audiologo

Upcoming January: Live Music...JACKPOT!!

2009-01-04T17:39:00.000-08:00

Wow, OK, the New Year is bringing some promising musical tidings. Some of this is the result of the annual Association of Professional Arts Presenters (APAP) conference which results in a deluge of arts bookers from around the US, and sometimes other countries as well, descending on NYC to check out various musicians playing their hearts out (and butts off) in specially arranged showcases at various venues across the city. If between January 9-13, you notice your favorite hot spot having a greater number of different shows in an evening, then you know they're probably hosting a showcase. The show may be shorter, but it'll be one hot show as artists work to seduce audiences and bookers alike--hopefully securing a number of advance engagements and allowing for a less tenuous economic picture for the upcoming year.

So get out there and support artists you admire and love! Show that love to the bookers so those artists can keep working.

A few showcases of interest are happening the same night (JazzFest & Mondo Music Fest--what happened there??), but not everyone is playing at the same time:

• Friday, January 9, 2008 •
Export NOLA @ Sullivan Hall
8pm Paul Sanchez, John Boutte & Leroy Jones
9:20pm Jonathan Batiste Trio
10:40pm Christian Scott Quintet 11:40pm Big Sam's Funky Nation* (bandleader Big Sam Williams pictured right, courtesy Monstersandcritics.com)
Followed By A Late Night NOLA Jam!
Sullivan Hall
214 Sullivan Street (between Bleeker & W. 3rd St.)
Evening starts @ 8pm
Tix $18

*Noted music writer/musician Ned Sublette just gave BSFN's new release Peace, Love & Understanding a rave (but don't expect any Elvis Costello covers on the CD).

•••

• Saturday, January 10 •

• MONDO MUSIC FESTIVAL •
Melvin Gibbs' Elevated Entity (w/ John Medeski, Vernon Reid and Amayo of Antibalas)
The amazing bassist/composer Melvin Gibbs (Harriet Tubman, Rollins Band, Sonny Sharrock, etc.; pictured right playing with Cindy Blackman and Jean-Paul Bourelly ©Dargan Tasic) plays with his group as part of the Mondo/Mundo Music Festival presented by Highline Presents (a project of the Highline Ballroom) at the Hiro Ballroom. The festival line-up includes:

• Groupo Fantasma
• Melvin Gibbs' Elevated Entity
• Nation Beat
• SoCalled

Hiro Ballroom at the Maritime Hotel
371 W 16 St.
New York, NY 10011
A, C, E, and L lines
Doors open @ 7pm Bands go on @ 8pm, 9pm, 10pm, 11pm (order TBD)
Tix $17 in advance, $20 day of the show

• 2009 NYC WINTER JAZZ FEST •
For complete info go to the JazzFest site.
$25 Winter JazzFest pass
$45 THE WATTS PROJECT + Winter JazzFest pass (pictured right, Jeff "Tain" Watts, photo ©R.Cifarelli©phocus)

Here's the schedule in brief:

(Le) Poisson Rouge, 158 Bleecker Street (btwn Sullivan & Thompson)

6p: Claudia Acuña
7p: Gary Bartz-Ommas Keith Project (Jill Newman Productions)
8p: Jason Moran's Bandwagon
9p: Dafnis Prieto Sextet
10p: Don Byron Ivey-Divey Trio
12:00am The Watts Project feat. Jeff 'Tain' Watts, Terence
Blachard, Christian McBride, Prometheus Jenkins

Sullivan Hall, 214 Sullivan (between Bleecker & W. 3rd St.)
7:20pmTheo Bleckmann 'Berlin-Las Vegas'
w/ Todd Reynolds String Quartet
8:20pm Jonathan Batiste Trio
9:20pm Toshi Reagon & BIGLovely (pictured right)
10:20pm Marco Benevento Trio
11:20pm Will Calhoun Native Land ExperienceGroup
12:20am Robert Glasper Trio
1:20am Sarah Morrow 'Elektric Air'
2:00am Aaron Parks

Kenny's Castaways, 157 Bleecker Street (between Sullivan & Thompson): 6:30pm-3am
6:40pm Ayelet Rose Gottlieb
7:40pm By Any Means
8:40pm Sex Mob plays Sexotica
9:40pm Lafayette Gilchrist
10:40pm Tar Baby
11:40pm Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey
12:40pm Burnt Sugar the Arkestra Chamber**
1:40am Taylor Ho Bynum Positive Catastrophe

**This should be a great show. The line-up includes: Jared Michael Nickerson: electric bass, Karma Mayet Johnson: vocals, Moist Paula Henderson: baritone sax, Will Martina: cello, Ben Tyree: guitar, Greg Tate: conduction, among a host of stellar performers. (pictured right, Burnt Sugar the Arkestra Chamber)

