Make the Healing Where You Are: Harriet Tubman @ Nublu

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

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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)

Upcoming: For Living Lovers and Harriet Tubman

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.

What I Missed, Someone Else Didn't...II + Black Banjo + Imani Coppola + Save 475 Kent Avenue

Bold As Love has been b-u-s-y folks, and with his own black rock progeny in tow he headed over to the Brooklyn Museum last weekend to check out Harriet Tubman apparently heeding an earlier "admonishment"--his words--found in this blog directed towards the talented Mr. Rob Fields. And yes, like many of us, he found that HT is no joke, and had a serious good time. You can read more about his take on that here, and check some nice photos as well (doesn't that glass window backdrop look great?). Apparently, HT indicated that their awaited album is coming out in 2008, dropped some science about black folk & the banjo and gave an update on the release of the Otis Taylor engineered Recapturing the Banjo album (Telarc, 2008--actually it's out now) and documentary (see video below) featuring Corey Harris, Keb' Mo', Alvin Youngblood Hart, Guy Davis, Taylor, and Don Vappie. This is hopefully gonna be a seriously deep year musically.

Excerpt from the Recapturing the Banjo: The Black Banjo Project documentary:





Bold As Love also hipped us to Imani Coppola's Little Jackie project, in month-long residence at Southpaw--through March 11. Did I know about this, dang, I did not. And I've been liking Coppola since 1997's underrated Chupacabra ("I'm A Tree," "Legend of A Cowgirl" oh yeah...). Looks like I missed guitarist/vocalist Honeychild Coleman's guest appearance on the bill, bummer. Plus, Maritri, whom I haven't heard of, is doing an interesting sounding monthly music series at The Cutting Room. All this and "Listening Post" yummies can be found this week at Bold As Love. Watcha waitin'for?

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Passing Strange on Broadway

Mr. Fields reminded me that all of us in the NYC area, or visiting soon, need to get out to Stew's black rock musical, Passing Strange which has just made the trip from The Public to Broadway (aka the Great White Way--well not 100% thanks to Passing Strange among others--hee-hee, couldn't resist) where it's playing at the Belasco Theater. For those wondering at the title, no it's not a reference to racial "passing". More about the Shakespeare Othello reference of the title, and the show itself here. But that's not all, there's a Bold As Love brief write up (no spoilers), and a great podcast interview with Stew. Writer/anthropologist Maureen Mahon (Right to Rock) gives us an interview with Stew at EbonyJet.com (remember, if you can, when Ebony would barely include freaky Prince in it's pages?). Not to be outdone, not just one(with exhubertant endorsement by Spike Lee), but two hits from Bluegum on the show, with the classic quote: "Finally, a Color Purple for the rest of us!"

I concur, this was one of the best theater "experiments" I've seen in a long time. I'm using the word "experiment" because that what Stew calls the show and it's Broadway presence. But I don't mean "best" on the "experiment" continuum, but on the "theater" continuum. Although I do believe that theater is meant to be continually experimenting, reconfiguring itself, finding the best way to stage a story without always deferring to precedent--in this case rock musical theater precedent, i.e.: Rent, Hair, or Jesus Christ Superstar.

I was galvanized afterwards. I wanted more, more, more black rock, more black people exploring difference, and boundaries, and varied intersections with culture and creativity. The show just opens up your head, and your heart--to get all goofy and squishy about. Passing Strange makes you think, makes you groove, makes you shudder, makes you squirm, makes you laugh, makes you grieve, makes you hot, makes you holler, and then makes you do it all over again. Ain't nothin' but right about that.

For information on how to get discounted tickets go to this Bold As Love post.

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Speaking of Supporting Artists...
475 Kent Avenue, Brooklyn: 200+ artists trying to keep their studios after City eviction:
•PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION•

Among the displaced artists from 475 Kent in Brooklyn, NY is master bassist Melvin Gibbs formerly of the Rollins Band and currently of the aforementioned Harriet Tubman. You probably know of one or more of the 200+ artists and their families who have been impacted by this situation, some who have lived there for a decade. Even if you don't, if you're an artist living in the NYC-Area it easily could you in this situation. For more from audiologo on the amazing and hardworking Mr. Melvin Gibbs check here, and on Harriet Tubman live at Joe's Pub in September 2007, check here.

