{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/iiif/kk94747f9b/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["Daniel Comegys oral history, 2002 September 23"]},"logo":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/008/original/peabody-institute.logo.large.horizontal.blue.cropped.png?1549570058","metadata":[{"label":{"en":["Description"]},"value":{"en":[" Daniel Comegys is a singer. Educated at Douglass High School and Morgan State University, Comegys began his musical studies with Ruth McAbee and Marion Smith. He studied voice with Frank Whitmore, Igor Chichagov and Roland Hayes. In Paris he worked with Nadia Boulanger and Pierre Bernac. Comegys has concertized throughout the United States, Africa, and Europe. (Abstract)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Date"]},"value":{"en":[" 2002-09-23 (created)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Agent"]},"value":{"en":[" Comegys, Daniel (Interviewee)"," Davis, Daniel Thomas (Interviewer)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Language"]},"value":{"en":[" English (Primary)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Format"]},"value":{"en":["audio/mp3"]}},{"label":{"en":["Publisher"]},"value":{"en":["Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University"]}},{"label":{"en":["Rights Statement"]},"value":{"en":["The collection is open for use. Contact peabodyarchives@lists.jhu.edu for more information."]}},{"label":{"en":["Source Metadata URI"]},"value":{"en":["https://aspace.library.jhu.edu/repositories/4/archival_objects/215343"]}}],"summary":{"en":[" Daniel Comegys is a singer. Educated at Douglass High School and Morgan State University, Comegys began his musical studies with Ruth McAbee and Marion Smith. He studied voice with Frank Whitmore, Igor Chichagov and Roland Hayes. In Paris he worked with Nadia Boulanger and Pierre Bernac. Comegys has concertized throughout the United States, Africa, and Europe."]},"requiredStatement":{"label":{"en":["Attribution"]},"value":{"en":["The collection is open for use. Contact peabodyarchives@lists.jhu.edu for more information."]}},"provider":[{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/aboutus","type":"Agent","label":{"en":["Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University"]},"homepage":[{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/","type":"Text","label":{"en":["Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University"]},"format":"text/html"}],"logo":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/008/original/peabody-institute.logo.large.horizontal.blue.cropped.png?1549570058","type":"Image"}]}],"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/public/images/audio-default.png","type":"Image","format":"image/png"}],"items":[{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 2 - pims0091_ComegysD_01.mp3"]},"duration":3008.02612,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/public/images/audio-default.png","type":"Image","format":"image/png"}],"items":[{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-peabody.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/117/391/original/pims0091_ComegysD_01.mp3?1624270790","type":"Audio","format":"audio/mpeg","duration":3008.02612,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["AUTO_TRINT_pims0091_ComegysD_01.mp3 [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e Today is September 23, 2002, and I'm here with Mr. Daniel Comegys in his home in Columbia, Maryland. Thank you, Mr. Comegys.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=2.42,10.13"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/2","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e Thank you. It's a pleasure. I'm happy to meet you and talk to you.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=11.09,13.82"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/3","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e Well, I guess we'll just get started. So you were born in Baltimore?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=15.289,20.42"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/4","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e I was born in Baltimore on September 24, 1937. So that means tomorrow I shall be sixty-five.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=21.29,28.46"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/5","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e Congratulations.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=29.39,29.39"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/6","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e Thanks. And I started my early education in Baltimore and studied at -- My musical life began listening to my uncle play jazz recordings and -- are you getting sound?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=30.38,57.043"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/7","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e Oh, yes.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=58.89,59.07"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/8","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e To jazz recordings and also singers like Nat King Cole and I would imitate them. And near our house was the Club Astoria, where I went with my father to listen to Billie Holiday, so they would set me on the bar and I'd listen to Billie Holiday.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=59.163,84.49"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/9","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e In West Baltimore?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=85.45,85.66"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/10","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e This is in West Baltimore. I grew up on Calhoun Street, the 400 block of Calhoun Street between Mulberry and Franklin. And my other recollections of early music is that Gillis Memorial Church was across the street from my house -- from my parents' home -- and they had church all day, and into that church came Marian Anderson and Roland Hayes and the Five Blind Boys and the Soul Stirrers and all kinds of music. And in those days, people were not confined to only gospel music. They listen to classical music and other kinds of genres as well. And so you heard from these windows in the summer, it would be very hot and the windows would be up and the church windows would be up. And you'd hear all of this music just coming through the air and into your homes and up and down the street. So that was another early experience, a daily experience.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=86.11,154.87"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/11","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e The third experience -- my mother was a cook in Roland Park and she cooked for Dr. Frank R. Ford, who was a neurologist at [Johns] Hopkins [Hospital] and a world famous neurologist, and his wife was a painter who painted at the Maryland Institute of Art. And so they didn't have any children, and I sort of grew up in that house as well. So I'm growing up hearing three kinds of music all the time. And she played the guitar and she played the piano and I would learn songs from the Scottish student songbook and we would sing this music. And it was a wonderful experience. And they were gems of people. Dr. Ford was a sculptor, and while he did his histories, he would sculpt up in his room. And I would come in the mornings when I wasn't going to school and sit to get my portrait painted, and then I would go back home and play out in the alley. So, it's living between a lot of different worlds at a very early age.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=156.07,229.27"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/12","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e And she listened to my voice and put me in contact with a man who taught at the Peabody Conservatory and is my first teacher and the teacher who grounded me for every experience that I was to have later. And his name was Frank Whitmore. And I think his wife was a singer as well. And her name was Margaret Ditmar [phonetic]. At that time -- so I'm skipping a gap here, I'm skipping to junior high school, and that was on McCulloh Street, what's the name of that street? [Unclear] And there was a woman there, Ruth McAbee, who was the music teacher. She liked my voice and gave me opportunity to sing, and all during this time I'm singing, but not having any conscious idea about it being performance or profession. It's fun.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=230.23,298.99"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/13","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e Sure, just the way it always seems when you're three years old and you're singing to your parents.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=300.04,304.69"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/14","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e So twelve years, and then in high school, it was fun. I had other interests, but singing was a part of me and I didn't recognize that at that time. However, I was on three television shows in Baltimore during the week. One was with Bailey Goss and it was an amateur hour. And the second one was called Treasure Chest and that was a religious show. Mary Stewart Hammond, I think, was her name -- she was a great guiding light to me, lived out in Guilford [Maryland] and so on. And then my teacher, Frank Whitmore was Davy Crockett, and I was Davy's pal. [Laughs] So we would come into the studio at WJZ-TV and he would sing his songs, and then I would sing something like \"Sea Fever\" or some songs that I knew.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=305.23,370.97"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/15","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e There was another show called High Time with a very famous Baltimore man, Tommy Dukehart. And I was on his show very regularly.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=371.092,384.44"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/16","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e As a child?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=385.94,386.06"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/17","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e As a teenager. Not late teens, early -- thirteen, fourteen, fifteen and on through -- and Mr. Whitmore trained me as well as Igor Chichagov whose picture is over there, who was Rosa Ponselle's accompanist and coach -- and still tunes me up. He came down to Baltimore, had a studio in Baltimore, and he traveled from New York to Baltimore and spent three days a week here.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=386.84,428.57"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/18","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e Teachers still do that at Peabody.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=429.252,429.88"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/19","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e [unclear] It's itinerant musicians.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=433.699,434.84"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/20","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e Exactly.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=435.56,435.56"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/21","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e So now that he's older, I go to New York for lessons, and having learned that, no matter what the level of performance or where the performer has performed, that one always has a teacher. So that was my early musical training in Baltimore. At the completion of high school, I was a music major, but never liked music very much.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=441.11,478.687"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/22","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e Going back to Dr. Ford, [whom] you mentioned, was it common for African American students from West Baltimore to have that type of contact and relationships with White families in Roland Park?