•••

• Sunday, January 11th, 2009 •
Export NOLA @ Sullivan Hall
8pm Kirk Joseph's Backyard Groove feat. Big Chief Monk Boudreaux
9pm DJ Soul Sister
9:50pm Christian Scott Quintet
11pm Big Sam's Funky Nation @
Meet-And-Greet with New Orleans Treats
(Gumbo, Hubig's Pies, Pralines, and more!)
w/ DJ Soul Sister Spinning - 7pm

Sullivan Hall
214 Sullivan Street (between Bleeker & W. 3rd St.)
Evening starts @ 7pm
Tix $15

•••

• Tuesday, January 20th, 2009 •
Yes, INAUGURATION DAY, and for those not traveling to Washington, D.C. (Le) Poisson Rouge is hosting:
The Inauguration Concert featuring:
Apollo Heights
24-7 Spyz
HR (of Bad Brains)
(perhaps this booking is an acknowledgement of Rob Field's February 2007 assertion: "Barack Obama is Black Rock"?

(Le) Poisson Rouge
158 Bleecker (btwn Sullivan & Thomson)
Doors open @ 7:30pm, show @ 8pm
Tix $15

•••

And if all that black rock retro-to-the-future nostalgia isn't enough for you, here's some more, also at (Le) Poisson Rouge:

• Saturday, January 24, 2009 •
ESG (aka "the legenday South Bronx Scroggin Sisters no wave, post-punk, hip-hop beat goldmine band" pictured right, photo courtesy Soul Jazz Records)
(Le) Poisson Rouge
158 Bleecker (btwn Sullivan & Thomson)
Show @ 10pm
Tix $20

Audio Geek: Happy New Year + Herbie Hancock's Head Hunters

2009-01-03T10:43:00.000-08:00

¡Prospero Año Nuevo! Happy New Year!

With thanks to music writer/musician Ned Sublette, I got informed about the fact that Herbie Hancock's Headhunters (Columbia, 1973) was selected for the 2007 National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress. They select twenty-five recordings every year, and announced the 2007 selections in 14 May 2008. NPR has been doing a series on the 2007 selections; the final installment was about Headhunters. Although it's only a 7.5 minute segment, the information presented is truly fascinating touching on the innovative instrumentation, the engineering of the album, and Hancock's artistic influences in creating the album's sound with the participation of the musicians, the newly formed The Headhunters, particularly percussionist Bill Summers (check his recreation of the Ba-Benzélé (Central African Republic) ethnic group's Hindewhu flute sounds on the opening of "Watermelon Man"), and the legendary engineer David Rubinson, who all contribute to this profile. Check it out here.

Endnote:
Steven F. Pond, Head Hunters : the making of jazz’s first platinum album (Ann Arbor : The University of Michigan Press, 2005). Pond also contributes to the NPR profile.

Make the Healing Where You Are: Harriet Tubman @ Nublu

2008-12-29T07:42:00.000-08:00

My thoughts, which I'm a bit delayed in posting--blame it on ole man winter... (thanks to J for the nudge)

• • •

I should probably say this isn't a review. Truth be told what I write in this blog is never meant as a "review" per se. Arguably my best writing here is an attempt to recreate my wholistic (visceral/aural/visual/emotional/intellectual, etc) experience of being in a certain place at a certain time.

Maybe I'm thinking about my response to being at Nublu this weekend. The East Village spot was for me a disorienting intersection of the popular, the profane, the sacred, the jam band, and the NY downtown legendary, along with a record company: Nublu Records (located a few doors up from the club). For those not in the know it's a popular neighborhood spot, where you're as likely to find would-be young hipsters snogging on a couch behind reformulated beats that vinyl-heads will remember from their crate-digging or high school days (nod to Mr. G). Those old vinyl-heads will recognize the connection between Nublu and Wax Poetics, and the avant garde-minded among them the fact that multi-talented drummer Kenny Wollesen (Tom Waits, Fred Frith, etc.) often engages his more experimental side there, with Love Trio, and the composer/conduction pioneer Lawrence "Butch" Morris leads the Nublu Orchestra which also includes members of recent performance art/ "it" band phenoms The Brazilian Girls, members of which who are also fixtures at Nublu. Nublu is a big supporter of Brazilian music, international jazz, and DJ culture with both established folks and emerging spinners dropping whole sets and/or beats in between sets by other artists.

Basically, this means you've got serious music-heads, musicians, and artists, along with frat boys and sorority girls, and art school denizens all hanging out in the same room. It makes for an interesting inter-generational and cross-cultural mix of folks.

It took a while for things to get started, so Harriet Tubman (l-r above: Melvin Gibbs, bass; JT Lewis, drums; Brandon Ross, guitars, banjo, vocal) didn't go on until midnight. They set up in a performance space that faces and is located maybe two feet from the bar, doing a sound check simultaneous with the DJ doing his thing about two inches away from them. The musical pulse is at a constant at Nublu, and in between sets the DJ's mix is almost louder than your thoughts. That effectively keeps the energy at a certain plateau while people wait for the next act to come on, though it can complicate a set up and sound check.

