Ode to Rosa King | Musician, bandleader and feminist

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Rosa Irene King (14 March 1939 - 12 December 2000) was an Afro-American saxophonist, singer and bandleader who came to Amsterdam in the 1970s and became internationally known with her band The Upside Down. Rosa King was a role model for many. She inspired women like Candy Dulfer to play an instrument and make music their work.
 

King grew up in Macon, a town in the US state of Georgia. She had a talent for dance and music. She was 17 when she joined a professional dance company and toured the southern United States. She ended up in New York and - besides dancing - had jobs such as waitress and taxi driver to support herself. She taught herself to play guitar, drums and saxophone. She played in bands and performed with celebrities such as Little Richard and Lionel Hampton. She also had her own band and came to the Netherlands with it. Amsterdam immediately pleased her, the city was ‘the place to be’ at the time, this is where it happened! And King was less affected by racism in Amsterdam than in the United States, where racial segregation existed until the mid-1960s. So she left New York and moved to Amsterdam on her own. Here she met bassist Rainer Black and with him she started ‘Rosa King & The Upside Down’, a swinging blues band that made every performance a big party.
 

Amsterdam West
 

Rosa King lived in Amsterdam at various addresses. She started at 171 Eerste Helmersstraat and then at 11B Vondelstraat. Although that house was a lot bigger, she had her own kitchen there, but no luck with her downstairs neighbours. King told Ons Amsterdam ( January 1997) that they complained bitterly about every noise she made. ‘They even screamed at me to be quiet when I sneaked up the stairs very quietly after a performance. Never mind that I could play the saxophone there.’ King was therefore very happy to be able to move in January 1976 to her first floor flat of her own at 156 Jacob van Lennepstraat, where things were a lot more convivial. She lived there until the house was demolished in 1981 for urban renewal. King then ended up at 58 Hasebroekstraat. ‘Again in West - I always stayed near the Ten Katemarkt. But to say I lived there, no. At least half the time I was abroad. And if I was in Amsterdam, they found me more often in my studio in the Indische buurt (...) where I could practise, compose, try out songs. That's where I lived. Wherever I lived in the city, I hardly ever had contact with the neighbourhood. On tour a lot, home late at night, so you knew some people by sight, but nothing else. Only the postman, who knew exactly who I was. Letters with only ‘Rosa King, Amsterdam’ he knew how to deliver unerringly.
 

All for the band
 

Rosa King called herself a workaholic with a great sense of responsibility for the band and its members. Bread had to be earned, and so they had to perform, as much and as often as they could. They played in pubs and concert halls around Amsterdam's Leidseplein (De Kroeg, Alto, De Citadel, De Melkweg and Paradiso), at the North Sea Jazz Festival and abroad. Rosa King was a musician in every fibre of her being. While performing in Italy, she suffered a heart attack and died in hospital in Rome at the age of 61.
 

Role model and advocate
 

During her lifetime, Rosa King meant a lot to other musicians, men and women. Candy Dulfer was only 12 when King gave her the chance to play in her ‘Ladies Horn Section’.
 

Dulfer believes Rosa King never got the recognition she deserved: ‘But in the hearts of her colleagues, former pupils and her loyal audience, she lives on forever. Rosa taught me everything regarding saxophone playing, singing, improvising, leading a band, entertaining and how to deal with your (male) colleagues, fans and the press. Her guidance and support has been invaluable to many musicians whose careers took off by performing with her and learning the craft from her. Rosa was an advocate of the women's movement and patron of just about every marginalised group you can think of. She was a beautiful Afro-American woman - inside and out - with one high heeled foot in Amsterdam and the other in the American blues of the Southern States.’
 

Watch and Listen tip!
 

Special report AT5, 2009, Rosa King celebrates her 25th anniversary as a musician in the Netherlands with a performance in Paradiso. We see her 81-year-old mother and musicians Jan Akkerman, Hans Dulfer and Candy Dulfer talk about the significance of Rosa King.
 

Sources used
 

Rosa King - Wikipedia
 

Ons Amsterdam (in Dutch), January 1997
 

Candy Dulfer's quote was written especially for the ‘Homage to Rosa King’, a project on which De Zaak Muurbloem is working and of which this Ode is part.