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=482.27,492.83"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/23","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e I don't think so. I think it was uncommon. And I think they were very uncommon people. They were both very warm and very egalitarian. And so I never felt that my mother was -- even though she was a servant in the house, that she was she was never treated as a servant in the house. And they gave me my first car. They exposed me to -- She had dinner parties, Mrs. Ford did. And Dr. Ford would be present up to a point, and then he would he would leave. [Laughter] But these dinner parties, people like Reginald Marsh, the great American painter, would be there. And I have about twelve of his pieces around here and his \"Loco-Erie\" locomotive and his Coney Island scenes. And then there was his teacher, who was director at the Maryland Institute -- Jacques Maroger. I have some of his works here, too. All of these passed down.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=494.65,578.58"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/24","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e And so I was able to sit at the table and be served by my mother while she's cooking. It was really an interesting experience. So I was able to listen and hear theology discussed, and what art was and what art wasn't, and who the artists were and what colors were the best colors, whether Rembrandt colors -- And then hear about music and drama and just cross conversation. And I was able to participate in the conversation -- mainly be quiet, but if I had something to say, I was free to express it or to ask questions.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=579.93,621.02"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/25","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e So on the one side, you had sort of your West Baltimore colleagues. On the other side, you had your Roland Park, sort of a different demographic.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=621.8,633.14"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/26","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e Yes, and what that did is that gave me the skill to -- I would collect rags and newspapers and what people call now recycling in my homemade wagon, and I would take it from the street where I lived and go to Pennsylvania Avenue to sell them. But I could get a better price down at Fells Point, but what that meant is you would have to take all of your goods between the White neighborhood and a Black neighborhood, both of which were rough on the street. And I could work my way through and negotiate my way all the way down to Fells Point and then all the way back.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=633.89,675.93"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/27","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e That's a long way.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=676.44,676.86"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/28","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e And that training of being able to do that served me later when I began traveling to Paris and so on.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=676.99,686.68"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/29","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e Great. So I guess I'm going forward again now that I threw us backwards. So you're at Douglass [High School], you're studying with Mr. Whitmore at Peabody?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=690.309,700.65"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/30","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e Yes. And one woman who I would be really remiss if I didn't mention her name was my high school music teacher, and her name was Mrs. Marion Smith, who had studied at -- it's the college in North Carolina. An all-girls school.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=701.27,722.88"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/31","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e Salem [College]? [William] Peace [University]? Meredith [College]?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=724.039,724.095"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/32","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e No, it's a Black school. I went to Guilford to sing --","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=726.62,729.29"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/33","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e Lenoir-Rhyne?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=729.6,729.6"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/34","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e It's gone. But she always gave me the opportunity to sing.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=733.47,738.3"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/35","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e Converse [University]?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=739.08,739.185"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/36","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e No. [Laughter] She always gave me the opportunity to sing and rehearsed with me and kept me focused. Because I was very unfocused. The music was the furthest thing from my mind. I simply was talented and had a gift, and a good memory, and a good ability to imitate people's styles and so on. Then I received a music scholarship to Morgan State University. And that scholarship was for the octect, the college octet, because I didn't like to sing in choirs. At that time, I'd already learned Schubert and Brahms and Strauss and Mahler in high school through Mr. Whitmore. And had been singing French songs, and British songs, and Scottish songs, so all of that was a part of my memory and a part of me, but not sought out to be a part of me.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=739.213,817.76"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/37","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e It was just there?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=819.14,819.8"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/38","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah. And I didn't like music very much at Morgan. And so I didn't retain my scholarship. And I met a man who was a philosopher, Dr. I. W. E. Taylor, and he was in charge of the philosophy department. And I began studying philosophy and political science and political philosophy. And that was my degree [laughs] at that point. And I suppose I study that now.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=819.896,863.03"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/39","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e Right. Well, you never stopped.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=863.42,864.83"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/40","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e I never stopped. And at that point, I didn't know how to do any calculus or algebra whatsoever. And you could opt to take a course, and I took physical science and I met a man named Mr. Russell [phonetic], who introduced me to the telescope and that introduction to the telescope has stayed with me since college.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=865.22,894.76"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/41","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e I saw the telescope upstairs.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=895.3,895.736"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/42","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah. I loved it. And I've used the one in Scotland, I've used the one in Vienna. And I go down on the fifth and the twentieth of every month when it's clear and I use the one at [The University of] Maryland and I've looked at the national telescope in Washington, those three telescopes, and I love to look through there and get a sense of things. And during this time that I'm doing this in philosophy, I'm still singing, still taking voice lessons, and I was heard Junetta Jones. And her church sponsored me in a concert at her church, St. John's Church on Harlem Square [Park], and a woman heard me sing, and her name was Laura Wheatley -- she was a Black lady and she was the wife of a Doctor [Edward J.] Wheatley, a black physician in Baltimore. And she gave me a letter and an airplane ticket to fly to Boston to meet Roland Hayes.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=896.89,970.4"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/43","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e The famous spiritual arranger [unclear] --","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=973.029,973.578"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/44","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e Famous singer, concert singer, and he arranged Negro spirituals, which are Afro-American religious folk songs.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=976.39,985.66"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/45","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e They're still in print.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=986.38,986.77"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/46","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e They're still in print. And I have his albums and his CDs and lots of letters from him giving me advice and advising me how to proceed when I didn't know how to proceed. And I began studying with him and I would be going to Boston to study until my humanities teacher informed me that I had two cuts in his class. And you're only allowed three or at that time, it was automatic failure. And so I told him, I said, \"Dr. Lee,\" [phonetic] -- who had written \"Southern Crossroads\" [phonetic] and had written music, had written with Sterling Brown, the blues poet and collector. And I told Dr. Lee that I was going up, I'd missed his class because I was going to see Roland Hayes and we had been studying about Roland Hayes in class. He said, \"Well, Mr. Comegys, you have to make a decision -- whether you're going to have humanities or Roland Hayes.\" And so I escaped the bull between the horns and asked Mr. Hayes if I could come up on Saturdays and Sundays. And he said yes. And those were days he didn't teach on.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=987.43,1063.88"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/47","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e So Roland Hayes and I graduated from Morgan in 1959. And Mr. Hayes wrote a letter for me to go to Paris and meet and study with Nadia Boulanger. And that's how I went to Paris. And Mr. Hayes had sung with [Gabriel] Fauré, accompanying him on the organ at the Madeleine Church in Paris and at many other places. It was a fantastic historical experience and I was able to experience this historically because of the prior experiences -- I knew how to sit at the table and I knew how to manage twelve forks and knives and place settings and so on, which is the kind of life I found at Fontainebleau and with Mademoiselle Boulanger.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=1064.93,1123.812"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/48","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e So with Roland Hayes, I mean, you had a sense of sort of the scale in which you were beginning to climb --","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=1125.55,1134.7"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/49","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e I was never aware of climbing. I never had a goal. I never had, \"I want to be this.\" Mainly I was looking and experiencing, rather than having -- \"I want to be a singer,\" or \"I want to get to this person,\" or \"I want to get to that person.\" So I've never lived life like that. It really just happened. [Laughs]","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=1136.11,1168.348"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/50","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e So how was working with Roland Hayes?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=1170.73,1171.54"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/51","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e Mr. Hayes was -- I stayed with him when I went for my lessons at his home.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=1172.68,1180.39"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/52","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e He must have been very kind.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=1180.9,1181.35"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/53","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e He was very kind. One of the two most elegant men I've ever met in my life, both very elegant and with a strong core of his intent and a deep sense of history, and his entire home reflected that. Statues and pieces by Alexandre Dumas. And you know those giraffe pianos?