HT began their set with one of their few cuts that feature vocals, "Can't Tarry," which is also on their MySpace page. The song specifically comes out of their field research into Mississippi Delta blues, and reads like a gospel blues, with guitarist Brandon Ross plaintively calling out, "Lord, can't tarry here no more." Trippy, I had been playing that song on my iPod earlier that day. For a while, and perhaps still, you could download the track from their MySpace page as long as you were a MySpace subscriber.

The rest of the set was transcendent for me, but that's my experience listening to Harriet Tubman play, particularly live. It's a bio-chemical spiritual reaction. I was mightily aware of this on the third cut when JT Lewis was carving out the beat in that awe-inspiring way he has. You can tell he can hear multiple meter options in what's going around him as well as various sequences of accents; he's a master grammarian on the drums. At some point he hears where he needs/wants to go and locks that meter and a sequence pattern in, and then after about 8-10 measures begins to switch it all up. Interestingly, I always found his choices ones my ear could fall right into it--but they were never obvious. Lewis' MySpace page prominently displays his credo: "RHYTHM IS LIFE!/TIME IS NOT MY ENEMY!" I've long been fascinated by this sentiment. I have no problem with the first part, but the second... While I don't think time is my enemy, I never feel like I have enough of it. I guess I think of it as that fascinating aunt or uncle whom you wish you could see more of, and never seems to stay long enough when they visit.

But during the third song in the first set Lewis stopped playing, and I realized that I was so bound up in the rhythm he was creating that I stopped too. Breathing that is, and I was seriously heels over tail, or however that saying goes when you're suddenly just hanging in space, nothing below and nothing beneath, until he brought the beat back in and I knew where to land. It reminded me of jumping off the high dive into a pool as a kid, or flipping off the uneven bars--those few seconds when it feels gravity has no power. It's just your consciousness and your body in space and time. In retrospect I wish I had asked Lewis about it after the set. But who knows if my experience would have resonated for him. Lewis was also more vocal this show, talking in between cuts, in one instance about artists and gentrification--a great riff on how artists see possibility where city power brokers see the castoffs or detritus of urban development, but that when artist organize and manifest that possibility then those other folks suddenly notice the value and want it back (I think acknowledging the displacement of Gibbs and several other artists from the 475 Kent warehouse-lofts in Brooklyn in January 2008), in another asserting the importance of what I'd like to think was constructive anger, and lastly the originating ethos of Harriet Tubman: healing (hence the title of this post) in this 10th anniversary year of their founding. (pictured right poster image for an April 2008 mixed media show by 475 Kent artists featuring performances by Melvin Gibbs, and other residents)

What I noticed this time hearing them was how much they listen to each other. This was probably a function of being quite closer than at their Joe's Pub gig last year, and my own intent listening. There were times when I was listening to Melvin Gibbs and hearing him create patterns and then switch up and change the accents, sometimes creating an accent through an absence of a note. It made me really want to hear him talk about rhythmic and harmonic counterpoint, and reminded me of an anecdote he told about guitarist Sonny Sharrock at his solo show in the Out on A Limb series at Rose Cafe last year in Brooklyn. Gibbs played with Sharrock for a number of years. He shared that over that time Sharrock only held one actual rehearsal--he preferred to teach Gibbs about playing through telling jokes, "because it was all about the timing." (this made me think about Sharrock's playing on his own composition "John's Children"--apparently inspired by John Coltrane--which I recently heard on saxophonist Byard Lancaster's album, It's Not Up To Us, with Sharrock on guitar, the connections keep going...) Other times when Brandon Ross would start layering a sound bed, Gibbs would create a layer and then Ross would put down another layer using loops and effects pedals, and as usual hitting those high sonics with a fleshy sensual feel rather than an effect that made you curse having forgotten your earplugs. Interestingly too, Ross laid back when Gibbs explored the high end which was kind of fascinating since I hadn't heard Gibbs go there so extensively previously. Ross was creating varied textures, some simultaneously full and porous, others high and keening, as well as series of cyclical voicings (this last aspect more apparent to me than when hearing them live previously) with those high keening tremelos abruptly falling as if to their knees (in prayer? in emotional rapture?) only to rise slowly, again ambulating into some other voice, some other layer.

