The aura of New Orleans poured through Grenoldo Frazier’s fingertips Monday as he performed in Stewart Theater. The performance resulted from a joint effort of the African American Cultural Center and the University Scholars Program (USP), and Frazier will perform again in the same location on Tuesday, Oct. 6 at 3 P.M. The event is free for the public.
As a pianist, singer, composer and Broadway performer, Frazier illustrated the progression of African American music.
“Through everything I do you can see how we got to hip hop, you can see how we got to modern rock,” Frazier said.
“It was cool how he was able to incorporate the different generations of African American music,” Luke Perrin, a freshman studying political science, said.
Throughout a single piece, Frazier would begin with the piece’s original style and then flow into a series of styles that chronologically followed when the styles originated, until he eventually reached a modern style of playing.
“I think [the performance] has definitely opened my mind to how music was developed,” Isabella Lee, a freshman studying international studies, said. “I wasn’t necessarily aware as I am now of how all of the history of music is incorporated with each other. It’s interesting to see how one thing piggybacks off of another to form the music that we have today.”
Alternating between speech, piano, singing, or any combination of the three, Frazier’s performance was seemingly a conversation – not just with the audience, but also with musicians who originally wrote the music.
“I thought [Frazier] was amazing,” Lee said. “He had a really unique performance style.”
Frazier’s performance seemed to radiate a sense of youth. Despite being in his early sixties, Frazier still stomped, danced and stuck out his tongue while his hands danced across the keys.
Following the performance, the African American Cultural Center hosted a reception on the second floor of the Witherspoon Student Center. There, attendees heard a joint performance by the PEACE Church Gospel Choir and the Uninhibited Praise Gospel Choir. Listeners also got a chance to speak with Frazier and discuss his work.
Frances Graham, director of the African American Cultural Center, said, “His warm and his gregarious engagement, his connection with people – I would say that he’s definitely someone that connects to the human spirit.”
Frazier said if he could give a piece of advice to aspiring artists and performers he would tell them to embrace their youthfulness.
“Use your youth,” Frazier said. “Find that thing in you, that passion and follow that as far as you can follow that. And realize sometimes it doesn’t work out, but on the way to finding that you may find something else that may be good, and that may be the billion dollar idea.”
