John Andrew Ross, 65; made music of 'Black Nativity' soar for 36 years

This year's 37th consecutive production of ``Black Nativity" will not be cued by John Andrew Ross's trademark 11th hour arrival. No cane will hang from the armrest of his traditional aisle seat; no colorful scarf will fall across the seat back.

Mr. Ross, the musical director of ``Black Nativity" since its Boston premiere in 1970, died Monday of heart failure. He was 65.

A lifelong Bostonian, Mr. Ross grew up in a home often visited by his father's college roommate and lifelong friend, Langston Hughes. The Harlem Renaissance poet, whom Mr. Ross knew as Uncle Langston, wrote the song-play that evolved into a Boston tradition under Mr. Ross's direction.

``I had some sense that he was famous," Mr. Ross said of Hughes in a 2003 interview with the Globe, ``but it wasn't until I was a young man that I really read and appreciated his work." Particularly impressive to Mr. Ross was the way Hughes ``balanced his commitment to black America and the worldwide black community."

Concentrating in church music at Boston University, Mr. Ross received degrees from the College of Liberal Arts in 1960 and the School of Fine and Applied Arts in 1964. In 1970, he was hired by Elma Lewis to head the music department of the fine arts school that bore her name. Lewis, a recipient of the Presidential Medal for the Arts, saw in Mr. Ross a kindred spirit, according to Edmund Barry Gaither, executive director of the National Center of Afro-American Artists.

``We knew we were biting off more than we could chew when Ms. Lewis hired us back then," said Gaither, in a telephone interview from Mr. Ross's Centre Street home in Jamaica Plain, where family and friends had gathered Thursday afternoon after a private service at Bigelow Chapel in Mount Auburn Cemetery.

``John not only bought into Ms. Lewis's vision, he was willing to work for it without reservation," he said. ``She would come up with million-dollar projects, despite the fact that we only had hundred-dollar budgets. John, through his eternal resourcefulness, always found a way to get things done."

Mr. Ross struck a balance between instruction and performance early on and maintained it throughout his years, always putting his talents at the service of community rather than self. In May, the Friends of the Urban League presented him with a Lifetime Achievement Award.

``He was an accomplished classical organist when he met Elma Lewis, and she moved him in the direction of blues, gospel, and jazz, all of which he put his own signature on," recalled Betty Hillmon, who said she had known Mr. Ross for more than 30 years. ``We hear that in his direction and performance of `Black Nativity.' "

Hillman, head of the music department at the Park School in Brookline, was quick to laud Mr. Ross's first-class talents as a director, composer, instrumentalist, and singer, but said it was in the role of teacher that Mr. Ross most excelled. ``He had an enormous amount of patience, the highest standards, and great faith that hard work would pay off," she said. ``He never formally trained as a teacher, but he was one in the truest sense of that word. He knew the transformative power of education."

Vivian Cooley-Collier, around whose voice Mr. Ross built his first production of ``Black Nativity," sounded a similar note.

``He could see in people what they couldn't see in themselves," said Cooley-Collier, 58, who did not let a decade of living in California prevent her participation in Boston's ``Black Nativity."

``I flew back every year to be a part of the show," she said. ``It wasn't a question. It will be hard this year, but we'll do him proud. We'll make the show a celebration of his life."

Stephen O'Neal, 43, took piano lessons from Mr. Ross at the Elma Lewis School of Fine Arts when he was 5. ``We should probably keep that aisle seat vacant from now on," he said. ``No one can fill it. Mr. Ross was a teacher, friend, mentor, idol, surrogate father. He encouraged me to take my son to Africa. He always said that no child is too young to learn, and knowledge must be shared."

O'Neal and his son, Stephen Korliss O'Neal II, 12, drummed together for the past seven years in ``Black Nativity," providing the rhythm to which his wife dances and his daughter sings. ``Mr. Ross left this world knowing that all the generations he taught would keep his work alive," said O'Neal.

Mr. Ross was ordained a minister of music in the mid-1990s at the First Parish in Brookline.

Paula Elliott, a longtime vocal soloist at the parish who knew Mr. Ross for 20 years, recalled ``the richness of his knowledge of the world."

``He was always reading, always loving learning," Elliott said. ``I remember calling him as I drove to Easter Mass and asking him about the real significance of the holiday. Mind you, I had only a five-minute trip from JP to Brookline. In that time John gave me the most eloquent and insightful multidenominational interpretation of Easter, connecting it to religious traditions far and wide."

Ethan Cobb said he did not recall his first meeting with Mr. Ross. The accomplished organist, now 30, arrived at the First Parish as a ``babe in swaddling clothes," according to Paula Ann Ross, Mr. Ross's only sibling.

Later diagnosed as autistic, Cobb as a young child would often direct his attention to the loft where Mr. Ross played.

``John knew what the doctors didn't," said Ross. ``He knew that music would unlock Ethan's life. He taught him with patience, passion, love, and generosity. We heard all of that in Ethan's performance at the ceremony today."

Tom Toomey, a longtime friend, recalled a quirk in Mr. Ross's reading habits.

``John would get these magazines on the finest watches and read about how they were made, but he never wore a watch," said Toomey. ``He'd turn to the automotive section of the Sunday paper first, but he never drove a car."

Mr. Ross's appreciation of something beautiful, functional, and well made hardly seems surprising.

Reflecting on the death of Elma Lewis in 2004, Mr. Ross appeared accepting of his mortality, given what she and he had set in motion through ``Black Nativity."

``I remember sitting in her home, talking about this or that, and realizing that she would die and that I would die, too," Ross told the Globe in an interview that year. ``I realized that that was all right, that there were now enough people to keep alive not only this show, but the true spirit of this show."

A memorial service for Mr. Ross will be held at 3 p.m. July 23 at the First Parish in Brookline. A reception will take place at 6 p.m. at the National Center of Afro-American Artists in Roxbury.