Notably none of HT's members were calling out songs, one or two would start and then another would listen and decide when and how to come in. At a couple of points Lewis and then Ross specifically asked Gibbs to call out a piece, which he did by starting to play a series of rhythms and note motifs. This absence of the traditional "count off" resonated for me when I was watching a clip of jazz pianist/theorist/educator George Russell talking to Ornette Coleman, and the late music writer/musician Robert Palmer about that same absence with Coleman's musical ensemble with Don Cherry (trumpet), Ed Blackwell (drums) and Charlie Haden (bass)--Russell was asking the composer/musician how the players knew when to come in. Coleman's response, "...instictive insight." Following up on this Russell talks about the heart as the highest intellect, and how this view--which he suggests as predominant in "Third World" considerations, naming it as a "Third World technology"--is ignored in much of the West which primarily considers music as "entertainment" and has failed to understand this distinct technology (which can only be accessed by being engaged and accessed, i.e.: mindful practice-mindful practice-mindful practice...) instead reducing it to the stereotype of the naturally (read: racially) gifted but non-intellectual black musician. The clip ends with the detailing of an interesting exchange between Russell and renowned architect/visionary Buckminster Fuller (1895 -1983) (Coleman wrote a work for Fuller, Prime Time/Design Time (for Buckminster Fuller) (1984)). You can check out this conversation in Shirley Clarke's (woefully out-of-print) documentary Ornette: Made In America (1985). Unfortunately, the embedding option has been removed from the YouTube video clip, but you can go directly to the YouTube clip to check it out. But if you ever get a chance to see Clarke's documentary in its entirety, which sometimes plays film festivals or at art house revivals. Go.

The same goes for the increasingly rare Harriet Tubman stateside performances, for the entirety of 2008: 2 shows in NY. Hear about a show. Go.

Endnote:
• American Film Institute's (AFI) 2000 response to a query about commercial availability of Clarke's documentary.
• bio for filmmaker Shirley Clarke (1919 - 1997)

Eartha Kitt: R.I.P.

2008-12-28T08:35:00.000-08:00

I've long had a special place in my heart for Eartha Kitt (1927 - 2008). She was so undeniably a unique presence. Kitt mesmerized as Catwoman, on the 60s Batman TV show, and couldn't be contained by even by the multiple significations suggested in the kitsch of that show. The all-black cast version of Anna Lucasta (1959)with her in the title role, is one of the few times she got to show her complex range on screen (thank goodness, MGM finally decided to release it on DVD). She was outspoken and had her convictions, which led to her career being derailed after some frank and none too positive comments about the Vietnam war at a White House luncheon.

Whenever I think about Ms. Kitt, I'm reminded of a friend from high school who was a profoundly talented actor and writer. Few people knew what to do with her abilities either. She wasn't just outside the box, she exceeded the box's measurements and labels.

Basically, she was ahead of her time. Life isn't easy for those who are ahead of their time. After all, the US has barely caught up to Ms. Kitt.

Saw the above photo at Tayara Jones' blog, where she's listed a few colleagues' tributes to Ms. Kitt.

Endnote:
• Chicago Tribune notice: "Eartha Kitt: The patriot who was right all along."
• Telegraph UK: "Tributes paid to Eartha Kit"
• Michael Sleznak on EW.com talking about how unforgettable Kitt was "[i]n an era when manufactured 'celebrities' are as common as drab backyard sparrows."

Have A Merry Merry: Audio Geek in Space

2008-12-24T14:03:00.000-08:00

Via New Black Man and Professor Kim comes an interview with Professor Tricia Rose (African Studies, Brown University, pictured right, photo © Frank Stewart) on Sun Ra (pictured below, courtesy Perfect Sound Forever), hip hop and Afrofuturism.

Plus, there's a 1927 song "The White Flyer to Heaven" which Studio 360 lists as "featuring Reverend A.W. Nix, a black preacher. Some consider this the earliest example of Afro-futurism. (Courtesy of Kevin Nutt.)"

Black Rock - Urban/Alternative Grammy?

2008-12-11T20:00:00.000-08:00

OK, I'm so deep in some other alternative space I didn't even know there WAS a category called Urban/Alternative. But then again I stopped watching the Grammys moons ago, and have been mostly listening to out-of-print Latin, Funk, and some Hip Hop vinyl for the past few weeks.

Thankfully Mr. Fields over at Bold As Love has my back, and yours too if you want to see/hear offerings from the nominees in this category, who are listed at left. I guess this means Kenna has accomplished his goal of making himself more memorable in the public's imagination (hence the Make Sure They See My Face, album title).

I have to agree with Bold As Love on this one. Janelle Monae owns this category, and should take home the statue since there's no real competition aside from Kenna. Michele and Wayna have great voices, but the arrangement on Chrisette Michele's cut isn't particularly alternative--and the subject matter: been done, to death. I found a version of Wayna performing Minnie Riperton's "Loving You" live, with hip hop breaks and polyrhythms, as well as some new lyrics, but not the one featuring Kokayi (and yes, Ethiopian vocalist Wayna can hit the all the high notes). It basically feels like the Grammy's and music industry are just catching up with actual music-heads, but years late. I mean if Georgia Anne Muldrew were nominated, that'd be some serious competition. But this Kenna cut just can't compare to what Monae is reaching for: something simultaneously retro and futuristic in a way that isn't wholly easily categorizable as either.

Check out Bold As Love for the rest of the nominee's clips as well as the traditional holiday season Gap ads, this year featuring: Janelle Monae (prominently), The Dixie Chicks, Trey Songz, Flo Rida, Jon Heder, Sandra Bernhard, Weed's Romany Malco, Freddie Rodriguez (Nothing Like the Holidays, "Ugly Betty," "Six Feet Under") Selma Blair, and that guy from "The Office" whose name I forget.