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=1182.01,1218.32"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/54","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e I don't think so, actually.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=1221.09,1221.624"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/55","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e It's a keyboard and it looks like a harpsichord, but it's upright and it's shaped in the form of a giraffe. It had little symbols inside and bells inside, as well as the keyboard. It was a beautiful instrument. And his wife served sorghum and biscuits and it was a wonderful experience. And what I received from Mr. Hayes was more of a sense of history and his importance of the retention of the Afro-American spiritual -- or religious slave songs -- as well as his great love of Fauré and [Hector] Berlioz and French composers.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=1222.43,1274.85"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/56","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And then he sang songs from Guillaume de Machaut, twelfth-century French music. He sang all of this, so this breadth all the way from the earliest music to what was modern at that time. That's what I learned -- more style, so I wouldn't say that he was a technique teacher. I still hadn't found my technique teacher yet. Except for Mr. Whitmore, but then I didn't see him any anymore after I had graduated from college. And then I went to -- so I stayed in Fontainebleau for the three months, and Francis Poulenc was there and Robert Casadesus and Mrs. Casadesus, and pianists. There was a concert every evening. You should go to Fontainebleau this summer.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=1275.54,1342.19"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/57","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e I thought about it, actually.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=1344.38,1344.729"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/58","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e It's a great place to go. All of these people and then every week there was a formal dinner party given by Mademoiselle Boulanger, and you would come to the table with other musicians and they would speak and you would hear more about music. And this went on for three months. And then when Pierre Bernac came, he suggested that I stay in Paris for the remainder of the year, so I stayed in Paris studying with him.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=1344.737,1378.78"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/59","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e In 1959?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=1379.11,1379.92"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/60","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e That's in 1959.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=1380.16,1381.33"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/61","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e That's a good time to be in Paris.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=1381.69,1382.38"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/62","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e It was the most wonderful time to be in Paris. There was a man whose name was Mercer Cook. Dr. Cook was from Howard University and worked with the Fulbright students and something called the Presence Africaine. James Baldwin was coming through. On Thursday nights you went to Boulanger's for a party and to learn how to stand up and talk about things. And on Monday night, you would go to Dr. Mercer Cook's and learn how to stand up and talk about things. So, again, these two parallel worlds are going on.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=1382.92,1425.85"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/63","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e And then later, I made the acquaintance of Francis Poulenc and Mr. Bernac's other wonderful students, Gerard Souzay and -- who would come there? Grace Bumbry, the singer would come was there. I was introduced to Vaccai [method] -- [laughs] these elementary songs that are very difficult today -- and stayed in that. Then the Berlin Wall is coming up, and I received my draft notice to come back to the United States that June and be inducted into the Army. And so I returned from Paris, having traveled to Italy and Turkey and Yugoslavia -- what then was Yugoslavia -- and Belgium and all of those countries, because the academic year in the French schools is different from the American calendar. And so students have more time off, and that's when I used that time to travel to Holland and so on.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=1425.952,1500.53"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/64","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e It's a long way from Baltimore.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=1501.069,1501.49"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/65","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e It's a long way from Baltimore. It was a long way from Baltimore.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=1501.82,1505.42"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/66","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e And not just in terms of geography.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=1506.79,1508.63"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/67","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah. It's a long way from Baltimore. Listening to all kinds of music and seeing all the art and everything was accessible and one was not -- What really was, is that one's race then determines one's access to learning and growth and development. That was very evident because there are a number of American jazz musicians who were there, as well as concert singers and opera singers.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=1510.73,1548.92"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/68","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e Anne Wiggins Brown had left the States to sing in Norway [crosstalk] --","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=1549.9,1552.069"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/69","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e Miss Brown was there, Anne Brown was there, Clark Terry was there. Every night I would listen to Bud Powell play the piano and all the jazz. Again -- the double. So I would be at the Salle Pleyel one night. And I remember the vibraphonist studied with -- Quincy Jones studied with Boulanger, and so did --","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=1554.388,1581.17"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/70","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e Lionel Hampton?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=1581.65,1581.98"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/71","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e No, with the Modern Jazz Quartet --","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=1582.98,1584.666"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/72","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e I know who you're talking about.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=1591.63,1592.32"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/73","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah. Very beautiful music. And then other nights I would be at Au Chat qui Peche and Storyville listening to jazz. And so all the times these two experiences.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=1592.99,1611.1"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/74","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e I returned back to Baltimore and went to -- I got married. I married a young woman who was extremely influential in my life. And her mother was a physician -- [she] had worked as a surgeon at Johns Hopkins, a Black woman, and her husband was a Black physician who had an MD, a PhD, and a Phi Beta Kappa and Ezra Pound was one of his patients. So I'm in --","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=1612.66,1661.33"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/75","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e You're in the right circles.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=1662.259,1662.63"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/76","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e [Laughs] I'm all of this. And without planning -- so, there was never any --","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=1663.5,1670.87"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/77","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e Résumé building.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=1671.243,1671.35"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/78","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah, résumé building or what do people call it -- when you manipulate to be in positions. Because my family wasn't like that. So I never had that as a part of me. And if there was any criticism of me, it was that I didn't do any of these things. I didn't have a plan.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=1672.069,1696.84"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/79","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e Well, so far everything seems to be working out pretty well.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=1697.62,1699.079"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/80","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e [Laughs] It worked okay. So in the time that I'm waiting to go into the military, to go to Berlin, I went to study with Mr. Hayes in Boston and there was a doctor, Theodore P. Ferris, who was rector of Trinity Church, Copley Square in Boston, and he had studied organ in Fontainebleau with the blind organists. Oh, wow, we're talking about -- not [Jean] Langlais, but he could change registrations for his next Bach piece while he was playing one. [Laughs] And Dr. Ferris and Mr. Hayes guided me there in Boston and I sang at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, two concerts -- one on Wednesday, the little one, and the big one on Sundays. And Mr. Hayes was singing there, too. And I was singing with Mr. Hayes's accompanist, Reginald Boardman, which was an enormous experience. And then I inducted into the army and went to Fort Dix for infantry training. And then I was so great at infantry training, I was in advanced infantry training and I was singing the whole time in the army, but strict combat type. But I was always singing. And I was singing because we went to -- right after my training -- I was sent to Bamberg, where the Bamberger Symphoniker is.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=1700.17,1812.03"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/81","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e Right. Very famous group.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=1812.9,1812.944"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/82","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e And I went to Mannheim, where Mozart went with the Mannheim Symphonies, and I went to Berlin and looked at cafe life and crossed over through Checkpoint Charlie and all of those kinds of -- All of the Ernest Hemingway type, that's what I was living, I mean, in my head. And and the people in Bamberg heard me sing. And so I was singing German songs there. And the colonel that I was assigned to heard me sing. And he was a line colonel. That meant that he always wanted to be out in the cold and in the line and with the troops. And at the same time, he was a very cultivated man, and his wife was the European editor of Vogue magazine.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=1813.32,1869.64"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/83","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e Oh, my. This is a strange life you're leading.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=1870.33,1872.759"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/84","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e Isn't it funny? [Laughs] So we did all the rough and tumble stuff -- all the border duty and crossing lines and all kinds of things -- don't need to talk about. Then that two years was over and I received a European discharge and had the choice of going to the Mozarteum in Salzburg or going back to Paris, to Fontainebleau and work with Mademoiselle Boulanger and Pierre Bernac.