he's one of our only male.

So he gets the Royal treatment while he's here.

And the ladies really love him.

- I like playing here for these ladies.

'Cause I got them fooled.

They think I'm good.

That is a wonderful thing.

that people like you.

- [Senior Lady] Oh we got him fooled.

- You got me fooled.

Now, the truth is coming out.

(laughs) (instrumental music) - I-22.

Mr. Cornbread Harris.

He's been with us about 10 plus years.

And I actually did not realize who Mr. Cornbread was for several years.

And I knew who his son was.

- My son, Jimmy.

I want to throw his name out here.

Jimmy Jam.

Jimmy Jam, they were using a lot of what I taught him to make their tunes.

And so they kept on doing that until they got The Time together and Prince heard them and decided, Oh man, these guys can really play.

- I-24.

- I-24.

- I-24.

- I-24.

- I think Mr. Cornbread continues to come and play music because he enjoys the people.

He enjoys the senior groups and he likes the interaction.

- N-35.

- Okay, N-35.

- N-35.

- N-35.

N-35.

N-35.

(laughs) (orchestra music) - Welcome to the 22nd annual celebration of the Sally Ordway Urban Awards.

(applause) The Sally Awards are a statewide salute and celebration of the arts in our state.

The 2013 Sally Award for commitment is presented to a remarkable musician who has brought us his interpretations of the blues and jazz for more than half a century, James Samuel Cornbread, Harris, Senior.

(applause) He was nominated by a number of people.

And I think the reason that commitment seemed logical is because at age 80 something something he has had a very long career committed to music.

- No matter what I do.

I end up getting more than I gave.

If you wanna be blessed, be a giver.

(applause) - His career is so long and he's such a wonderful musician.

And he has taught so many people and I know nobody was anything but delighted when he was selected.

(piano music) - The blessing came when I was enlightened that people liked music and I had this small talent and I wish that on everybody to be as blessed as me.

I got a need.

(piano music) ♪ Fight on ♪ ♪ Just a little longer ♪ ♪ Fight on ♪ ♪ Just a little longer ♪ - Tonight's audience is reflective of one of the goals of Sounds of Blackness, which is to bring together people of all backgrounds through African-American music.

♪ Butterfly ♪ ♪ Let butterfly ♪ ♪ You can do almost anything ♪ ♪ Your heart desires ♪ ♪ Anything your heart desires ♪ ♪ Freedom comes with understanding ♪ ♪ Who you are ♪ ♪ Who you are ♪ ♪ Its time to rethink your ♪ - It was so gratifying to see everything from preschoolers to seniors, enjoying the music and continuing the tradition because the music lives through the continuance of people experiencing it.

♪ We are the (mumbles) ♪ (soft upbeat music) - So I was really fortunate in that, I grew up here at Penumbra.

Literally, I think I was on a stage with my father when I was six months old and he was sword fighting or jousting or something during that scene, and my mother slightly threatened my father and said, "If you drop her, we're done with this theater thing."

So this is our dressing room.

You can imagine being a small child and encountering this kind of a space, right?

There's fake blood.

This is an amazing place for a kid to be.

So I used to love playing back here and watching the actors get ready.

They would come in really jovial and happy and then they would sit down and they would put their makeup on.

And you could just see this transformation happen as they got into character.

And I was always fascinated with that.

Growing up inside of a theater community emboldens you and helps you realize that the things that people dream of can become a reality.

And that was a profound lesson for me as an artist.

And also eventually would be a very profound lesson for me as artistic director of Penumbra.

(soft upbeat music) Penumbra Theater is a African-American theater company that was founded in 1976 by my father, Lou Bellamy.

(piano music) Penumbra was born out of the black arts movement which was a time period when black artists were really trying to create work that propelled people to care and get involved in the political life and the social conditions that black people were experiencing because we come out of that time period we say that we make work that is by for and about African-Americans.

We confront difficult realities here at Penumbra but we do it in a way that feels I hope challenging, but deeply compassionate.

- Repeat after me, you are my other me.

- [Group] You are my other me.

- So the young people who come here to Penumbra.

Some of them think, oh, theater camp.

And then the social justice element hits them.

And they're like whoa.

- [Group] Be courageous.

- I am not weak.

- [Group] I am not weak.

- In addition to the plays that we produce we train young artists to embrace their talent their passion for the art as well as their potential for civic engagement.

- I carry attitude and responsibility.

- [Group] I carry attitude and responsibility.

- The practice of making theater is tremendously informative to the practice of being a good citizen.

You show up, you give your best and you rely on the others who have different skills to give their best.