Wayna singing Minnie Riperton's "Lovin You" live at the Cadavez in Washington, D.C.

Upcoming: For Living Lovers and Harriet Tubman

2008-12-07T10:51:00.000-08:00

I've been neglecting the posting of upcoming shows, but still going to them. Like Taylor Ho Bynum and SpiderMonkey Strings last month at the Jazz Gallery--which was intriguing, and at points amazing--but unfortunately missing Henry Threadgill's ZOOID (argh!).

This I just found when I was looking up BAM's offerings, an increasingly rare US appearance by Brandon Ross (right) and Stomu Takeishi. Ross' ensemble/experiment For Living Lovers (think on the name for a while, not just the literal implications) features Ross on guitar/banjo/vocal, Takeishi on acoustic bass guitar, and Tyshawn Sorey on drums. Ross is known for his work with Henry Threadgill, Leroy Jenkins, Lawrence "Butch" Morris, as well as being musical director for Cassandra Wilson, and his co-leadership of the power trio Harriet Tubman (with Melvin Gibbs, bass; and JT Lewis, drums). Takeishi has also played with Morris and Threadgill; Sorey has led his own groups and recently released an album with the trio Fieldwork: Vijay Iyer, piano; Steve Lehman, saxophone, and Sorey on drums. You can read my thoughts on one of Ross' other projects, Theorema, here, also featuring Takeishi on acoustic bass guitar, and Gerald Cleaver on drums.

For Living Lovers is appearing next week at BAMCaféLive's BAM Jam series, which I understand as an improvised music performance series (I guess "BAM Jam" is a more marketing friendly term--or younger demographic inviting? Hmm, well could be...).

Details:

For Living Lovers - Brandon Ross, Stomu Takeishi, Tyshawn Sorey
BAMCaféLive
30 Lafayette Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11217
Friday, December 12, 10pm
FREE
more info

For those who have been missing the Harriet Tubman sound while its members were playing various gigs as a trio, or as sidemen, in Europe, they're back playing a wintertime gig at Nublu.

Harriet Tubman - Brandon Ross, Melvin Gibbs, JT Lewis
Nublu
62 Ave C, between E.4 & E.5th St
East Village, Manhattan
~~Friday, December 12, 11:45pm~~
!!CORRECTION!!
Friday, December 19, 11:45pm
$10

Video excerpt of Harriet Tubman performance in the Netherlands, November 24, 2008 at Cafe Wilhelmina. The clip starts with what sounds like the beginning of "Of Passage" (from Prototype, (Avant Japan, 2000)--now a collector's item) and then there's a cross-fade edit into the first part of the recent work, "I'll Overcome Someday" which begins with a spoken invocation by Brandon Ross.

R.I.P. Odetta

2008-12-02T21:56:00.000-08:00

Really, I have tears in my eyes.

Odetta (Odetta Holmes) December 31, 1930 - December 2, 2008

from the New York Times:
"Odetta, Voice of Civil Rights Movement, Dies at 77" by Tim Weiner

Odetta, the singer whose deep voice wove together the strongest songs of American folk music and the civil rights movement, died Tuesday. She was 77.

The cause was heart disease, said her manager, Doug Yeager.

He added that she had been hoping to sing at Barack Obama’s inauguration.

Odetta — she was born Odetta Holmes — sang at coffeehouses and Carnegie Hall and released several albums, becoming one of the most widely known and influential folk-music artists of the 1950s and 60s.

Her voice was an accompaniment to the black-and-white images of the freedom marchers who walked the roads of Alabama and Mississippi and the boulevards of Washington in quest of an end to racial discrimination.

Rosa Parks, the woman who started the boycott of segregated buses in Montgomery, Ala., was once asked which songs meant the most to her. She replied, “All of the songs Odetta sings.”

Odetta sang at the August 1963 march on Washington, a pivotal event in the civil rights movement. Her song that day was “O Freedom,” dating back to slavery days.

Born in Birmingham on Dec. 31, 1930, Odetta Holmes spent her first six years in the depths of the Depression. The music of that time and place — in particular prison song and work songs recorded in the fields of the deep South — shaped her life.

“They were liberation songs,” she said in a videotaped interview with The New York Times in 2007, for its online feature “The Last Word.” “You’re walking down life’s road, society’s foot is on your throat, every which way you turn you can’t get from under that foot. And you reach a fork in the road and you can either lie down and die, or insist upon your life.”

Her father, Reuben Holmes, died when she was young; she and her mother, Flora Sanders, who later remarried, moved to Los Angeles in 1937. Three years later, Odetta discovered she could sing.

“A teacher told my mother that I had a voice, that maybe I should study,” she recalled. “But I myself didn’t have anything to measure it by.”

She found her own voice by listening to blues, jazz and folk music from the African-American and Anglo-American traditions. She earned a music degree from Los Angeles City College. Her training in classical music and musical theater was “a nice exercise, but it had nothing to do with my life,” she said.