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=1874.552,1909.3"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/85","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e Tough decision.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=1911.94,1912.15"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/86","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e It was a really tough decision because I had to really begin again, not that you can begin anything again. So I chose Salzburg, I went to the Mozarteum and then I met my teacher, Erik Werba, who was the accompanist for Christa Ludwig and Walter Berry and Irmgard Seefried and all of these very great singers of this time. And he was also teaching them. And I stayed with him and lived in the Schlossberg where The Sound of Music was filmed. In fact, it was filmed under my window and I went up mountains and the person who directed the Mozarteum, the Schloss von Burg, was a Studentenheim and Carl Orff always came to there. And I would sing for Carl Orff's birthday and sit down and talk with Carl Orff at great lengths.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=1912.69,1979.52"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/87","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e He was pretty old at that point I bet, right?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=1981.119,1981.948"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/88","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e He was very old, but very lucid and went swimming every day and talked to all the students and was just -- What I learned about the people is that they may have been old chronologically -- in age -- but they would tire out any student or anybody who was around them. They would exhaust your mentality, they would exhaust your knowledge. And finally, you just sat silent. Because they were filled up with life and a reason for living and a reason to create and to make something beautiful. That's what they were doing -- and to share it and impart it to other people. And rarely was money brought into the equation, once you established a relationship.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=1985.14,2037.23"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/89","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e Then I left Salzburg and went to Vienna with Dr. Werba -- So I left the University of Salzburg, the Mozarteum, which was a summer academy, and went to the Vienna Academy of Music with Dr. Werba. Then I was engaged, I guess after a year, at the Vienna Volksoper and I stayed in Vienna for twelve years. Going between Vienna and then I would go to Paris to keep my French up and my intellect up with Mademoiselle Boulanger. And in the summers, I would sing concerts at Fontainebleau. And during that time I sang in Bayreuth. I had the great, great fortune -- this is a great fortune -- the American ambassador had a party. Lyndon Johnson was president at that time. And to that party he invited Leonard Bernstein, who was conducting [Verdi's] Falstaff at the Vienna Opera, and James King, a great Wagnerian tenor who had studied with Max Lorenz. And that was the evening I met James King, who later became my teacher and my mentor and my resurrector. He became, as they say, the man. And so we sang in Bayreuth on the same day. He was singing -- I don't want to say [Wagner's] Tannhäuser, because I think that was too big.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=2042.26,2147.538"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/90","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e [Wagner's] Rienzi?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=2150.03,2150.03"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/91","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e No -- when this clicks off, I'll tell you the Rienzi story. That's how I get here -- I get here through Rienzi. That's how I get totally resurrected -- through Rienzi, really. It's an incredible story.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=2150.03,2164.64"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/92","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e Well, we'll have to hear it, then.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=2165.27,2166.007"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/93","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e Really? [Laughs] So I meet James King, and then my son is born and I have a daughter who was born in Wurzburg and in Bamberg. And then my son is born in Vienna. And all of this -- young Black woman who had attended Otterbein College in Westerville, Ohio, and then had studied at Columbia University and she guided me too. So I had a lot of people guiding me and giving me information and mainly exposing me to experiences. So I think for me, that's what the learning was. So when my son was born, we moved up on Rooseveltplatz and I had a better role at the opera [unclear]. I was moved up on Rooseveltplatz. I have a picture of Roosevelt here. Not because of there, but because I sang maybe a couple of years at Theodore Roosevelt's birthplace in New York. Beautiful, wonderful concert hall. And I began continuing with Dr. Werba and then in this interim, I'm meeting someone else -- a severe teacher. And that's Gerald Moore.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=2166.35,2267.8"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/94","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e The Gerald Moore -- greatest accompanist of all time.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=2267.979,2272.09"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/95","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e The Gerald Moore. So I spent three months with Gerald Moore at the Mozarteum every day. So much that what you want to do is really want to get away from him. [Laughter]","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=2274.13,2288.767"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/96","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e Was he that hard?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=2290.15,2290.156"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/97","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e He was that hard. And he would say, \"Not you,\" when we would leave, and he said, \"You sit here next to me -- you're going to need this.\" And so I said, oh my God, how can I get away from this man? Because Boulanger was severe, James King was tolerant, and Bernac was very elegant, but he would impart the information and it was your choice whether you were going to learn it or not. But you received the instruction by being in the presence. General Moore is going to beat you up and put it in you note by note and beat by beat and consonant by consonant and style by style, and he's not going to let you go away. So I said, oh, the three months now I've done with Gerald Moore. But then I went to the Royal Academy of Music in Stockholm with Gerald Moore for another three months. And it was the very same.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=2290.69,2361.76"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/98","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e One day I missed one class because I had to get away from him [laughter] and I went to see a ship called the Vasa and I came back in the class and he said, \"Where have you been?\" And I said, \"Oh, Mr. Moore, I went to see the Vasa, I went to see the ship.\" [He] said, \"There is no music on that ship,\" [Laughs] and really just gave me a big pounding, very severe. But everything that he taught me really stuck. It went to my core. And he wouldn't let me run away from it. I mean, that's how I see him. So it's an enormous experience with all of these musicians.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=2365.33,2419.14"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/99","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e I left Vienna because it was time for the children to go to school and they were sort of -- because they were the only Black children around, the Viennese loved children very much -- any children, and -- I know what I'm saying. I'll leave it right there.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=2422.65,2448.95"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/100","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e No, continue.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=2449.909,2450.108"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/101","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e But they are so, \"Oh, look at the beautiful little hair, look at the curls.\" They're always rubbing their hair and rubbing their hands, and wherever we're going, there's a large crowd of people and so on, and the children began to withdraw. So we said we'd better come back and go to America and put them in American schools. Meanwhile, there are some -- Felicia Weathers, I don't know if you know of her, she's a Black opera singer and we are putting our children together so that they will be with other Black children. She's a very famous singer, Felicia Weathers.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=2450.145,2489.85"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/102","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e So the question of race, then, when you were in Europe, was more a question of isolation than a question of discrimination?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=2490.93,2499.06"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/103","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e Well, not necessarily isolation -- curiosity. Not isolation because I was in, through the university -- Well, if you know the language and if you know the culture, you can participate on any level.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=2500.109,2520.13"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/104","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e And no one cares?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=2521.49,2522.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/105","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e No one cares. You only need to know the language and the culture and the manners and the etiquette and you can participate.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=2522.39,2532.91"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/106","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e But you had mastered, by that point --","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=2532.967,2532.967"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/107","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e I'd mastered that. And so there was no -- And my former wife was the same way. But the problem became with the curiosity of the children, so we moved to Putney, Vermont. Putney is where the experiment in international living is. And my wife, my first wife. That I refer to as my [unclear]. Went to the School of International Training, and it was there -- I was teaching at Windham College and I think my first day at Windham College in this new American setting -- I went to the college to teach -- and my first day there were teepees set up all over the campus grounds. The building was designed by Edward Durell Stone, who was the architect for the Kennedy Center. And the Grateful Dead was there. Sly and the Family Stone was there. And Odetta [Holmes] was there. And the place was just a fantasy --","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=2533.37,2623.552"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/108","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e It was a madhouse.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=2627.699,2628.128"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/109","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e [Laughs] It was a madhouse. And I'm coming from --","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=2628.186,2628.44"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/110","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e It's a culture shock.