The New York Times has been giving a solid amount of coverage to this situation (see links below) where the tenants are working with the landlords to bring the building up to code (a rare situation where the landlords are supporting the tenants). At this point only the sprinkler system needs repair, and the tenants are requesting permission to return to their homes while the work is done. To date this request has been denied.

Open Letter from 475 Kent Avenue resident & artist vibeke jensen:
Date: February 11, 2008

Dear Friends, New York-, national- and international arts community,

we are trying to save the building where more than 200 artists, my
neighbors & i lived and worked for 10 years!

for more information:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/21/nyregion/21loft.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/22/nyregion/22lofts.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/10/nyregion/10building.html

please sign our online petition to Mayor Bloomberg

http://www.petitiononline.com/475Kent/petition.html

please do so now. And PLEASE forward this to your friends.
We are trying to get thousands of signatures on his desk asap.


sorry for any cross postings.
vibeke jensen
www.thing.net/~vibekeie

Brandon Ross' "Theorema" @ Jalopy 12/28/07 + URB ALT (Oops) + Upcoming...Incoming NYC/Philly

I arrived late to the show; bridge and Brooklyn-Queens Expressway(BQE) traffic slowing things down. Plus there's the trick of getting to Jalopy aka Jalopy Theatre and School of Music (despite the somewhat institutional sounding name, it looks like a well-loved funky club, both inside and out). You can't trust the directions from either Mapquest or Googlemaps as they will get you to the wrong side of Columbia Street, looking woefully at the BQE and wondering how to get to the other side. You've got to keep going up Hamilton and then turn left, going under the BQE, and left again to get to Hamilton going the other way. Then you'll end up on the side of Columbia Street that houses Jalopy almost on the corner. It's a great club, with old-style wooden church pews and folding wooden chairs, hardwood floors, and a bar with alcohol (and I think some juices), a string instrument rental display, and an intimate stage space framed by heavy red velvet curtains.

I want to write about how thought-provoking, engaging, and rich-sounding this show was in some kind of specific detail, and I find myself at a loss. Even while I was sitting in one of Jalopy's the center row pews, I was occasionally thinking 'how am I going to write about this so I remember it?' I mean I could talk about harmonics, and rhythms which were so key to the music played, but it wouldn't give the most embodied portrait. Key for me were the ways that bodies at play created sounds; the flesh-and-bone interactions of this show which was a mix of improvisation and notated work. I didn't get to see the notation so I don't know what Ross' scores looked like. I know there were a number of instances when bassist Stomu Takeishi looked as though he was reading the score very closely.

Tonight I didn't have a camera, still I felt myself watching intently the process by which each musician played their instrument, drew sound from it with their whole body. It was a frame-by-frame recording experience to be sure. What my uncle would call making "memory pictures." This was more obvious with the playing of Stomu Takeishi whose bodily invocations communicated so much as to the route of sound through his body--bubbling up from his shoe-shorn feet, toes curling around pedal knobs, knees bending as his torso extended forward and then back. The music percolated through his chest as he moved his shoulders never losing contact with the bass which didn't seem to hold its solid wooden form against these movements. Although Takeishi's music stand obscured some of the view of his electric bass--a really beautiful instrument by the way--its body was a part of these ambulations ultimately as resonator even though Takeishi wasn't playing an acoustic body this evening. Most evocatively, the sound would pop into one of Takeishi's cheeks and he'd hold it there, looking like he had a big rubber ball between cheek and gums, waiting for the moment to play a note. You could almost feel the tension of someone saying, "Wait...wait for it, wait for it...Now!" Then he'd pluck or tap a string and the cheek would deflate and the cycle would start anew. It's a really amazing experience to be allowed to witness that aspect of someone's creative trajectory. I had been moved previously by Takeishi's commitment when I saw him play at Rose Live Music, with the Out On A Limb All-Stars conducted by Lawrence "Butch" Morris, as part of the curated series Brandon Ross put together in September of this year (Takeishi and Ross have played together as an acoustic duo For Living Lovers, as well as in Henry Threadgill's and Butch Morris' respective ensembles). In the former instance even though he was sitting I could still see his embodied expressiveness. I don't know how it feels to him, but watching Takeishi I felt I was seeing an artist willing to fully give himself over to the process of achieving particular sounds. For vocalists I suppose the equivalent for vocalists is the "ugly face." (Rachelle Farrell's performance ethos is a good example of this.) (Takeishi pictured above left in 2005 playing with the Sax Pistols in Italy; no offense to F. Truono but this image doesn't fully capture the energy circuitry I described above, though you do get to see those cheeks bursting with channeled sound.)