“The folk songs were — the anger,” she emphasized.

In a 2005 National Public Radio interview, she said: “School taught me how to count and taught me how to put a sentence together. But as far as the human spirit goes, I learned through folk music.”

In 1950, Odetta began singing professionally in a West Coast production of the musical “Finian’s Rainbow,” but she found a stronger calling in the bohemian coffeehouses of San Francisco. “We would finish our play, we’d go to the joint, and people would sit around playing guitars and singing songs and it felt like home,” she said in the 2007 interview with The Times.

She began singing in nightclubs, cutting a striking figure with her guitar and her close-cropped hair. (She noted late in life that she was one of the first black performers in the United States to wear an “Afro” hairstyle — “they used to call it ‘the Odetta,’ ” she said.)

Her voice plunged deep and soared high, and her songs blended the personal and the political, the theatrical and the spiritual. Her first solo album, “Odetta Sings Ballads and Blues,” resonated with an audience hearing old songs made new.

“The first thing that turned me on to folk singing was Odetta,” Bob Dylan said, referring to that record, in a 1978 interview with Playboy . He said he heard “something vital and personal. I learned all the songs on that record.” It was her first, and the songs were “Mule Skinner,” “Jack of Diamonds,” “Water Boy,” “ ‘Buked and Scorned.”

Her blues and spirituals led directly to her work for the civil-rights movement. They were two rivers running together, she said in her interview with The Times. The words and music captured “the fury and frustration that I had growing up.” They were heard by the people who were present at the creation of the civil rights movement, people who “heard on the grapevine about this lady who was singing these songs.” She played countless benefits; the money she raised underwrote the work of keeping the movement alive.

Her fame hit a peak in 1963, when she marched with Martin Luther King in Selma and performed for President John F. Kennedy. But after King was assassinated in 1968, the wind went out of the sails of the civil-rights movement and the songs of protest and resistance that had been the movement’s soundtrack. Odetta’s fame flagged for years thereafter. She recorded fewer records, although she performed on stage as a singer and an actor, during the 1970s and 1980s. She revived her career in the 1990s, and thereafter appeared regularly on “A Prairie Home Companion,” the popular public-radio show. In 1999 she recorded her first album in 14 years, and that year President Bill Clinton awarded her the National Endowment for the Arts Medal of the Arts and Humanities from. In 2003 she received a “Living Legend” tribute from the Library of Congress and the Kennedy Center Visionary Award.

Odetta was married three times: to Don Gordon, to Gary Shead, and, in 1977, to the blues musician Iverson Minter, known professionally as Louisiana Red. The first marriages ended in divorce; Mr. Minter moved to Germany in 1983 to pursue his performing career.

She was singing and performing well into the 21st century, and her influence stayed strong through the decades.

In April 2007, half a century after Mr. Dylan heard her, she was onstage at a Carnegie Hall tribute to Bruce Springsteen. She turned one of his songs, “57 Channels,” into a chanted poem, and Mr. Springsteen came out from the wings to call it “the greatest version” of the song he had ever heard.

Reviewing a December 2006 performance, James Reed of the Boston Globe wrote: “Odetta’s voice is still a force of nature — something commented upon endlessly as folks exited the auditorium — and her phrasing and sensibility for a song have grown more complex and shaded.”

The critic called her “a majestic figure in American music, a direct gateway to bygone generations that feel so foreign today.”

Musician/writer Ned Sublette suggests listening to this Odetta performance of "House of the Rising Sun" from 2005, and keep listening past the 1:53 mark when the piano accompaniment temporarily ends.

World AIDS Day 2008

2008-12-01T21:49:00.000-08:00

J's Theater has a number of great links to people thinking, writing, postulating about the history of the AIDS epidemic and where we are now.

The theme for World AIDS Day 2007 and 2008 is "Leadership" which is being forwarded by continuing the call to "Stop AIDS. Keep the Promise."

Also, NPR has featured a number of stories on the subject:

• AIDS Epidemic Grows Among Children
• Battling Pediatric AIDS, Saving Lives in Africa

• Many Americans With HIV Don't Know They Have It

There was also an interesting series of stories about the complexities of setting up a sustainable infrastructure for the delivery of Anti-RetroViral medications to patients on the African continent.

Update : December 2, 2008

Today I was checking out one of my fav bloggers Tayari Jones site. Recent United States Artist Foundation Awardee (Congratulations Ms. Jones!), and birthday celebrant (again: Congratulations, 38 is looking good on you!) posted about World AIDS Day and linked to some good stuff, including a post from one of my other fav bloggers, Reggie H. But most important was the title of the post: "World AIDS Day. Get Tested. I Did."

I sometimes forget how important it is to say this. Not the "get tested" part, but the "I did."

So let me add my voice to the chorus of folks of African descent encouraging others to take care of their health: Get Tested. I Did.

