One evening in July, kept cool by rain that threatened but did not fall, the Scott Williams Quartet played jazz standards on the NewMarket Square Plaza in west Wichita.
Now and then a cicada provided rasping accompaniment; a little girl in a pink T-shirt danced in ever-decreasing circles before collapsing dizzy onto the grass.
On two numbers – “All of Me” and a French song by Henri Salvador called “Jardin d’Hiver” – the quartet had a special guest, direct from Paris, France: jazz vocalist Joan (Huff) Minor ’71.
Paris is Minor’s most recent home. She grew up in Wichita, though she attended high school in Arkansas City, before coming to WSU in the late 1960s. While there, she was named 1969-70 Parnassus Queen and became WSU’s first African-American varsity cheerleader. Having started as a music major, with first choice of career being opera, she had to switch after tonsil troubles, and instead got her degree in English and French. At 19, she spent a summer in Paris – and loved it.
Though she was hired by Continental Airlines after graduation and planned to become a stewardess before attending law school, Minor’s temporary job doing clerical work at Stanford University turned into her first career, as a human resources professional.
She spent almost three decades at Stanford, earning a master’s degree in staff development and training, and serving as assistant dean of human resources at the School of Humanities and Sciences.
But after early retirement in 1999, she remembered her previous sojourn and decided to spend a few years in Paris. “I didn’t go with the idea of living there,” she says, “but then my husband (who’s originally from Scotland) proposed, and once we were married, it is now home.”
Although she loved her job at Stanford (and the Bay Area), she came to realize “music was missing in my life. I needed to be in music in a more formalized and frequent way.” She didn’t think her voice was “raspy and huge enough to sing soul,” but loved the freedom of jazz.
She’s inspired by Ella Fitzgerald and Barbra Streisand, among others, whose voices are lighter, more flexible – more like her own. In her initial years in Paris, she performed with her own group, the Major Minor Trio, and in 2003 recorded a CD, “Integrity Matters.”
While jazz is one of the quintessential American art forms, Minor has found it celebrated and enjoyed worldwide. France, she says, is especially supportive of the arts: “It’s a joy to perform there.” In fact, African-American music has been popular with the French since the 1920s, when St. Louis-born Josephine Baker ruled the vaudeville stage.
But Minor’s success isn’t limited to France – or to Europe, for that matter. She has performed on three continents: in Russia, Germany, Greece; in Zambia, Tanzania, Gabon, Niger; and NYC and San Francisco. On a recent Russian tour, she sang in Siberia, an area “just opening up. It was a joy to see their eagerness and enthusiasm about learning more about this art form.”
She has performed at sophisticated private parties in Sweden and Switzerland, and public venues in developing nations. Many of her African tours have been sponsored by the U.S. State Department, part of its ongoing efforts to cultivate relationships with other cultures. Everywhere she goes, she says, “I’m always amazed at the power of music to speak.”
She admits it can be challenging working with different bands – “You’ve got to be strong and good to fit after one rehearsal!” – and sound systems that may not be state-of-the-art, but she finds her nerves soothed once the music starts.
Future stops she’d love to make include Japan, China, Australia and South America. And she loves to come back to her first hometown, to visit family, including her mother, and likes to see how Wichita and WSU have changed. And while she’s here, she naturally performs.
“One of my strengths is to really go after an audience,” she tells me before going on stage at NewMarket Square – a talent much in evidence that Thursday, as her charm, her smile, and her warm, limber voice filled the summer night.
