Past Events
October 25, 2007 - Dr. Valerie Capers

On October 25th Dr. Valerie Capers discussed her life and career in music with Harlem Speaks co-producer Greg Thomas for an audience filled with friends and admirers, including former Harlem Speaks guests Rudy Lawless and Carline Ray.

Her parents lived in Harlem early in their marriage in the ‘30s and moved to the Bronx, where Capers and her brother Bobby, a noted woodwind player, were born.  Her father played stride piano and “had ties to Fats Waller,” Capers said. At the age of six she took tap dance lessons, but a bout with strep throat entered her bloodstream and settled in her optic nerve. She became blind, and spent three months in the isolation area of Columbia Presbyterian Hospital.

She learned Braille at the Institute for the Blind where Capers attended through primary and secondary school. At the age of 11 she began studying classical piano there with Ms. Thodie, who was not fond of jazz. While in high school Capers heard Bud Powell and other bebop players on the radio, which began a life-long desire to play jazz. But this aspiration would not be fulfilled until years later.

On Saturdays she studied with John Mehegan at Juilliard’s extension division. Mehegan loved jazz, but her focus remained classical music, and she continued her studies at Juilliard, becoming the first blind person to graduate from the famed school (B.S, M.S.)

She began teaching music, and made a valiant attempt to learn to improvise. A family friend in the Bronx, Arthur Jenkins, gave her advice that helped: he told her to practice with records, slowing them down from 33 to 16 ¼ speed. One day after practicing classical music for several hours she spent about a half hour on the blues. Her brother Bobby heard her, and asked her how much time she had put into each style. Once she told him, he said “You have to be a serious about blues and jazz as you are with classical music, and put in as much time!”

This was the boost she needed, and she began devoting the majority of her time learning to improvise, inspired by John Coltrane’s artistic development (“Giant Steps” in particular) and by the funky, soulful style of Les McCann, whom she imitated in her self-study.

So when she began teaching music at Bronx Community College in 1972 she was ready. She was elected Chairman of the Department of Music and Art, became a full professor in 1985. During her tenure at BCC, Capers introduced the jazz program into the music curriculum. Over the years Capers has worked with the likes of Dizzy Gillespie, Wynton Marsalis, Marian McPartland, Tito Puente, Max Roach, James Moody among others. Capers was the first recipient of Essence magazine’s Women of Essence Award in Music (1987).

Today Dr. Capers holds the title of professor emeritus from BCC. She also has a doctor of Fine Arts from the University of Susquehannah in Pennsylvania. She conducts workshops and clinics around the country for students, teachers and aspiring musicians. She also recently performed at Dizzy’s Club Coca Cola at Jazz at Lincoln Center. She’s also a respected composer and arranger, and ended her special evening for Harlem Speaks discussing that aspect of her career, detailing how she came to write “El Toro” for Mongo Santameria, and other compositions such as “Sing About Love,” “In Praise of Freedom” (for the bicentennial of the U.S.A), “Afro-Cuban Scenes,” “Song of the Seasons” and “Sojourner” in honor of Sojourner Truth. 

Capers, a dignified and eloquent woman, began singing during performances in 1992, and even has a book, Portraits of Jazz, published by Oxford University Press.