I had never seen drummer Gerald Cleaver before this evening. (I actually didn't get to see much of him this evening either due to the combination of Jalopy's raised stage and the angle of the kit set up vis-a-vis my seat view.) The "Answers.com" bio I read (and link to here) cites his playing as "powerful and tasteful." I get the "powerful," but have no idea what was meant by "tasteful." All the restrained, self-conscious politeness I would associate with that adjective wasn't in evidence tonight. But if the writer meant to say Cleaver can be powerful without overpowering and playing over the rest of an ensemble I could see that. He certainly is inspired and creative. There was one moment of soloing when he seemed to get carried off on an improvisatory thread, but Ross did seem to be intentionally giving Cleaver the musical space to do just that at particular moments (for example in one case where he looped ambient feedback that played under Cleaver). Cleaver was massaging, striking, hammering and shimmering sounds from the drum kit. In various instances he pulled a drumstick across a the edge of a cymbal; tapped and stroked the floor tom, snare and symbols with his fingers--something that has become ubiquitous for some players. But Cleaver sounded like he was talking, having a conversation, or sneaking into the conversation that Takeishi and Ross had already started, or cajoling and teasing them into having a conversation with him. Some other interesting moments: Cleaver played the snare with a regular drumstick and the floor tom with a drumstick with a percussive attachment adding a subtle polyrhythmic element; he played this stick alone a few times and its tone sounded like a shaker filled with seeds, or a cabaça. Going further with this layering of simultaneous percussive timbres, he played the snare with a what looked to be a bass mallet, and the floor tom with a regular drumstick, and then the floor tom and snare both with bass mallets during one piece where he repeated a rhythmic pattern until it was its own chant, or maybe a ring shout. (Cleaver pictured above right playing with David Torn during 28° JazzFestival Saalfelden [24/8/2007]; photo: Claudio Casanova/AAJItalia]

I missed the introduction and explanation of Theorema, that is the specific meaning for Ross, aside from a more elegant and open way of referencing theory/theorem/concept which I had already kind of hypothesized. As it turns out Theorema is in process, which somewhat harkens to a scientific read of the term, as in "testing a theory." Everybody should be so fortunate to have their process sound this compelling. Some improvisation, or working through of concepts, can be quite cerebral; someone playing with an algorithm, or attempting to work through intervals via some randomized system. These efforts meant to free a performer/composer from the constraints of their traditional (read= History of Western Music) compositional knowledge can become another kind of prescriptive for the creative process.

Ross' compositional work has a consistent cerebral element, it also has considerable sensuality. This union becomes apparent when watching him play. Tonight he solely played his Klein electric headless guitar, with which he has an extensive and unique rapport. Something about this melding of the cerebral and sensual reminds me of Jason King's article on Roberta Flack in Listen Again, Experience Music Project's latest collection of presented papers from its Annual Pop Conference. There's a great quote from by Flack where she calls her music a mixture of science and soul; I believe she's talking about her arranging style having been honed both in the gospel and classical music training of her youth and the way in which she applied the chordal and counterpoint grammar of classical music to the arrangements of the soul, pop, gospel and folk music she recorded. from a 1977 radio interview that King cites "Flack is asked to explain what she leared from classical training. She responds that she likes 'to stay involved in the structure of music' in a 'scientific and soulful way." [182] Ross has also cited an engagement with diverse "folk" musics (he places folk in quotation marks in his description) of which he's pushing the boundaries by purposeful employ of considered compositional approaches.

