Former music department chair Bill Cole, who retired in August 1990 after being heckled by The Dartmouth Review, has spent the last three years writing, composing and performing and says he does not regret leaving Dartmouth.
In his first visit back to the College, Cole will perform tonight with his jazz group, The Untempered Trio, in Spaulding Auditorium at 8 p.m. as part of his New England tour.
Though he retired from teaching after the emotionally-charged controversy that heaped national media attention on the College, Cole said in a telephone interview that he is not bitter.
"I am too old to be bitter," he said. "Life goes on and you have to go on with it. If you allow those types of energies to get inside of you, they eat away at you."
Cole came to Dartmouth in 1974 and founded a world music program within the music department, aimed at exposing students, faculty and administrators to different types of music.
In the winter of 1983, the Review, the off-campus conservative journal, published an article criticizing Cole's teaching Music 2, American Music in an Oral Tradition.
The article made derogatory statements about his physical appearance and accused him of devoting half his lectures to questions of race that were "irrelevant" to course material.
"He is a lean, scruffy fellow, 'looks like a used Brillo pad,' in the words of one student,'" the Review wrote.
Review staff members continued to heckle Cole by pressing him to respond to the first article and taping and photographing him without permission.
The students engaged Cole in a violent argument one day after class and followed up with phone calls to his home, transcripts of which were printed in the Review.
The series of incidents led to Cole's resignation. The controversy brought publicity to Dartmouth, culminating with a segment on the CBS news program "60 Minutes" in the spring of 1990.
"When you have a man attacking our photographers and calling us racist for no apparent reason, there is no question in my mind that the Review was in the right 100 percent in that controversy," said Oron Strauss '95, the Review's current editor in chief.
Now 56, Cole lives in Stamford, Conn. where he writes, composes and performs with The Untempered Trio as well as a larger group called Bill Cole Presents Yoruba Proverbs. Cole plays the Asian double reed, the West African flute and a drone instrument called the Digerdoo.
Cole "energized people both on the negative and positive sides. It was impossible to not have any reaction to what he did," said Donald Glasgo, director of The Barbary Coast jazz ensemble and a music professor.
Glasgo, who worked with Cole at Dartmouth, recommended bringing The Untempered Trio to Hanover.
"He affected me in a very positive way as well as many other people," Glasgo said. "I think it is important to have those lightning rod individuals around to provide a spark."
Cole began to study with Nigerian musician Fela Sowande in 1972. Sowande gave him the English translations of 500 Yoruba proverbs.
The Yoruba are an ethnic group that live primarily in Nigeria. For many years Cole just held on to the proverbs, but in 1983 one of them caught his attention and he decided to put it to music.
"One man's hatred cannot alter another man's destiny," the proverb says. Cole admitted that his interest in the saying might have been linked to the controversy with the Review.
Since then, Cole has written music to about 40 proverbs. The other members of the trio, Warren Smith and Joe Daly, have also written music to some of the proverbs, Cole said. He has worked with Smith and Daly on and off for almost 20 years.
The Untempered Trio's performance at the College will mark the world premiere of a proverb they recently put to music. "Good character is the adornment of humanity. White teeth the adornment of a smile," the proverb says.
Cole said the proverb has no relevance to Dartmouth and was chosen by Smith.
Although Cole said he has no regrets about leaving the College, he said he would have stayed if the controversy had never transpired.
"I think Bill has put the whole Dartmouth thing behind him and is focusing on his music," Glasgo said, "and that is what I think the audience should do."