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=2628.909,2629.24"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/111","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e [Laughs] And everyone is organic farming. And the new conversation then is going to be -- Is that Frank Buck [sic] who wrote \"The Good Earth\"? And then people are talking. Then we're going now to Mrs. Flaherty's -- Michael Flaherty [sic], who was the father of the American documentary, who made Nanook of the North and Louisiana Story and all of that. So this is the new setting. However, something really wonderful is there, very near Putney is Marlboro. And so I'm singing at Marlboro and I'm singing at the college and singing locally at Greenfield and in Boston and around in that area. At the same time, I'm running -- not running, but was a campaign aide to Randy Major [phonetic]. Was running for Senate. And for Governor [Thomas P.] Salmon, who became the second Democratic governor in 102 years. So I'm involved in all of this as well as -- There comes a man, Major General Indar Jit Rikhye, who becomes another mentor --","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=2630.399,2705.739"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/112","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e You had a lot of mentors.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=2705.77,2706.01"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/113","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e A lot of mentors. He was commander of all United Nations armies under three secretary-generals: U Thant, Kurt Waldheim, and Dag Hammarskjöld. And he asked me to work for him, to be his aide. So we moved back to Vienna -- not totally, we keep the house in Putney -- and go back to Vienna to sing as well as to be the business manager of the Austrian Diplomatic Academy for this program.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=2706.43,2747.22"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/114","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e And yet you're still singing?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=2747.82,2748.33"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/115","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e Still singing and running war games and running campaigns, and all of this is going on at the -- I'm singing in Independence Hall. Irving Stone, the writer, has asked me to come to sing for his award, this Banquet of the Golden Plate. It's very interesting. I say men, because there were only two women. These are people who come from having nothing and then have obstacle after obstacle after obstacle and surmount those obstacles and become who they want to be. And I spent a week with them listening to each man tell his story of how they did it. There were twelve Nobel Prize winners there. And I talked with them and Irving Stone, who had invited me. J. Willard Marriott [unclear] was there. Dr. Arthur Sucsy [unclear] from the Manhattan Project and the heavy water and all of them were there. And I sang.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=2748.632,2809.26"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/116","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e And then I met people who did really fantastic things. And at that point, I'm still not -- My life as a European has disappeared. My earning power has disappeared. My looking for an agent in New York does not materialize or exist. And I'm doing all of these other things out of my interests, and because I really like the people and they enjoyed me. But I had nothing to nourish the inner part of me. And I'm not so sure at that point whether I had an inner core or not. And at that time, I discover bourbon [laughs] and all the things, and of course, everything dissolves.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=2813.4,2879.01"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/117","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e Music?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=2882.75,2882.75"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/118","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e Everything. Family, children, wife, everything dissolves. Penniless, alone and back in the little room on Ashburton Street that I grew up in.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=2883.44,2896.31"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/119","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e Back in Baltimore?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=2897.99,2898.32"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/120","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e Back in Baltimore, everything gone. Eating crab cakes at the Lexington Market. [Laughs]","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=2898.71,2903.749"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/121","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e That's an incredible transformation from Boulanger.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=2906.06,2908.49"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/122","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah. Twelve years of that. And then nothing. And then no one wants to hear you. I haven't changed my voice or anything. And then as I experience more and more rejection, I diminish in my own eyes, so I lose my self esteem. And that's why I say, I'm not sure that my absorption in all of this was really in my core. It was in my mind, and in my manners and my personality and my style, but I'm not sure that anything was in my core except what my parents had taught me in the home. And that went on for a number of years, perhaps five years, more or less. Four or five years, exactly.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=2909.59,2970.06"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/123","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e So what were you doing in this time in Baltimore?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=2970.84,2972.13"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/124","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e During that time I was drinking, gambling, swearing, [laughs] doing -- You know what I was doing during that time? I was doing all the things that I never did, I think. You know, girls -- I was completely free of any teachers, any responsibilities, anything, and so I just lived --","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=2973.6,3005.989"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391/transcript/30552/annotation/125","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"[END OF PART 1]","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117391#t=3005.989,3005.989"}]}]},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 2 of 2 - pims0091_ComegysD_02.mp3"]},"duration":2865.03184,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/public/images/audio-default.png","type":"Image","format":"image/png"}],"items":[{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/content/2/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-peabody.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/117/392/original/pims0091_ComegysD_02.mp3?1624270791","type":"Audio","format":"audio/mpeg","duration":2865.03184,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["AUTO_TRINT_pims0091_ComegysD_02.mp3 [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e We're back in Baltimore.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=14.93,16.37"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/2","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e [Laughs] We're back in Baltimore.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=17.329,17.329"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/3","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e Back on the street.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=18.0,18.357"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/4","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e [Laughs] One of my friends told me, he said, \"If you don't be careful, you're going to be back on Pratt Street.\" [Laughs] So, back in Baltimore, I've lost all contact with the world as I knew it and -- rejection. I might say that prior to this time, I've sung in Orchestra Hall in Chicago, 2,500 seats.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=18.98,54.474"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/5","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e Soloist in --","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=56.21,56.74"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/6","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e I only gave concerts, so during that time in Europe, I sang Liederabends and also all French programs and all German programs and then mixtures of American music and Afro-American music. So I'm a recital singer, and went to the opera house to have a steady income. I like opera to look at and I like opera to listen to, but I don't like to be -- I don't like to change characters.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=59.99,97.46"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/7","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e Maybe you're happy with the one that you are.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=103.264,103.968"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/8","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e I'm happy with this character. I sang at the National Gallery of Art during that prior time. But now we're back in Baltimore and I'm looking for a job and unable to find one. I substitute teach for a while. Odd things. And then mainly drinking. Then I went to look for a job at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and I met an accompanist there who was on the music faculty who heard me sing and said, what you really need to do is to go back to school. And I auditioned at College Park and I auditioned for him at the University of Maryland. And they interviewed me for information. And I became a graduate fellow at the University of Maryland, with a full graduate fellowship.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=104.31,170.53"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/9","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e And how old were you at this point?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=171.61,172.78"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/10","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e Oh, my God. It must have been -- let's see, I was born in 1937 and I went to College Park in 1973. So everyone in my class are young students and someone in graduate school and this is the first time that I am studying seriously a core of music courses. And I met a teacher down there -- what's his name? [He] was the voice teacher, and he befriended me and we talked a lot. I made \"Who's Who in American Colleges and Universities\" there.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=173.29,218.4"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/11","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e Meanwhile, I'm still drinking. I had some friends -- who are still my friends -- for the United States Information Agency and from the embassy because I sang concerts for the USIA. And I would head to the National Academy of Sciences that would take me out to revive me and we'd go to hear the most fantastic person, Buckminster Fuller. You know who he is?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=220.23,259.5"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/12","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e No, I don't.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=260.699,261.574"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/13","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e Buckminster Fuller, an American who discovered the triangle, the geometric form of the triangle -- There's a long story with him, how his glasses were too thick. And when he finally got glasses, the first thing he saw was the triangle. And he saw that as the most stable of all geometric forms. It's that same triangle that I.M. Pei uses in front of the Louvre and the one in front of the National Museum and the same triangle that the pyramids -- and so on. So he put some American communities in the great Southwest under pyramids with controlled climate and so on. Buckminster Fuller. You should read Buckminster Fuller.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=261.854,310.98"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/14","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e I will.