Philly jazz educator Lovett Hines, who taught the likes of Questlove and Christian McBride, is getting some much-deserved flowers
Donn Thompson Morelli has directed "Philadelphia Sensei" that premieres at the BlackStar Film Fest this weekend. It features many of his illustrious students.
An educator who has been a behind-the-scenes mentor to many of Philadelphia’s most prominent musicians, gets his just due in a new film premiering at the BlackStar Film Festival this weekend.
Lovett Hines: Philadelphia Sensei, the directorial debut of Donn Thompson Morelli, spotlights the founder of the Philadelphia Clef Club of Jazz & Performing Arts’ education program.
The list of Hines’ mentees include highly regarded Philly musicians, such as Christian McBride, Immanuel Wilkins, Justin Faulkner, Bilal Oliver, Derrick Hodge, the late Joey DeFrancesco, and Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson of the Roots, who is Morelli’s brother.
The film begins with a poem, written and soothingly spoken by Morelli.
“Flower and seed, orchard from tree / Like a stream of golden sun and urban sky you shined through … the Philadelphia Sensei is Lovett Hines.”
Many of the most prominent mentees of Hines, 83, who also taught at the Settlement Music School, give testimonials in the short documentary, praising him for his loving way of nurturing talent, rather than acting like a disciplinarian obsessed with technique.
“The first thing is, he finds your strength,” Roots drummer Questlove says in the film. “He describes the importance of listening and absorbing. Really, he was just super encouraging.”
“I always think of him as the most perfectly balanced teacher that I’ve ever had in music,” says McBride, bassist and host of NPR’s Jazz Night in America. “He always gave us room to make our own mistakes. He never said, ‘You have to do it this way, you must do it the way it says on the paper. He would let us find our own personality.”
» READ MORE: Jazz great Christian McBride won’t name his five favorite Philly musicians. Here’s why.
When McBride was starting out — after attending South Philly High School for the Creative and Performing Arts in the late 1980s in an illustrious period when DeFrancesco, the Roots and Boyz II Men were also students — he realized he needed to follow the path of Philly heroes like McCoy Tyner and Benny Golson and move to New York to make a name for himself.
“Mr. Hines was like, ‘Cool, you wanna go to New York. Let’s make sure you have what you need, so when you go to the Big Apple you’ll be straight.’”
In the film, Hines talks about growing up in North Philly, and how he learned from his mother, who was a community builder who encouraged appreciation of the arts and history. She often gathered up neighborhood children on weekends and took them to the Philadelphia Museum of Art or Independence Hall.
His family worshipped at the United House of Prayer for All People near 12th and Poplar Streets.
“Of course it had music,” Hines, an alto saxophonist who also plays bass clarinet and piano, tells Morelli. “They had the piano player, they had the choir. But they also had the band. And that was my first introduction to instrumental music.”
In addition to showing Philadelphia Sensei at BlackStar, Morelli, who makes her own music as Donn T and teamed with Philly rapper Chill Moody in the hip-hop/R&B duo & More, will also show the film at the Martha’s Vineyard African American Film Festival on Wednesday.
Her brother’s latest music doc, Earth, Wind & Fire (To Be Celestial vs. That’s the Weight of the World) will also show at that festival.
“Lovett Hines: Philadelphia Sensei” screens at 4:30 p.m. Sunday at the Perelman Theater at the Kimmel Center, 300 S. Broad St., blackstarprojects.org.