And then you invest in a shared vision.

If we practice that more as a society we would be healthier, more theater period.

(applause) You did it.

We are so so proud to have you taking the stage this evening.

And there are big shoes to fill giants who have walked the stage, who have written for this stage who have directed in this room and made a community for us to benefit from, okay, you are amongst them.

They are here with you.

(applause) There is incredible disparity that's been documented which shows that theaters of color across the country are not fairing well.

And the reason why is because there's a tremendous amount of discrepancy in who gets funded.

And so in 2014 I founded the Twin Cities Theaters of Color Coalition.

And we've been meeting monthly since trying to think about the sustainability of theaters of color regionally and also across the country.

My want is that by the time I'm done here, whenever that is that we're done having this conversation that we're done arguing for the worth and the value of theaters of color, because my father did that for 40 years and I'm doing it now.

And I don't want the next generation of leadership to have to make that case.

I want that to be a given.

(soft upbeat music) - I grew up competing in the Twin Cities area and I'd go into these ice arenas where I typically was the only black person for the most part, when I would go to competitions or at the rink, I was pretty much alone.

There were moments where I felt that isolation and I always felt like I kinda had to check my blackness at the door.

I remember going to a rink that I hadn't skated before.

And I remember a little white girl coming up to me.

And she looked at me and she's like, "Oh, what are you doing here?

"You're not supposed to be here."

I wanted to flip the script and create a space where the norm was not whiteness.

The norm is blackness in a space that traditionally has been dominated by whiteness.

I grew up of course, competing in figure skating and then injured my knee.

I had to stop competing 'cause I couldn't jump the same way that I used to but I still had a fire in my belly to continue to move and to continue to focus on more of the creative and artistic aspects of the sport.

And so I went ahead and I got my MFA in dance and choreography and I wanted to bring all of these lovely and wonderfully nourishing experiences that I had in dance and theater on to the ice.

(piano music) Brownbody is a performing arts company.

We combine series of disciplines including figure skating, modern dance, theater.

There really aren't a tremendous amount of spaces within the world of skating where you have stories and work being shaped and told by black skaters and black artists.

And that's really important to me.

Can you guys go to where you end in the space?

All right.

Are we right?

Let's do it without music first.

"Quiet As It's Kept" is BrownBody's most recent evening length work, it is focused on the reconstruction era.

In the rise of Jim Crow governments.

We are telling the story of a time period where a lot of black folk faced voicelessness.

The realities that they faced, the truths that they held within themselves were pushed to the side.

So it's really important to me to honor those individuals to honor those stories, to honor those truths.

I'm gonna go literally in front of Lela.

You'll go... At this stage of the process, it's just the beginning.

This is our fifth rehearsal.

So each person is still getting the movement patterns into their bodies.

Cross and then we go into our circle.

Cross, cross.

We also are using these stories and this history to inform the improvisations that happen on the ice.

And then we actually capture them and start to set the choreography and incorporate it into the work.

Around, touch, around.

After a certain point in the rehearsal process, especially being in the work.

It's really challenging for me to have that outside eye.

So Leila stepped in and was artistic advisor.

And let the body go this way.

- The work that I love to do is to work with artists to bring out their self, their real self into their performance practice a little bit more.

So I'm really trying to get to a place where we're listening and communicating with our bodies.

You're doing this right.

And a lot of times you're doing it to people it's an offering right?

So, wow.

The class I teach it's more for performance and compositional practice.

We also use it to create movement.

So sometimes it's just for us to process subject matter and content or even our own trauma around this subject matter.

'Cause we work around some really intense things.

And then sometimes it's really to like make the movement that will be in the work.

- It's very different in that it's infused with African-American culture and history.

So it's really nice to be doing a performance that has that side of it but then also something that fuses, modern dance and ice skating, it has been really wonderful.

♪ Coming for to carry me home ♪ ♪ Ah sweet love ♪ - One of the many things that excites me about Quiet As It's Kept is we get to tell the history through that kind of full immersive experience through what happens on the ice.

And then we have Thomasina telling it through her poetry through the beautiful songs that she sings.

I was just really excited by all the layers that we are able to integrate to tell this history.

♪ My soul turns into songs ♪ ♪ And I claim my freedom ♪ ♪ I claim coming back to life ♪ ♪ I claim the freedom of my mind ♪ ♪ To think ♪ ♪ To discover ♪ - The Reconstruction era.

It was 10 years of before people really actively pushed back against the progress that happened immediately after slavery, you're slaves, and then you're free.

