By Sophie Young for Mirror Indy.
Broadcast version by Joe Ulery for Indiana News Service reporting for the Mirror Indy-Free Press Indiana-Public News Service Collaboration.

Robert Montgomery was only about five years old when his father, legendary jazz guitarist Wes Montgomery, died of a heart attack at age 45. He doesn’t remember much from that time.

“His death really shook me,” said Robert, the youngest of seven siblings, and it wasn’t until he got older that he began to listen to his father’s music. 

“I remember going to my mother and saying, ‘Mom, Dad was really good,’” he said. “And she goes, ‘Of course, you blockhead. Of course he was.’”

Now, Robert, 62, is one of his father’s biggest fans. 

“To me, nobody plays as good as he does,” he said. “You know, not just because he’s my dad. Because I’ve listened to guitars, and they’re great. But they’re not Wes.”

Wes Montgomery, who was born in Indianapolis in 1923, was an innovator on the guitar, creating a new sound by playing with his thumb instead of a pick — a style he created so he wouldn’t disturb his family or neighbors while practicing at night after working long days at a factory. He got major record deals, won Grammys and toured. 

Even though his music took him across the world, his home was always in Indianapolis. He was recognized on March 6 with a public dedication of a historical marker on what would’ve been his 101st birthday.

The Indiana Historical Bureau, which runs the marker program, has had Wes on its wishlist of people to recognize for years. Wes left his mark across the city, so it wasn’t easy to decide where the marker should go.

It could have gone on Indiana Avenue, where he played in jazz clubs. Instead, it will be at 10th and Bellefontaine Streets, near the Indianapolis Cultural Trail. The marker is close to where the Montgomery family home stood on Cornell Street before it was razed to build the interstate. 

The decision for the location aligned with Wes’ priorities. He wanted to move to the West Coast to pursue music, but he stayed in Indianapolis for his wife, Serene, and their kids. Wes and Serene were 19 years old when they married in 1943 and were together until Wes’ death in 1968.

“The music was second. We were first – and my mother,” Robert said. “He was really truly a family man. At the very heart of being a family man, the love for us was impeccable.”

It wasn’t easy to capture Wes’ 45 years – his family, his work, his music – on a historical marker. Each side of the metal sign can only hold 372 characters, including spaces. And the text can’t include superlatives like “best” or “first;” everything has to be factual and backed up by primary sources. 

“You had to really think about, ‘Okay, how do we talk about this person and not connect my emotional feelings and inspirational things that he brought to my life and music?” said Rob Dixon, a saxophone player. “That was a challenge, but it was rewarding.” 

Dixon is the artistic director of the Indy Jazz Fest, and he was part of a team that helped with the application process. 

The research was led by Scott and Katie Taylor, who met Robert’s siblings while applying for a marker for John Hope School 26, an initiative led by the Oaks Academy to pay tribute to the history of the school it had purchased. From there, they became interested in Wes’ life and legacy. 

All the research fits in a thick, heavy binder full of newspaper clippings, advertisements for shows and more. The book ends with pages of articles about Wes’ legacy and influence.
 
Wes died on June 15, 1968, and 2,400 people showed up at his funeral, including Julian “Cannonball” Adderly, a renowned saxophone player who “discovered” Wes in 1959 at the Missile Room on North West Street. Adderly and other jazz stars were in town for a show at the Indiana Theater, according to IndyStar reports from the time. 

After the public dedication ceremony for the marker on March 6, the Bottleworks Hotel hosted a private reception where Robert and other family members, and musicians and friends from across the country came out to remember Wes. 

Serene Miles Montgomery-Woods, who later remarried, died in 2020 at age 96. Robert shared a story his wife told about riding in the car with Serene when she was in her 80s.

“This song came on – Freddie Jackson’s ‘My Lady.’ And my wife thought maybe she didn’t want to hear it, so she turned it down,” he said. His mom said, “‘No, turn that up.’ And she said, ‘Wes used to say that about me all the time. I was his lady.’”


Sophie Young wrote this article for Mirror Indy.


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By Frankie (Amy) Felegy for Arts Midwest.
Broadcast version by Mark Moran for Iowa News Service reporting for the Arts Midwest-Public News Service Collaboration

Chuy Renteria started dancing-specifically breaking-at the age of 14. A magazine editor and writer these days, Renteria still uses breaking to express his identity-and defiance, rebellion, and frustration with the other dancers.

"We're in conversation. We're having the equivalent of a heated argument on the dance floor," he says. The improvisational street dance is rooted in African American and Latino culture. It originated in New York City in 1980s, alongside a growing hip-hop scene.

Renteria dances to engage with the labels pasted onto him, both accurate and biased.

"When people see me walking down the street, they can't help but think A, B, C, right? So when I go to sleep and I wake up, I can't take that away," he says.

'This is Me'

Renteria grew up in West Liberty, Iowa, in the 80s and 90s-a time and place that has shaped who he is and where his art leads him.

The city is less than two square miles in size; inside is a historically majority Hispanic population.

"Growing up in West Liberty, I felt too Mexican for the white people and too white for the Mexican people. And that was always this constant [existence] between those spaces," Renteria says.

As young as nine years old, the first-generation Mexican-American remembers racial slurs being flung at him. People would say they hated him.

"And when I found dance, it transcended all of that," he says. "It's like, this is me."

Finding Meaning

Renteria shares: "Just by nature of my own identity, in the context of the social constructs around us, me existing becomes this political conversation point to folks."