Ross' performance physicality is more internal than Takeishi's; instead of movements of several inches, his gestural changes were contained in a minimum of inches and millimeters. You could watch as some element changed in Ross' face, or in the manner of his frequent leaning into the score, or within the literal space between himself and where the music was traveling--you could call that sound, or energy, or air molecules. With that leaning, in the instances where there was no score, I found myself wondering if Ross was was listening for progressions that were coming to him as he played, or for the changes that Takeishi and Cleaver were creating, or if something else entirely was happening. (Obviously, I have an ongoing fascination with the creative process as it's experienced by different folks) There would be changes in the music that were telegraphed a second before in some minor shift in Ross' posture, or the expression on his face. Interestingly, I noticed the facial expressions weren't just visual shifts, but you could feel a shift of energy with those subtle ripples as well. During the improvisatory moments (no one called out songs until the final number when Ross announced an Ornette Coleman cover) Takeishi looked at Ross intently, both at his face and where his fingers were on the fretboard, seemingly reading when to answer a note and what harmonies he might consider. Recently, I had been listening to a lot of Ross' recorded work and there were a couple of moments when I was stunned by how close to the recorded sound of his guitar this live work was. Despite working in the electric frame it's not a given that with direct line in a musician will be able to achieve the sound that he/she hears in her/his head or in a live context, given the vagaries of room sound and various mics, etc. In one really beautiful moment I recall, Ross was playing softly but with great articulation and rich tone, then he slightly increased his volume and played for a few more measures at which point Takeishi and Cleaver joined him. The power of quiet intensity has been coming up in few places for me recently; in the aforementioned Jason King article, as well as in a Victor Wooten video tutorial a friend sent me where Wooten talks about how Curtis Mayfield would play his electric guitar very softly and very intensely, in live contexts, clubs where people were talking and eating and people would get quiet in order to hear him. Not just because he was Curtis Mayfield, but because of the quality of that quiet voice, the kind of power it imbued. Similarly Ross' quiet intonations have that quality of power as well as startling clarity and color, all of which makes you want to hear what he's saying musically. (Ross pictured above left in a fairly similar representation of his "conscious listening/responding" stance--I'm just gonna call it that for now, to mark the posture)

It was a sweet night, with the pews filling up by the middle of the set as more people found their way to the Jalopy end of Columbia Street. It kind of reminded me of Bold As Live's The Family Stand event because Ross had family there ('tis the season), similar to V. Jeffrey Smith's kinfolk showing out--oh, now wouldn't it be great to see a Bold As Live conversation with Harriet Tubman (Melvin Gibbs, JT Lewis, Brandon Ross)! (Mr. Fields are you reading this? Wouldn't that be a richly diverse series of conversations given the musical history of those three instrumentalists?). So in evidence were his nephew photographer Bayaté Ross Smith, who currently has work in the quite interesting looking Face Off show at the Rush Arts Gallery & Resource Center in Chelsea (hoping to check that out soon). Also present, family friend and photographer Hank Willis Thomas a really gifted conceptually driven artist as well as, hmm, I think artist/curator Shane Aslan Selzer, but we didn't officially meet.

Endnote:
• From Patricia Lay-Dorsey's October 2007 Photo-A-Day Gallery: image of Gerald Cleaver "playing his drums and cymbals using two rolled-up sheets of paper...appropriately enough, music scores. And it worked! The whispery sound he created was just what was needed to set the tone for Andrew Bishop's experimental composition in four movements, "'Metaboles.'"


• Intensely enthused All About Jazz review of Cleaver and his ensemble Veil of Names' 2001 release Adjust















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Oops-a-daisy...
I got out of Jalopy at 11am. I had planned on running uptown from Brooklyn to get to The Shrine in Harlem for the last of the URB ALT 4.5 show. But URB ALT had started at 8pm, and I had the idea that it would only go for 3 hours because a previous Shrine show seemed to be on that clock. So I figured it was a no go. I was wrong, wrong, so wrong. URB ALT didn't finish until 1am! Next time I'll put in a call to confirm what's up, cause I missed a chance to hear some funk-filled improvisations and get my dance on--and we all know how important that is, whatever the time of year! The night featured Meera, a Pakistani band; Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter Felili--both Meera and Felili dedicated songs to the recently assassinated Pakistani leader Benazir Bhutto. They along with MuthaWit and special guests saxophonist/singer/keyboardist Micah Gaugh and guitarist Soul Product turned the joint out. You can read about the URB ALT 4.5 show (for a limited time, cause MySpace is on limited server space, people) on the MuthaWit blog.