How do you even conceptualize that?

I have a poem about a rope, the Lynch rope.

There's always gonna be something about that in anything having to do with reconstruction or civil rights or any part of history, because it's there.

We don't have to go back and relive it, but we have to know it.

This thick hemp rope, look close, this, these fibers, these strands, this is our American DNA.

This holds all our history.

I know this was a very deep passion for Deneane to do this the idea of movement on ice as an educational experience.

- I want to invite the audience into a space where they're invited to perceive themselves in a space that isn't dominated by standards that are Eurocentric based but that are dominated by standards that are rooted in this really long, complicated history.

- [Man] Guilty.

(drum beat music) I feel like the reconstruction era is a really important timeframe.

And I think it's important because it really adds to the foundation upon which a lot of our contemporary ideology is based.

(drum beat music) ♪ Waiting ♪ ♪ Waiting in shallow waters ♪ ♪ Waiting ♪ ♪ Waiting for you to call him ♪ - In order to understand who we are and understand how we are navigating and what we're doing.

We really do need to understand the history.

And then we can make conscious and deliberate choices about ourselves and about our lives.

And we can work to stop that history from continuing to repeat itself.

♪ Calling love ♪ ♪ We are waiting ♪ (piano music) - We are at Downtown St. Paul at the Ordway Center for The Performing Arts and people are coming to see my show.

What's so special about St. Paul it's the capital, it's my home.

And I'm feeling excited long time coming.

- Join me in welcoming Stokley, as he takes his place center stage at home at the Ordway.

(applause) ♪ You had me at hello babe ♪ ♪ Swept away by your voice ♪ ♪ When you said your name ♪ ♪ You were looking so cute ♪ ♪ With your pony tail and sweats ♪ ♪ And your workout shoes ♪ - My name is Stokley.

I am a songwriter singer, producer, musician.

(piano music) I grew up at the Summit University area near my high school, which was St Paul's Central.

And that was there was a Magnet Arts Program where they had classes like recording studio, but St. Paul central was definitely a springboard for a lot of different artists.

I mean, there were a lot of people who came outta there.

(piano music) We're coming up on, where I discovered bongos.

We used to call this place Jamestown it was all wood then.

It definitely wasn't this colorful.

That's where I learned how to ride a bike, where everything started for me, there was some antique bongos in the kitchen or the living room.

Somehow I got them and started beating out these rhythms patterns that I guess sounded complex enough where it woke my dad up.

And he knew a friend from Panama who had a African drum and dance troupe.

I had my first gig, First National Bank of Minneapolis.

I was about three that inspired me because that really lit the fire.

(piano music) My parents are both educators.

My father, historian.

Taught at Macalester for many years.

So we would have these parties at the house.

I remember there'd be all these continental Africans.

And playing all these different music, All this food and hear these languages.

I'm like, wow, it's pretty amazing.

So I was turned on by that.

And it just kinda stayed.

Having the whole African experience, that's definitely that's where I began.

Got some photos at my mother's house, we could take a look at.

Mint Condition has been in existence since 1986.

And we're a bunch of guys, a bunch of friends, we all went to St. Paul Central high school, like the mid eighties.

And when everything was going on here it's hard to pin us down, even though the market puts us in RNB.

But if you listen to the CDs, the albums there's a lot of different styles on there.

And basically it's all the branches of the tree of African-American wellspring music.

We call our style like it's gumbo.

We just put everything in there and we just make it work.

♪ Quit breakin' my heart ♪ ♪ Breakin' my heart ♪ ♪ Breakin' my heart ♪ We came up, we got the attention later on of Jam and Lewis and Jam and Lewis they bit first, a couple of weeks after that we were in Flight Times Studios.

In '86 I was asked to play drums for Giorge Pettus.

And Giorge had gotten a opening slot for Whitney Houston.

This was The Moment of Truth tour in Europe.

I mean of course, I got to meet Whitney and all these incredible musicians and singers.

And that was a definitely a highlight for me, meeting her.

And that whole tour just really opened me up.

So after that, I definitely was like this is absolutely what I'm doing.

(drum beat music) We are at Infinity Productions, getting ready for the Ordway show and touring whatever instrument you play, you have to have some kind of rhythm to it, some type of heartbeat.

And I think drums are really important to me just because it's it's.

And I think really to everybody because it's the heartbeat.

We all have a drum inside of us, whether you know it or not.

(drum beat music) The solo venture isn't, it's basically starting another career.

It just comes a time where you want to artistically say something in a different way.

Reinvent, kind of just have some new energy around you.