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=311.005,311.005"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/15","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e So, this learning experience is still going on, even though I'm inebriated nearly twenty-four hours a day, except for periods of clarity. So that goes on for a long time. And then one day, I'm teaching at the cultural arts program and I meet [J.] Spencer Hammond. And there's someone to talk to, someone who is able to converse. And then after that, one day you wake up and you become clear and it's all over. At least, the problem is taken away from you. By some deus ex machina, the entrance of the gods, and removes it all, and then there you are. And so I continue to work at Cultural Arts Program. I'm divorced at the time. And then I have the occasion to meet my second wife, who was coming to that organization. She was director of humanities and chair of the Africana studies at UMBC [University of Maryland, Baltimore County] and I meet her and history begins to write itself. How do you like that way of putting it?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=311.005,411.66"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/16","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e So I'm clear for a year and I meet her, and then after that I go back to Fontainebleau. This is 1979 and Boulanger is just about to die. That was a very sad point, but she places a person to see over me, and her name is Marion Tournon-Branly, who is a very famous woman and an architect, and she and two other women become Mademoiselle Boulanger's secretary and also the mother of a pianist, Emile Naoumoff -- you've got to meet Emile. Emile Naoumoff. He's wonderful. He was sixteen then, and I think he began studying with Boulanger when he was eight. So we are all going back and take over Fontainebleau this summer. But in any case. [Laughs] It was supposed to be this summer, but I had to push it to next. And these three women -- Mademoiselle Boulanger's secretary and Mademoiselle Branly and Emile's mother, Mrs. Naoumoff -- then become three Gerald Moores into one. [Laughs] So behind every bush in every -- everything. Just being straight and narrow and getting all of this information.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=415.47,516.61"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/17","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e And after that summer in Fontainebleau, I return to America. And I think I traveled -- I did, I went back to Vienna. My wife went with me for two weeks to Fontainebleau and visited me. She returned back to school and I went to Vienna and Salzburg. And my old boss, Marcel Prawy, said to me, \"Where are you coming from?\" And so I said, I'm coming from Fontainebleau. I've been with Boulanger. And so I noticed that that was the old personality. The coreless one. The surface one. And he said to me, \"Did it do you any good?\" And it just went into me like a salvo of missiles. And I said, Did it do you any good? Why would he ask me that, Did it do you any good? And I walked around with that. What did it accomplish? What did you do? What concrete came out of it? And I would ask myself that question nearly for every experience that I had after that. What did it really do for you organically? What did it do for your soul? What did it do for your core?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=517.929,605.59"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/18","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e And so I returned back and then I decided to go to Munich and be with James King. And I went to see Mr. King, and I think before then, I went to sing at the Brahms Hall in Vienna. That's where they have the New Year's Eve concert -- do you know that hall? It's that hall up at the top, that top picture. And the person who was accompanying me was Dr. Erik Werba, the accompanist for Christa Ludwig.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=606.64,645.704"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/19","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e It's a circle.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=647.203,647.324"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/20","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e Yes. And then he is grilling me. So at this time, the second learning, people become much more friendly to me -- much more as not student, but as an equal, but also very severe, severe as Gerald Moore had been. So now all of them are becoming this way, including Mr. King. And after this concert, I'm going to study with him again and meeting him in Munich. I'm smoking at that time. So I got rid of alcohol, but I didn't get rid of cigarettes. I'm smoking at the time and so I'm trying not to see Mr. King in Munich.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=647.56,698.05"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/21","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e Because you don't want him to [crosstalk] --","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=699.04,699.776"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/22","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e I don't want him to hear that -- it gives you a scratch and it makes you flat. So I want to go out to Swabia, out to the university section and just party there until it's time to get the plane. Five days, because I took one of the inexpensive flights -- charter flight from Frankfurt [unclear]. And so I'm going to study with Mr. King those five days. And I go to the train station, to the Bahnhof [train station], looking for a room. And I don't need to do that because I'm fluent in German, I mean, really fluent in all three -- in Hochdeutsch, in the Habsburgerdeutsch [unclear], the language of the court, as well as the slang from various districts and so on. And I know Munich because I've lived in Munich but I'm guided to go to the Bahnhof to look for a hotel and they tell me there's no hotel because they're having an international congress, a Messe, there. And I leave there and start at the door and the man calls me back to tell me that there is something. I pay a deposit, I look at the slip and it's for the Hotel Rienzi. And I give the cab driver this address, we get there, he said, \"There's no Hotel Rienzi in Munich. I've been driving here for seventeen years and there's nothing here.\" And I said, \"Well, just a moment.\" And I walked over and looked and there was a small Pension with a little sign saying \"Rienzi\" about this big. I ring the bell and I go upstairs and indeed it is. And the receptionist said, \"I'm very happy to see you.\" [Repeats in German.] And I said, \"Of course, I paid my deposit. You expect -- ?\" And he said, \"No, you have something to do in Munich.\" And I said, \"I have nothing to do in Munich, and I know my way around and I'm very comfortable. Thank you. Danke schoen.\" So I said it like that to give closure to the conversation. He said, \"If you will be honest, there's something you've come to do.\"","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=699.86,827.37"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/23","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e And finally, I'm admitting that I've come to see James King. He is saying that Mr. King is probably already gone, so I'm very relieved that I won't have to see him. And I call his home and then I call the Hotel Arabella where he stays when he's singing in Munich because he lives just outside of town -- it's logistically easier to live at the hotel. So I feel very free and I'm able to go on with my original plan. And he says, \"No matter. James King's teacher, Alfred Knopp [phonetic], is in Munich now and I'm sure he would like to receive a call from you.\" So he provides me with with a telephone number. I sit dutifully in the chair and call him and make excuses that I can't come -- I'm just coming from Vienna, I'm very tired, I've sung these recitals and so on. And he says, \"Mr. Comegys, you will always be coming from somewhere. Go to the opera house, I'll call over. Get a key, you practice and you come and see me.\" So, I practiced and went to see him and stayed with him for the five days.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=828.09,906.75"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/24","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e I never got to Swabia. I just did my singing. And when I returned home, my wife said, \"Oh, guess what happened while you were away? James King was at the Kennedy Center singing and he was singing because George London, the great Metropolitan singer, didn't have enough to pay his hospital bills so all the singers and musicians gathered together and they made a benefit concert to pay his bill. And he sang this aria from Rienzi.\"","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=908.44,941.7"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/25","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e The \"Du glaubtest [stärktest] mich, du gabst mir hohe Kraft\"?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=943.35,943.405"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/26","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e Yes. So that's what's going on. He's singing this prayer while I'm in Munich at the same time. Coincidence. Or, Stephen Hawking says you don't know whether it's random or whether it's by design. So I go back to Munich and he tells me after a month that what I should do is stay there with him and he wouldn't charge me anything for it to rebuild me because I still need, really, to be rebuilt. And I said, \"No, I have commitments at home.\" He said, \"Well, you need to see a teacher. And I only know three teachers who can put what you need back. And one is my old teacher, Martial Singher, at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara. There's a man in St. Louis. And the best one, the one I would go to, is in Washington, and his name is Todd Duncan.\".","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=944.97,1007.39"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/27","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e So he gave me a letter to Todd Duncan and I didn't go for a long time. And then finally went to Todd Duncan, and it turned out to be the same house that I would pause in front of when I was walking from the interior part of Washington to College Park. And I would stop in front of this house every night and drink and look at this house and then continue on up to Silver Spring. And when I finally got back five years later, that's the house of Todd Duncan, same house. And Mr. Duncan is the person who put me back together -- with a core, with spirituality, with intellect, and he was even more severe than Gerald Moore and the three ladies. I call the three women from Zauberflote [opera by Mozart] the \"drei Damen\" that turned it all into --","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=1008.77,1062.834"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/28","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e First lady --","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=1063.53,1063.981"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/29","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e [Laughs] Yeah. And then I began singing again and went back to Vienna. Last summer, I sang at the Mozarteum, a full concert. And I sang at the City Hall of Vienna, the original City Hall of Vienna, and the person who played for me was Walter Moore, who had been a student of Werba and Gerald Moore. And so we didn't have to -- you know, we were taught the music the same way. And that was a beautiful concert -- had seven encores. The people never sat down during the encores. I mean, they stayed standing -- It was a wonderful experience. And they did the same in Salzburg. And then last year, this time I met another important person, whose name is Francis Heilbut, and he's in New York and he runs the American Landmark Series concerts. And my wife was researching at the Schomburg Library up in Harlem. And I went and I took a course on finance on Wall Street. And I might add that I've learned how to do money. I learned how to make capital and preserve it. And I was on Bill Griffeth's show, \"Your Portfolio,\" on CNBC for a whole half hour, and met some really fantastic -- Peter Lynch I met there. But I got that from going down to Wall Street.