In response to the question Jones herself poses on her site, why did I get I get tested, I can second Ms. Jones' response: "Why? Because I needed to know, just like you need to know." That's the truth folks. Most African Americans get diagnosed with full-blown AIDS, not HIV which means they get often get diagnosed after they're already an an acute stage of illness. Full-blown AIDS has fewer treatment options, can necessitate more extreme intervention, and has a shorter life-expectancy than HIV. Also with diagnosis and effective treatment at the HIV stage, the advancement to AIDS and serious opportunistic infections and illness can be delayed considerably. So at the risk of sounding like a parrot on Ms. Jones shoulder, "find a testing site near you" and get tested. This is not a situation where no news is good news, folks. Along with getting tested find out about how best to protect yourself from HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).

• Scarleteen: sex education for teenagers, young adults, parents and their allies; now celebrating their 10th Anniversary providing "Sex Education for the Real World."
• San Francisco Sex Information (SFSI): providing "free, confidential, accurate, non-judgemental information about sex" since 1972. Accessible via phone or email.
• American Social Health Association (ASHA): "The American Social Health Association is a trusted, non-profit organization that has advocated on behalf of patients to help improve public health outcomes since 1914. We are America's authority for sexually transmitted disease information."
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) National STD-AIDS Hotline
Hours: 24 hours
(800) 342-2437 (English & Spanish)

Some additional thoughts....
• From Susan Campbell's brief commentary in the Hartford Connecticut Courant:

"Today, on World AIDS Day, remember the 33 million people living with HIV worldwide. Remember also that in this country, AIDS is the number one killer of African American women between the ages of 25 and 34.

"And remember the HIV rate in our nation's capital rivals that of sub-Saharan Africa, 1 in 20.

"More here."

• The "here" referenced by Campbell is an August 2008 report from the Black AIDS Institute a national non-profit policy center located in Los Angeles, California. Some excerpts from the report:

"The number of people living with HIV in Black America exceeds the HIV populations in seven of the 15 focus countries of the U.S. government’s PEPFAR [The United States President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief] initiative. Many of the factors that make HIV so challenging in other countries are the same ones that drive the epidemic in Black America."(p.5)

"If Black America was a country, its AIDS epidemic would be nearly the size of the AIDS
epidemic in Côte d’Ivoire."(p.6)

"If Black America was a country, its economy would be almost as large as that of South Africa."(p.9)

"If Black America were a country, it would have about the same population as New York, Massachuetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont and
Maine combined."(p.18)

"Representing about one in eight Americans, Blacks account for one in every two people living with HIV in the U.S., and notwithstanding extraordinary improvements in HIV treatment, AIDS remains the leading cause of death among Black women between 25-34 years of age and the second leading cause of death in Black men between 35-44 years of age." (p.11)

"Global AIDS leaders should break the silence on AIDS in Black America. Although the U.S. government should be lauded for its landmark PEPFAR initiative, it should also be held accountable for its failure to address the epidemic within its borders. The fact that the U.S. is one of about 40 countries that failed to submit national AIDS progress reports to UNAIDS in 2008 is telling."(13)

You'll note AIDS/HIV is still an issue in Latina/o communities and white/European American communities as well. Here's a chart from the CDC for 2006 numbers (the available rates as of June 10, 2008). The CDC Fact sheet for "HIV/AIDS Among African Americans" was revised August, 2008. See Endnote for rates among other ethnic groups.

One of the concluding messages of the report is a call to action, see below:

Endnote:
• AFP coverage: "South African observes silence for World AIDS Day"
• MSNBC story "New hope on AIDS in Africa" includes profile of Cape Town Fertility Clinic, and "Access to Life a multimedia project funded by The Global Fund to document efforts to fight HIV/AIDS in nine nations."
• CDC Factsheets revised August 2008: HIV/AIDS among Asians and Pacific Islanders ,
• National HIV/AIDS Hispanic/Latino Response: Presentation from the 2008 HIV Prevention Leadership Summit, includes CDC statistics.
• Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) HIV/AIDS webpage

Audio Geek & Turkey...

2008-11-29T00:32:00.000-08:00

I hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving. Like a lot of folks, I have my ambivalence about this holiday. It's a time for people to come together, sometimes family, sometimes chosen family, other times new friends who find themselves far from home. There's an opportunity for genuine thankfulness and gratitude in these gatherings and sharing of food, stories, laughter, etc. At the same time the popular story of the holiday that most of us get taught in school is problematic to say the least. The arguable victor gets to write the history, and that history has its definite omissions concerning indigenous people on the American continent. So in the spirit of engaging history, and moving towards a more inclusive historical portrait (small pox blankets, genocide, and all), I've included some links in the Endnote section. I'm sure there are others of which I'm unaware; if there are other better sites it would be great to learn about them.