(upbeat music) ♪ Hometown ♪ ♪ Everybody get up on this number y'all ♪ ♪ Stand up if you ain't ♪ ♪ Come on ♪ ♪ Girl you were my level ♪ ♪ Hey my level ♪ ♪ I'm a sucker for your body type ♪ ♪ The fire temper matches your mind ♪ ♪ No point and wanna settle settle well ♪ ♪ Girl you something real fine now ♪ ♪ Who wouldn't wanna hold you down ♪ ♪ Come on y'all ♪ ♪ Never let you go ♪ ♪ Find someone, someone on my level ♪ ♪ Level my level ♪ ♪ I might have been staring ♪ ♪ You're fine, find someone for my level ♪ ♪ Level my level ♪ Lets do it y'all, get up on it.

♪ Level level level ♪ ♪ My level level level ♪ ♪ You're never judgemental ♪ ♪ Judgemental ♪ ♪ Girl you can never tell me ♪ This is a different type of show that I've put together.

All of the genres that influence me, music that I grew up on.

It's important for me to explore and expand.

And, I just feel like I'm just now getting some legs on me a little bit with this project to come home and do this for the people is really, really special.

(upbeat music) (applause) ♪ Hoo hoo hoo-hoo ♪ ♪ Everywhere the sun was shinning the sun was shining ♪ ♪ Yeah everywhere ♪ ♪ Everywhere the sun was shinning ♪ ♪ The sun was shinning everywhere ♪ ♪ Ah wow wow ♪ - My name is J.D.

Steele.

- I am Jevetta Steele - I am Jearlyn Steele.

- I'm Fred Steele.

- I am Billy Steele - And we are the Steeles.

(upbeat music) - Fred's the ears of the group.

Billy is the comedian.

Jearlyn is the business head.

J.D is also another business head and the driver.

And I'm sort of the person that supports.

I play the supporting role.

- That is so not true.

(laughs) That is lies and slander.

- It's true.

(upbeat music) - There's actually six of us, my sister, Janice.

She's an ordained minister in California.

And she actually sings very well as well.

She just decided singing was not the thing.

- We grew up in Gary, Indiana.

My father was the early encouragement for us because he was the guitar player and he would take us to sing at places all over.

- And our dad was, he was everything.

He was a total catalyst for us that got us out there and kept us out there.

- I was the first sibling to come to Minnesota in 1976.

I was working in corporate America at the time and started moonlighting at the Children's Theater and Mixed Blood Theater.

And then when Fred came in town, he and I became a duet and started working with choirs together.

And then when Jearlyn came along, the three of us started singing and doing a variety of things.

- We won the Minnesota State Fair Amateur contest.

And we took our little $500 winnings, I think it was.

And we were recording a demo and things just snowballed from there.

- And then Jevetta came along and stole the show and Billy's just hanging on for dear life.

(laughs) - We'll take that target off your shirt.

- And think about when he first as the first sibling in 1876 to be here, raising the flag of The Steeles coming as awesome.

(laughs) ♪ Summertime ooo summer time ♪ ♪ Living is easy ♪ ♪ The living is easy ♪ ♪ Fish are jumping ♪ ♪ Fish are jumping oh fish are jumping ♪ ♪ The cotton is high ♪ ♪ The cotton is high ♪ ♪ Your daddy's rich ♪ - Yeah, now after that the next section is... ♪ Your daddy's rich ♪ ♪ Your daddy's rich ♪ - Is that a unison?

♪ Your daddy's so rich ♪ - The Colors of Gershwin was something that I have always wanted to do with the family, but getting them to buy into it, I think was a bit obscure, but Jearlyn and I were pretty married to it the moment we heard that this was a great idea.

- So we basically, as the brothers, we were gonna vote that we're gonna take a stand and Jevetta was like, no, you're not.

And we're just like, okay well we'll work on The Color of Gershwin.

(laughs) And that's how it came to be.

♪ Summer time ♪ ♪ And the living is easy ♪ ♪ Fish are jumping ♪ ♪ And the cotton is high ♪ - My career highlights are without question, working with my family and doing Gospel at Colonus on Broadway was a huge highlight that took up about 27 years of our lives.

- Career highlights for me I guess would be having an Academy Award nomination as well as four Gold records.

- I'm Assistant director of Sounds of Blackness.

Some of those highlights we've gotten three Grammys for the different projects.

- Another one had to have been the trip to London with Prince and the opportunity to do Carnegie hall twice.

- And this is our movie star.

- Yes.

(laughs) - I don't know about that, but yeah, Jevetta and I do "A Prairie Home Companion."