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=1065.21,1184.3"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/30","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e And I went to Trinity Church and I saw that Trinity Church had a recital series, and then I went from Trinity Church to Federal Hall. Do you know, Federal Hall is the first United States Capitol. It's where George Washington stands -- it's directly across the street. It's the American triangle. It's the Capitol, the place to exchange the money, and the Episcopalian Church. There's one in Washington -- Church of the Epiphany, the Treasury and the White House. And you can do the same thing in Boston. You learn all these -- the guys teach you all these things [laughs] while you eat hot dogs and put your foot up on the [laughs] --.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=1185.14,1237.017"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/31","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e So I saw this man, Francis Heilbut, and his office is 26 Wall Street, so his office overlooks the door of the New York Stock Exchange. So I sent my tapes up to him and made a little portfolio, and he liked my singing, had me come up to New York and I sang at the Green Hall in New York down at Lincoln Center. I mean, not in Lincoln Center. It's another hall. And Federal Hall and Theodore Roosevelt's birthplace and a lot of other places.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=1237.021,1286.75"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/32","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e Then I judged the Richard Tauber International Voice Competition. Some students who sang at the Met, and they were all Metropolitan Opera singers. One fantastic story of a Mexican who studies with Placido Domingo and who is there now.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=1286.946,1312.88"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/33","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e In Washington.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=1313.96,1314.4"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/34","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e That's a story. You want to hear a story? [unclear] That's a fantastic story. It's just unbelievable the way life unfolds. Then I sang -- Richard Tauber was an Austrian singer, a very famous Austrian singer who sang operetta and a little opera and just a great international of the highest level -- and I sang the Richard Tauber memorial concert in New York, along with a Metropolitan Opera singer from the past, who's still on the roster, Lucine Amara, a grande dame. And the person who introduced me at that concert was Ruth Roman, who acted opposite Orson Welles in Citizen Kane. So then that becomes another place where you are imbued with American history as well as European history and Jewish history. So it's really been a fascinating experience.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=1315.34,1399.63"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/35","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e So that's what I do now. I sing. And I went down to Guilford College. You know Guilford?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=1401.01,1404.845"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/36","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e In Greensboro.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=1406.19,1406.41"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/37","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah, that's a nice school. I wish my son had gone.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=1406.86,1410.13"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/38","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e Quaker school.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=1410.999,1411.244"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/39","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e Yes. It's a really nice school. And what I think of as a college, my idea of a college. And [I] went to Vermont, so I've been singing in Vermont and here and there. So that's the dish.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=1411.346,1428.92"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/40","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e I haven't talked about -- My wife is a very important part in my life. And [she] understands music as well as the arts and also understands growth and development, as well as being a friend. And all of the other --","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=1438.63,1468.83"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/41","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e That's the best way.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=1469.214,1469.1"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/42","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e [Laughs] Yeah. So it's been a very difficult life, I suppose, that where I am now is that now I'm going to make a conscious effort to sing and to be heard. I don't know how this is going to come about because America is more closed than ever now.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=1470.779,1504.15"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/43","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e Closed in terms of --","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=1505.95,1505.98"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/44","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e In terms of, well, the first thing you need in order to perform is an agent. And the second thing you need is someone who will come and hear you, because you have no name. You really have no commercial name, and no magnets with your name to pin your notes up on a refrigerator, because America gets to be that. So how to achieve this in this environment and the audiences are not audiences for singing music. For example, if you listen to WBJC or WGMS or any of the classical music [radio] stations, very rarely do you hear any singers.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=1506.19,1565.75"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/45","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e No, it's usually a baroque oboe concerto, same time over and over again.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=1566.56,1569.365"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/46","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e It's baroque. If I hear another piece of baroque [laughs] -- It's baroque music. And you don't hear -- You hear Schubert. You hear some classical music and Chopin, the piano. But you hear mainly, in America, orchestras, oratorios, and string quartets. The string quartet is very popular, and piano performers, because it requires -- What the audience has to bring to an event to have an experience is a past. And that past usually doesn't include a foreign language or the understanding of a language. Now music transcends language because you can hear Spanish singers singing, or there's a singer that I like who sings fado music, that music from Portugal, which I really love. Amalia Rodrigues and so on. Now, I've taken Spanish courses, but I don't understand Spanish and I don't know what they're singing, but the singing -- and I don't speak or understand Russian -- however, I can attend one of those performances and the words and the music will transcend that space between me and the actual understanding of the words. And at one time it was like that in the Black community in Baltimore. There were always classical concerts and singers singing. But life has shifted to what Todd Duncan calls the quick fix -- that people want an immediate emotional response, an immediate cash return.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=1569.68,1692.77"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/47","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e We didn't really touch on that. You said at one point in Baltimore, there would be concerts going on all the time in the Black community. And you're coming and going between home and Europe and Vermont and all these other places. And at some point, do you sort of realize that things have changed dramatically? Each time you come back to Baltimore, is it completely different than before, or are there some continuities going on?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=1693.97,1719.71"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/48","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e The continuity I see perhaps going on is one avenue -- I don't know, it's difficult to speak in America without speaking about race.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=1722.72,1733.13"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/49","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e Sure. So speak about it.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=1733.7,1737.758"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/50","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e I see there's an access that Black artists have to the Walters Art Gallery and to the Baltimore Museum of Art. For example, there's a jazz program there, which my brother is directing and running.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=1738.17,1757.43"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/51","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e Wow. You're all over the place.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=1758.74,1759.8"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/52","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e [Laughs] My brother. I'm happy. He's very happy. And he's running the jazz program and he's become a docent at the Walters Art Gallery. And there are Black artists who exhibit in those places. But audiences and places are generally closed. Simon Estes came here last year, to the Hopkins' Shriver Auditorium.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=1761.39,1800.11"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/53","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e But as a rule, there's an absence of the Black performer, and that's not only in Baltimore but in other cities as well. I seem to experience, in another way, more opposition or closure to participation that I even experienced in the very difficult days of formal segregation in America. It's a different experience. Having said that, that is not only that Black people don't have a connection with their own original music and have no, really, use for it or love or understanding of it, but I find that on both sides of the society that with the growth of the middle class, the American middle class, whether that's Chinese or Anglo-Saxon or -- maybe not Jewish, because they have a school and the retention of their culture, regardless of how society changes -- but I find that there is very little connection with the past. And even though I believe in the present -- what are you doing today -- the past is necessary to understand what you're doing today and why, and what you hope to do tomorrow.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=1805.06,1929.76"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/54","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e So when I talk about subjects in class, I may as well be talking about something very foreign and esoteric. Even if you're speaking about [Ernest] Hemingway or Gertrude Stein or things that at one time was just common knowledge if you attended a university or a college or had a certain kind of -- are now things that are esoteric or have no value. And so singing French and German and Italian songs in this context, there's no audience.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=1931.17,1978.96"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/55","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e And I can even see in Europe that the audiences have changed. For example, I went to Munich and I saw Das Rheingold and the Rhinemaidens are bank tellers. And Wotan is the bank manager. So everything has been placed in a postmodern setting. I saw Peer Gynt and I saw Mozart's Cosi fan tutte, and Dorabella and Fiordiligi came out almost naked. [Laughter] I mean, really -- And the audience just came -- in the Stehplatz, in the standing room -- and in the center where people couldn't see got out of their seats and just rushed to the middle so they could see Dorabella.