The Third Coast International Audio Festival takes place each Fall in Chicago, Illinois. Even if you can't get to middle of the USA, the hosts, Chicago Public Radio, post audio and video from a number of the events on the festival website. Also, during the Thanksgiving weekend various NPR stations broadcast the winners of the eighth annual TCF / Richard H. Driehaus Foundation Competition "represent radio at its finest: moving, insightful, surprising and sometimes even life changing." If you find yourself hooked, no worries. Chicago Public Radio hosts, Re: sound, a weekly program of radio stories "culled from around the world ranging from personal narratives to investigative documentaries, experimental sound art to humorous essays" and is hosted by "independent producer and essayist" Gwen Macsai (yea! women in radio/audio! The TCIAP festival staff is comprised of four women, with Macsai among their number). (above a shot of the vintage Studer A807 Professional reel to reel tape recorder - simply gorgeous!)

Endnote:
Re-examining the popular Thanksgiving Story: the "theme" of Thanksgiving versus the mythologizing of questionable history.
• "National Day of Morning" from the Pilgrim Hall Museum in Massachusetts (hotbed of Pilgrim pride)
• "Mistakes, Lies & Misconceptions: The Thanksgiving Myth" by John Two-Hawks from Native Circle.com
• "Thanksgiving Information" a highly informative and thoughtful collection of information directed towards educators. From the Fourth World Documentation Project , later re-organized as Fourth World Docu-Program a searchable research database and archive of documents related to indigenous peoples worldwide, and a publications division, Fourth World Papers Program, both coordinated by The Center For World Indigenous Studies (CWIS).

Audio Geek: Get on the Love Train...

2008-11-27T00:40:00.000-08:00

Two of my favorite composer/producers, crafters of the Philly sound (The O'Jays, Billy Paul, Patti Labelle, Phyllis Hyman, Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, Teddy Pendergrass, The Three Degrees, T.S.O.P., Soul Survivors, The Trammps, Stylistics, etc.) creators of the classic "Soul Train" theme, Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff are true originals. They couldn't be contained by Barry Gordy's Motown (though they politely demur on the question of that short-lived association), and founded their own label, Philadelphia International Records, to allow the development of their more expansive sound. The name says it all, produce the music locally, disseminate the love globally.

As Gamble says, "Philadelphia International was about spreading love." Gamble and Huff have a new box set coming out called Love Train: The Sound of Philadelphia which includes work from both before and during the Philadelphia International era.

Check out the November 26, 2008 NPR interview of Gamble and Huff with Fresh Air's Terri Gross. (above the contemporary Gamble and Huff, below, the "legendary duo" back in the day)

Endnote:
• "The Sound of Philadelphia: Heard Around the World" CNN profile from November 20, 2008
• Gamble and Huff, 2008 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Inductees profile.
• Profile of Gamble and Huff from ThatPhillySound.com
• BrotherMen, a "performance-based documentary" featuring "five African American men who through their art transmit the historic, political and cultural realities of the African American experience." Includes profiles of Gamble & Huff, documentary photographer Chester Higgins, Jr, musician/songwriter Pops Staples (The Staple Singers), and choreographer/performer David Roussève.

Change...

2008-11-24T22:32:00.000-08:00

In honor of the mood this month, on axes that speak to me individually and from the global framework--all the Clinton era appointments notwithstanding. Obama clearly knows his weaknesses, and is aware of the successes of the Clinton team, it would be foolhardy not to

Afro-German soul vocalist Joy Denalane with a little help from Lupe Fiasco singing about "Change."

I realize that youtubers are linking Seal's rendition of "A Change Gonna Come" with the Obama presidential election, but from that first line "I was born by the river," you have to commit to the song not just as a conceptual performance for a soul album collection as Seal's new release is being touted. The other rendition that speaks to me is Aretha Franklin's rendition which was more tribute to her lost friend, Sam Cooke, than cover recording and the piano and organ work is heartbreaking, as is Franklin's vocal. Of course Otis Redding can't be ignored, the way he lands on a note hard and wrenches everything out of it in just a quarter note in a common time meter--and melisma wouldn't be so painful to hear all the time if some people had the skill to give it texture the way Redding did. Tina Turner's live performance from the late 80s (from the Break Every Rule video, initially backed up by a synth sample choir of "ah's" until someone realized continuing that throughout the song would sound rather soulless, though it unfortunately returns after the break) is worth a listen as well. Though there's something almost incongruent in the performance. She seems so much the Tina Turner of the Ike & Tina Turner review, or Annie Mae Bullock/Nutbush City Limits in the performance, while most of her musicians (except for the young Robert Cray-look-alike, or wait, that's actually Robert Cray: Turner says, "Take it Robert" at the start of the break, and I recognize his gestures, plus she shouts him out at the end) are doing back up for the re-designed, and re-branded Tina Turner (enough with the sax already!). I felt like I was watching two different, yet simultaneous performances. I have to give it up for Leela James' version which opts for understated, restrained delivery with her cracked honey tones that remind me of Toni Childs, but with more flexibility and range in the vocal instrument.

Ultimately, this one I have to give to the original songwriter and interpreter, Mr. Sam Cooke.

This is another one of my favorite renditions, by the Neville Brothers off their Yellow Moon album (another fav).