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Upcoming...Incoming...January 2008

At BAM:
BAMcafé Live: FREE! 9pm
Friday, January 4th: Nora York, whom I first heard at the Tom Terrell Benefit 9/11/2006.
She's performing excerpts from her new project Furtiva Lagrima.








Saturday, January 5th: Anna Fiszman & Marc Landesberg with Felili
Boston Fielder has predicted that Felili is going to break bigtime soon. If you listen to her work you can see why. Run, don't walk to see her in the near future.

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
At the Kiswick Theatre (Glenville, PA, right outside Philly)
January 11th
Sister Rosetta Tharpe Benefit, featuring The Dixie Hummingbirds, Willa Ward with the Johnny Thompson Singers, Marie Knight, Odetta and The Huff Singers. A Fundraiser to purchase a headstone for Tharpe's gravesite.















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At Joe's Pub
Friday, January 11th
Abigail Washburn featuring Bela Fleck
Multi-lingual roots music singer-songwriter/ banjo player with legendary Bela Fleck

Saturday, January 12th, 7pm The Carolina Chocolate Drops/ Catherine Russell.
The Drops just got featured on The Great Debaters soundtrack, featured on Oprah, and tapped by rock critic Kandia Crazy Horse, yeah, unh-hunh.



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... and somewhere in Brooklyn
January 15, 2008
URB ALT 5.0 - Annual Dr. King Tribute
Time, Place, & Artists to be announced



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...back at BAM
BAMcafé Live: FREE! @ 9pm
Friday & Saturday, January 18-19
Black Rock Coalition's Children of the Revolution Part II

@ BAM but not free
January 22
Mavis Staples

In February....
Harriet Tubman @ BAM
sho' nuff!

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!! HAPPY NEW YEAR !!

(The Church of) Harriet Tubman @ Joe's Pub 9/21/07

Whenever I hear Harriet Tubman, sometimes in their various aspects--Brandon Ross' solo work, Melvin Gibb's side projects (I'm less familiar with JT Lewis' other work)--I experience some kind of spirit work. But from the first time I heard Harriet Tubman as the sum of their collective parts--Brandon Ross (guitar, mandolin, banjo), Melvin Gibbs(bass), and JT Lewis (drums)--I felt like I had been to church, in the best sense of the word. I felt my spirit had been fed and my soul given succor. Sometimes you don't know how thirsty you are until someone gives you a cup of water. That's Harriet Tubman.

The thing is they work in layers. If all you want to do is hear good music they bring it, sometimes, often times, in ways you never imagined. If you want to hear soaring sonic experiments and mad brilliant percussion that won't take you to the ENT specialist the next week, they bring that. If you want some playful banter, they bring that, but sparingly--it's about the music after all.

I had been waiting all summer to see Harriet Tubman, checking their MySpace page, and waiting for each of them to get back from touring with their other projects. Finally, finally, they were playing in New York. The three came out to the applause of an appreciative crowd sitting at the small tables, plush couches, and velvety cushions that comprise the intimate front space of Joe's Pub. They opened with "Afro Sheen" a song for music writer/former Steel Pulse road manager/artist advocate Tom Terrell. They followed that with "Wayne's World" which Lewis said was for Wayne Shorter with a nod to [fellow Weather Report co-founder] Joe Zawinul," who passed away on 11 September 2007 in Vienna, Austria--his homeland.