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=1983.88,2041.09"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/56","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e So for me, that's an indication of the level that society has come to. The money and the access and material things have gone up and there are people participating more than ever, but they are participating without any appreciation of what they're seeing. So there can be an exhibit at the Walters Art Gallery of pieces and things that have always been there. But the moment you say this is a special exhibit and make a glossy banner, then all those people who have been going by these same art objects are going to rush now and see those same pieces that have been, that they walk by every day. That's my commentary on life. So I've seen a change in the Black community and the White community and it's very strange to be an artist. So I've made in my dwelling my reality. And outside in the garden, I've made my reality.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=2043.04,2123.09"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/57","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e I am wondering, as you speak about this, has the fact that you're African American affected the way you think as a musician or the way you see yourself socially as a musician, or has it been a consciousness that's changed over time? From going to Paris in the '50s to now?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=2123.212,2151.431"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/58","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e I remember -- I suppose one way of facing reality as an Afro-American for me -- I remember auditioning for the Baltimore Opera Company when I was very young. And I sang, I had prepared some -- since my voice wasn't that -- I don't have a great big baritone, Sherrill Milnes kind of baritone voice, I have a voice like Gerard Souzay or Pierre Bernac or Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, that's my kind of voice. However, when I auditioned there, I think I sang Silvio's aria [from I Pagliacci], and a little duet or the Marquis de Posa [from Don Carlos], and they wouldn't hear that. They asked me for \"Old Man River.\" A young boy, who could no way be a -- [It] would be like, \"Would you sing Boris Godunov for us?\" So that's the kinds of things that you face being Afro-American. And actually standing there and not, at that age, having the integrity to say no, you simply take the music and then you try to sing \"Old Man River\" that goes down to low Gs -- just an enormous voice. I couldn't sing it now. And so every time you would meet something, you would meet opposition that you couldn't fully participate.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=2153.46,2267.35"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/59","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e And I remember having, maybe seven years ago, coming down from singing at Marlboro [Music Festival], and I went to see Matthew Epstein, who was the agent at Columbia Artists Management, and he said, \"You're a very great musician and singer. Where you've been and what you sing. But you have a very serious problem, Mr. Comegys. You're an Afro-American. When I have an artist coming here, I take an artist. Then I know that even if that artist is unknown and I'm going to bring him to Carnegie Hall or bring to Ninety-second Street Y or something, then I call up the Jewish community. I call my Rabbi Silverman [phonetic], and I say, Rabbi, I've got this Jewish artist coming. And whether they like this artist or dislike him or the kind of music or whatever, they're going to fill up those seats. When an Italian comes in, I call the Sons of Italy and I call the Catholic priest and I get all of these groups together and I've got an audience. When you come, who am I going to call? Because I need to pay for that house tomorrow morning, I need to pay for the airwaves, I need to invite people to dinner, I've got to invite critics to dinner. I've got to tell people about you. And I need to be paid. The company needs to be paid. So who's going to pay for this?\" So I said, \"Well, ask the Sons of Italy and ask the -- \" [Laughs] So, that's part of the dilemma, that there's no Black audience to really take care of, to listen to Black singers.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=2269.04,2388.41"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/60","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e Do you think there was when you were --","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=2388.95,2390.326"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/61","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e There definitely was. Everyone had a place to perform and neither language nor the style of music -- Everyone knew those songs. My father, who worked at Western Electric, AT\u0026T, until he was sixty, until retirement, and went to the eighth grade, knew all the songs and knew all the artists and knew the pieces. And so did all the other Black people like that. And the decorum and the behavior and all of that was very different. So you heard jazz -- you listened to music, whether it was Broadway musicals, whether it was South Pacific or Kismet or Carousel or whether it was Lionel Hampton or whether it was Bud Powell and John Coltrane or whether it was Igor Stravinsky or --","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=2390.57,2448.14"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/62","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e Or Marian Anderson singing \"Go Down Moses.\"","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=2449.719,2449.748"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/63","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e Or Marian Anderson and Roland Hayes and the Negro spiritual. Everyone knew those songs. Now, I sang in Ghana -- I sang twelve concerts in Ghana at the University of Ghana in Legon and then Winneba, where the music conservatory is. The people knew -- I sang Afro-American art songs by William Grant Still. I sang Negro spirituals. I sang \"Death of an Old Seaman\" by Cecil Cohen, who was at Howard University; and songs by Thomas Kerr, who was from Baltimore. Great composer. And the African audience knew all of the songs. When I sang my last spiritual, one called \"Give Me Your Hand\" by [Edward] Boatner, the audience just sang along with me and I had enough freedom -- something I've never done in my life -- I left the stage, the concert stage, and I walked through the whole audience saying, \"Give me your hand, give me your hand.\" And I shook every hand in the audience and then just sang the refrain over and over and over until I had finished it and had returned to the stage. But I couldn't do that here. In fact, no one would even -- Black or White -- ask me to sing here. [Laughs] So that's what it is.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=2450.0,2539.74"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/64","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e In Austria -- you would be interested in that -- I was given an original, a first edition of a Schubert manuscript. It's really beautiful -- four-hand piano. It's up there. So you're treated one way in one culture -- In one culture you exist and in the other one, you don't exist. In one culture you have value and in the other culture you have no value. And so the most important thing is to have developed a core of your own identity and your own self-worth, regardless of what your environment says.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=2541.09,2581.68"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/65","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e Well, that's why you become a musician in the first place.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=2584.2,2585.142"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/66","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e Yes -- as they say, to express yourself. To express what's in you and hope that there is someone who is sitting there listening, who is going to feel what you are expressing regardless of class or economic boundaries or social boundaries or racial or cultural or ethnic boundaries. So, a good lobster is a good lobster.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=2586.03,2621.89"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/67","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e I think it's a pretty good note to end on.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=2623.94,2626.48"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/68","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e [Laughs] Yeah.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=2627.219,2627.259"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/69","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e Thank you very much.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=2628.67,2629.12"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/70","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e Good. Thank you. Yeah, so that was the trip. That was some of the trip. In between there, I met William Warfield and Bobby Short. And I read all of those people and see what their lives had to say, what went on in their lives.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=2629.34,2646.46"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/71","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e They weren't always easy [unclear] --","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=2646.82,2647.186"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/72","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e No, in fact, no one's -- Life is not easy. What does he say? It's the survival of the organism, if you see yourself as an organism. And then you don't know whether it's chance or -- For example, if today I needed to -- My wife pruned that tree. That was a tree that I bought when my father died. And underneath there were some ants and little spiders and so on, so I had to clean that corner and their lives went out of existence. Random, or -- You see? There's a trumpet player, Leonard Goines [phonetic], whose daughter got an MBA. We went to Fontainebleau. I mean, we didn't go there together, but we met there, and we remain friends. He's a jazz trumpet player and ran the Brooklyn Music Academy and the Majestic 651 Theater [phonetic] and it's just brought all kinds of musicians. He stopped playing and just is administrator and so on. But he plays a little bit and hangs out with Donald Byrd. I don't know if you [know] Donald Byrd, the trumpet player.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=2647.36,2747.2"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/73","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e And Wynton Marsalis and his teacher. That's a good story -- Wynton Marsalis going to his teacher, Doc Cheatham and went and got this new trumpet, hand forged and mouthpiece built in the trumpet. So Doc Cheatham tells him, \"Good, take out your mouthpiece and let's get started and have the lesson.\" So Wynton takes out his whole trumpet and he says, \"Well, Doc, I can't -- the mouthpiece is a part of the trumpet.\" [Cheatham] said, \"Well, the trumpet is really beautiful and very nice and put it back in the case and go out to Juilliard, or a pawnshop or somewhere and get yourself a mouthpiece and then come back for the lesson.\" [Laughs] But Leonard's daughter is leaving the house and she's working for Cantor Fitzgerald in the Trade Center, and he's saying, \"You came home too late last night, and don't park your car there at night.\" A father. And he makes her totally late for work with his lecture and she misses the bombing. This is a random -- you see, you don't know. Meeting James King, Rienzi, is it going to Duncan's? You begin to wonder how it's put together. You'll wonder it too.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=2748.25,2835.93"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/74","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e Well, you're here now.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=2836.47,2836.86"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/75","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah. And so, this must be by design. Why you and not Mrs. -- It's fascinating. Absolutely fascinating. And I'll find that Boulanger piece for you.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=2837.125,2853.682"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/76","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL THOMAS DAVIS:\u003c/strong\u003e Thank you.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=2856.34,2856.342"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392/transcript/30553/annotation/77","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDANIEL COMEGYS:\u003c/strong\u003e Thank you very much for -- enjoyed it.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44119/file/117392#t=2857.58,2859.84"}]}]}]}