Omaha By Design: Omaha, Only Better

by Ken Mayer

I’m a North Omaha kid. My grade school years were split between Franklin and Central Park Elementary, then on to McMillan and finally, North High. When I got wheels I was running the streets stopping at Caniglia’s Royal Boy and Skeet’s for my eats and lurking around Allen’s Showcase.

Unfortunately, the old stompin’ ground has experienced hard times. Hard times that have continued for many years, to the point that a lot of my friends from the neighborhood are skeptical that it will ever turn around.

I’m more sanguine about the prospects. I see some real hope in the $1.43 billion North Omaha Village Revitalization Plan unanimously approved recently by the City Council.

Besides public space improvements like a green boulevard and recreation trails, the plan also calls for a pedestrian bridge to connect a community divided by the North Freeway. In my opinion, that bisection of the neighborhood was a grievous wrong, long overdue for remedy. I’d prefer to see that segment of disconnected interstate simply torn out in the interest of unity, but that’s another column.

Also proposed in the plan is a music strip and amenities to turn the Malcolm X birthplace into an international tourist destination.

OK, now we’re talkin’.

Given the success of Midtown Crossing and Aksarben Village, we know that the New Urbanism style of live-work-play community has potential. But, in addition, North Omaha has something far more attractive.

It has heritage.

A heritage that ought to be further recognized, respected and celebrated. A heritage that I fear a lot of Omahans may know little about. North Omaha is the source of some great talent, intellect and good humor. Here are some examples with links that will let you see and hear them in performance. These are not necessarily their masterworks, but they are good enough to give you fidgety feet:

• Anna Mae Winburn, one of the only female bandleaders fronting a territory band, the Cotton Club Boys, that included the amazing guitarist Charlie Christian. On the advice of Jimmie Jewell, owner of the Jewel Building, home to the Dreamland Ballroom, Winburn took over leadership of the International Sweethearts of Rhythm until 1949.
• Wynonie Harris, who racked up 15 Top 10 hits between 1946 and 1952, and is generally considered one of rock and roll’s forerunners, influencing Elvis Presley, among others. Harris was inducted into the W.C. Handy Blues Hall of Fame in 1994.
• Lalomie Washburn, who sang backup vocals for Ray Charles, Ike & Tina Turner and Chaka Khan. She wrote songs for and with Rufus & Chaka Khan, New Birth, Buddy Miles, The Brothers Johnson and Aretha Franklin.
• Lester Abrams, who played with B.B. King, Stevie Wonder, Peabo Bryson, Quincy Jones, Manfred Mann, Brian Auger, The Average White Band, The Doobie Brothers and Rufus. Abrams and Michael McDonald wrote the Grammy Award winning ‘Minute by Minute’.
• Buddy Miles, whose father played bass with Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Charlie Parker and Dexter Gordon. Miles, of course, is known for his drum work with Jimi Hendrix and Carlos Santana, and was a prime force in the psychedelic blues-rock era. During the 1980s, he was widely heard as the lead voice of the California Raisins in television commercials.
• Preston Love, who played and recorded with the Count Basie band from 1945 to 1947 and played on Basie’s only #1 hit record, ‘Open The Door Richard.’ Love’s Jazz & Arts Center at 2510 N. 24th St. is named in his honor. As Motown’s West Coast house bandleader, Love played and toured with The Four Tops, The Temptations, Tammi Terrell, Marvin Gaye and Gladys Knight. He also recorded with Nichelle Nichols, Janis Joplin, Shuggie Otis, T-Bone Walker, Charles Brown and Ruth Brown. If you look closely at the credits on the Mothers of Invention ‘Freak Out’ disk, you see that he also worked with Frank Zappa, although Zappa asks in the liner notes that we not hold it against any of said contributors.

I had the good fortune to know Preston personally. Besides his music, perhaps his most endearing qualities, to me anyway, were his intellect and directness. He was an enormously smart and in your face individual, and I appreciate those qualities greatly, perhaps because they are so rare these days.

Another North Omahan whom we ought to honor for those same qualities of honesty and directness is Malcolm X.

Malcolm X believed everyone should stand up for their race with courage, dignity and pride through self-defense and activism. He said, “There is no better than adversity. Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance next time.”

I encourage you to seek out and learn more about the talent and brains I’ve mentioned above that make North Omaha unique in our city. I think it’s high time we built more on the neighborhood’s adversity and heritage. And let’s do that with all due propers.