There was an extended call-and-response with Gibbs and the crowd initiated by an audience member calling out "Kings and Queens"--their wish to have the borough of Queens acknowledged. Having acknowledged Queens, and noting that he felt like he was at a hip hop concert, Gibbs had to ask about Brooklyn, and then Manhattan, and note the long-standing rivalry between Manhattan and Brooklyn. Next thing you know Gibbs was calling out wider and wider possible circles of attendance: New Jersey; Connecticut; Kennebunk, Maine; Chicago, and back to Brooklyn. A little later Ross brought up the question of the Brooklyn allegiance, was it a question of socio-economics, etc.? After Gibbs asked if Ross really wanted to go there, and if Ross wanted his university thesis on the subject, Gibbs thoughtfully explained that Brooklyn would get the biggest response at hip hop concerts because for a long time Brooklyn was the US city with the largest number of African American residents (news to me).

Now if you want a bit of history, or a lot, with your musical rapture they bring that as well. For me it's that part that makes the experience rapturous. In some cases it's all they've brought to the songs they've written honoring musicians of previous generations ("Wayne's World") and those who have gone on (the encore, "Where We Stand," was dedicated to Alice Coltrane). Tubman is self-described as being "dedicated to musical revelation/investigation in a pan-african vernacular of Now." On their website Gibbs says of Harriet Tubman "...to create new forms, we need to learn from our past innocations and how they relate to our experiences today. Having this knowledge honors our past and allows us to truly innovate, because we have the knowledge necessary to alter the forms of the past and still remain true to the intent of the innovators....HARRIET TUBMAN rises to the challenge and creates something new on the level of our elders."

That might sound highfalutin' or plain pretentious if they couldn't back it up--but they can. They are a "power trio" yes, but their "power" is beyond amplitude, dexterity, and technical proficiency. Lewis can make you hear a hurricane, or a waterfall, or a shimmering of raindrops, or the circular drive of what I imagine a tornado sounds like, or throw down the sparest marrow-sucked-chicken-bone funk-blues groove. You can hear the past in each of their musical voices and their collaborative intermix, as well as in Gibbs and Ross' respective skills in signal processing and live mixing, in such a way that you come to realize that the past is and was limitless in its legacy, hence the possibility of being quite grounded in its traditions while continuing in the vein of innovation.

The through-line to past-present-future continued with "Savannah." An homage to histories of "migration," as Lewis put forth with particular emphasis. Savannah is a port city in Georgia just south of South Carolina, and located on the Savannah River, whose outlet is the Atlantic Ocean. So we know at least one of the "migrations" and resulting histories the song references. Next was "Passages" (although I might have heard that incorrectly, was it "On Passages"?) for Ross' friend Ralph Gibson (whom I believe is Ralph Gibson the photographer/guitarist). That "past Now," was again evident in what Tubman has brought to the reclamation of particular musical traditions, tonight through a song with the banjo front and center. Unfortunately, I cannot recall the title, all that comes to me is "Trickology" which was one of the terms Gibbs used in his signification on the history of the instrument. As he introduced the song Gibbs acknowledged that seeing an African American with a banjo was close to, well I wish I could remember his analogy, but it was something like a minstrel show. On cue Ross, banjo slung across his shoulder, adopted a classic minstrel pose (there are many, but just use your imagination--his arms were outstretched, one leg was thrust out at a jaunty angle, and he beamed a sarcastic smile). When a bunch of flashes went off simultaneously, I felt a little unnerved and decided I really didn't need to add to the aggregate of online images of Ross in this pose, potentially stripped of its context through the particularities of the retrieval search engine that is "Google images." OK, but back to Gibbs, who explained that "it's [the history of the banjo] complicated, because if you look at early paintings you'll" see this instrument being played by African slaves. (Gibbs above right introducing the song)