I was able to be in the movie and work with Meryl Streep and that was a blast.

And we were all in "Graffiti Bridge."

- Working with Prince was a highlight.

- It was a highlight.

We traveled... - We wrote a song on our first album.

- And then, the Gershwin show is definitely a career highlight because it came together in such a wonderful way.

♪ I got rhythm ♪ ♪ I got music ♪ ♪ I got my girl ♪ ♪ Who can ask for anything more ♪ ♪ I got daisies in green pastures ♪ ♪ I've got my man ♪ ♪ Who can ask for anything more ♪ - We're not the first-generation of Steele singers.

This was a legacy passed down to us.

Our grandfather was a singer with his siblings, our dad who was also a musician.

He played guitar, he and his siblings sang and they recorded gospel music.

So passing it on to us was very, very natural to see all of us get together at a family gathering.

Everybody sang.

♪ The way you change my life ♪ ♪ Change my life ♪ ♪ Oh no they can't take that away from me ♪ - The reason why we call it the Colors of Gershwin.

We want to put our colors to it.

We try to stay with all the traditional melodies and whatever spin we put on.

We try to stick with that as close as we could.

- Once the arrangements were done they came together really well.

J.D does an incredible job of putting a set list together and having a flow that makes a lot of sense.

And that's part of his responsibility.

- And I disagreed with his flow.

However, he was correct.

And that's the thing that we realized.

Is that in all of our positions within the family, is that we really do understand who is supposed to do what 'cause every one of the writers in the family or arrangers in the family have a different style of doing it.

So J.D.

's way of doing it is not to make any notes.

If you were to look at the lyrics on his sheet of paper there's not one scratch, not one check, not a word written, Jevetta on the other hand, knows exactly, everything is written down.

She's typed up all the backgrounds that she hears in her head.

And she goes, this is what I'm hearing.

This is what I want you to do.

Fred comes in with his keyboard and he sits down and he looks over at us and says, "This is what I want Jearlyn.

"You sing this."

Billy comes in with tracks.

He's the one that constantly works on the nuances with us.

Every one of them their arrangements or their writing is it has a purpose.

♪ Summertime ♪ ♪ Summertime ooo summertime ♪ ♪ The living is easy ♪ ♪ The fish are jumping ♪ ♪ The fish are jumping ♪ - The drums gotta be like so the drums have to set that tempo.

It's been such a delightful process, the time that we've spent together actually coming up with the arrangements and Billy just blew it open.

- He did.

- He literally blew this thing open.

- Took the lead off... - And then Jevetta has an incredible eye for production part of this.

To watch Jearlyn's growth into and handling all this booking and the communication with all the people that it's just been absolutely fantastic to see J.D.

lose all of these responsibilities.

(laughs) ♪ Summertime ♪ ♪ Summertime summertime ♪ ♪ The living is easy ♪ ♪ The living is easy ♪ ♪ Fishing are jumping ♪ ♪ Fish are jumping ♪ ♪ The cotton is high ♪ ♪ And the cotton is high ♪ ♪ Oh your daddy's rich ♪ ♪ Your daddy's so rich ♪ ♪ And your mama's good lookin' ♪ ♪ Your mama's good lookin' ♪ - October, 2014.

We premiered The Colors of Gershwin and we think it was a great success.

The future holds a ton of possibilities.

We're hoping to go into the studio, get it in recorded move it around into some festivals during the summer of 2015.

And see what else happens out here.

I think it has real legs and we're planning to move it.

♪ I got my girl ♪ ♪ Who can ask for anything more ♪ ♪ Who can ask for anything more ♪ - The most gratifying thing is singing with the family.

Not only that it's easier than singing with anybody else or doing it alone.

When we sing together, we can lean on each other.

We can exchange parts.

This is the absolute best.

♪ We got that kind of love ♪ ♪ That will last forever ♪ ♪ Forever and a day ♪ ♪ Forever and a day ♪ ♪ We've got that kind of love ♪ ♪ That will last forever ♪ ♪ Forever and ever hey ♪ ♪ We've got that kind of love ♪ ♪ That will last forever.

♪ (applause) ♪ This little light ♪ ♪ I'm gonna let let it shine ♪ ♪ This little light light of mine ♪ ♪ I'm gonna let let it shine ♪ ♪ This little light ♪ ♪ Light of mine ♪ ♪ I'm gonna let it shine ♪ ♪ Let it shine ♪ ♪ Let it shine ♪ ♪ Let it shine ♪ - Funding for stage has been provided by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.

And these funders.