But that politicization isn't as direct a translation in dance as, say, artforms that use words or visuals. The dialogue is more subtle.

"Dance and movement, and that sort of expression, is just as valid, and it's just as politically cognizant of the world. It just does it in this kind of abstraction. It doesn't have to be hitting you over the head," he says.

Renteria's 2021 memoir We Heard It When We Were Young, along with his more recent blog posts in Of Spanglish and Maximalism, grapple with his past, the now, and beyond.

What is identity? How does intergenerational trauma and racism impact who we are? The list goes on: "Did I have a good childhood? Am I a good person because-or in spite of-my upbringing? ... Is my town a good town? The town that I grew up in, the town as of now, is it a good place?" Renteria asks.

"I'm really interested in the questions that I don't know the answer to."


Frankie (Amy) Felegy wrote this story for Arts Midwest.


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By Anya Slepyan for The Daily Yonder.
Broadcast version by Mike Moen for Minnesota News Connection for the Public News Service/Daily Yonder Collaboration

As the 2024 election approached, news channels and commentators once again revived a familiar narrative: the urban-rural divide. 

But Laura Zabel, executive director of Minnesota-based arts non-profit Springboard for the Arts, was more interested in urban-rural solidarity. 

“Going into an election year, we knew that there was going to be a lot of narrative that focused on ways we might be different, or ways that people assume we’re different,” Zabel said. “And we wanted to do something to not only counter that narrative, but to help people build real relationships and real solidarity across urban and rural places.” 

Stoking resentment between urban and rural communities serves to divide largely working-class constituencies that could gain more political power if they work together, Zabel said. Emphasizing what these communities have in common, across different geographies and demographics, can help counter that divide. But it’s not easy to overcome a narrative that is so deeply ingrained that many Americans take it for granted.

So Springboard for the Arts launched a new initiative, consisting of over 35 artists working on projects across Minnesota, Michigan, Kentucky, and Colorado that connect urban and rural communities. The installations include phone booths that connect communities in rural Northfield, Minnesota and Minneapolis, a culinary project that celebrates the fusion of a chef’s Southeast Asian roots and rural midwestern upbringing, and a Kentucky poetry slam honoring the renowned theorist and professor bell hooks.

The results, Zabel said, demonstrate “all of the different ways that we’re connected, and all of the different creative ways that we might reach out to one another and build that kind of understanding.” 

Using art projects to foster connection and understanding is effective, according to Zabel, because they leave room for nuance and complexity that is often flattened by media narratives. Creative projects can also help people approach new ideas with a more open mind, she said. 

“Art has a tremendous ability to build shared experience in ways that takes people outside of their comfort zone, or makes people more open to thinking of things in a different way,” Zabel said.

A project installed in two Minnesota elementary schools demonstrates the principles behind the projects. Artist David Hamlow worked with 2nd and 3rd graders in rural St. James and urban Minneapolis to design wall sculptures made of recycled materials. Each student was also given a yearbook photo of a participating student from the other school, and asked to incorporate that picture into the sculpture. The resulting walls of faces serve a purpose similar to pen pals, according to Zabel.

The youth-focused project also hopes to reach urban and rural children before they’ve internalized the harmful stereotypes these communities can apply to one another. 

Project installations by the initial class of 35 artists are ongoing, but Zabel hopes to expand the initiative further in coming years.

“I think that if we are able to build greater understanding and connection, and help people see a more complete picture of what it looks like to live in different contexts, we end up finding out that there is a lot of shared interest and shared hope for our future and our children,” Zabel said.


Anya Slepyan wrote this article for The Daily Yonder.


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Sixty years ago this weekend, young activists marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, demanding their right to vote and changing history in the process. Today, another group of young people is using art to make their voices heard in Georgia.

A Boston-based arts group, beheard.world, has teamed up with Selma-area teens for "Selma Again," a production that blends dance, spoken word and music to shed light on the struggles the city still faces today.

Director and choreographer Anna Myer said the performance is about pushing forward, as well as looking back.

"The piece talks about real things that are happening and things that go to the heart," she said, "and it also talks about love and the only way forward is love and the only way to keep moving forward is if we do this together."

Myer said she first visited Selma years ago and was struck by how poverty and crime persist despite its historic significance. She and her husband, filmmaker Jay Paris, along with Selma natives, helped create a nonprofit initiative to blend nonviolence education, performing arts and storytelling for local youth.

It's part of the Selma Cross-Cultural Nonviolence and Performing Arts Academy, which was co-founded by Dallas County natives and civil rights veterans Charles Bonner and Viola Douglas, along with the Rev. Gary Crum of Elwood Christian Church. Through poetry and dance, teens confront modern challenges and honor past civil rights leaders.

Myer said this year's production highlights how today's youth can step into the legacy of activism left by the "foot soldiers" of the 1960s.

"In the performance in Atlanta, we're honoring civil rights veterans who are still alive - Andrew Young, and Charles Steele, and Faya Rose Sanders, and Lynda Blackmon Lowery," she added. "We're honoring them and we'll be also speaking their names in the piece."

"Selma Again" will be performed today (Fri., March 7) at Morehouse College's Ray Charles Performing Arts Center in Atlanta, and Sat., March 8, at Ellwood Christian Academy in Selma, as part of the annual Bridge Crossing Jubilee.

Myer emphasized the show's ultimate goal is to spark meaningful conversations, promote understanding and inspire action for lasting change.