Interestingly, I was just reading about this on the train over in music writer/guitarist Debra DeSalvo's informative and award-winning book The Language of the Blues: from Alcorub to Zuzu (2006, Billboard Books) which functions a glossary, an encyclopedia, and an oral history collection. The "Banjo" entry traces the instrument to the mbanza, a stringed instrument brought to the colonies by enslaved members of the Kimbundu tribe of Angola. DeSalvo breaks down the linguistic history of the term mbanza in relation to its Bantu-language origins and its eventual morphing into "banjo." She then explains how it was made and how its adoption by white minstrels as a prop in their humiliating portrayals of African Americans, especially in the period immediately before the Civil War, led to numerous African Americans abandoning the banjo to whites who, absent "blackface," used it in the development of bluegrass and country music (interesting as Sister Rosetta Tharpe biographer Gayle Wald has posited that there wasn't a clear racial distinction in the practice and production of country and bluegrass music until the racialization of radio--but that's another story). DeSalvo also discusses the paintings that show these instruments prior to their popularization by whites, and quotes Thomas Jefferson referring to the instrument in 1781 as the banjar, as it was then called, and his writing of enslaved Africans having brought the stringed instrument which was "the origin of the guitar, its chords being precisely the lower chords of the guitar." [DeSalvo, 10] Like much that is musical these days, the book has its own MySpace page (it's male, 32 years old, and hails from Chicago, if you were curious).

They broke that composition down into something of a love song for all those banjo players who found their beloved instrument--that dear reminder of their homeland and the site of various creative legacies--made into an unwilling enemy; its voice mocking them now with its new role as a cultural coder of their subjugation. While Lewis and Gibbs provided the steady roots, with a processed loop of banjo voicings just underneath him, Ross played the banjo with a series of more traditional melodic passages, a duet that created a conversation, a healing really, between those players and the present. And for us too, if we wanted it.

At the encore, as a way of introducing the final song, Ross named a number of musicians/artists that have been "called home to the next port of call," including Alice Coltrane, Michael Brecker (news to me), someone called out Max Roach, and Ross repeated Roach's name, Leroy Jenkins, Lance Carter; Gibbs called out the name of another artist, and Ross ended with poet/performer Sekou Sundiata, noting that there were others he'd had yet to hear about (I silently thought about the recent passing of New Orleans keyboardist Wilson "Willie Tee" Turbington who had just lost his older brother, saxophonist Earl Turbington, four weeks ago). The vibrations have changed [with the loss of all these people], Ross noted, and that was the natural order of things. It was nonetheless important to note the shift, to acknowledge the loss, and the resulting changes, and leave some space to wonder, contemplate what will emerge.

Harriet Tubman has released two albums, I Am A Man (1998, Knitting Factory Records; which I talked about here); and the live album (Treasure Hunt for the) Prototype (2006, on John Zorn's Avant Records; which I'm diggin' now). A forthcoming CD from Harriet Tubman Double Trio, Dub-ill 3rio LIVE, featuring trumpeter Ron Miles, DJ Logic, DJ Singe (aka Beth Coleman) will be released sometime this Fall on Jazzaway Records, out of Oslo, Norway. I keep wondering when they're going to record the track where Ross cries out the lyric, "Lord, I can't tarry here no more," which always makes my hand raise up in the air like a missionary circle sister about to get the spirit (the black church children know what I mean, well, maybe not the Presbyterians, but the rest do). (Above right, Ross on the mic with Gibbs and Lewis, introducing the final song)

Endnote
The Mix: I can't help but be a gear head here. While I didn't crash the stage in order to see what was what, I did check out their mic'ing and some of their gear from a solid vantage point. Of course gear isn't everything, but mic placement is something. And the placement on Lewis' drums has fascinated me on their more recent recordings. Every drum on his kit was mic'd at this show. I just wish I knew which mics they were, as well as what mic Gibbs had pointed at his amp. Looked like a Sennheiser to me, but I couldn't tell for sure.

While the gettin' is good: OUT ON A LIMB, 9/20/07

Master guitarist Brandon Ross' Out on A Limb curated music series at Rose Live Music was intended to give musicians an opportunity to get out of their comfort zones and try working without the usual nets, be they back-up musicians, laptop computers, or whatever.

"Naked," as bassist Melvin Gibbs intoned this evening, is the operative word. Gibbs and lyric tenor Carlo Vutera were on tonight's bill with Vutera offering the first set, a primarily a cappella performance of songs in Spanish, Italian, and there was also one in French I caught which dealt with memory and was quite haunting. Vutera is the owner of Rose Live Music which he runs with his sister, Gina Vutera. But he was quite reticent about accepting Ross' invitation to participate. Somewhat refreshing modesty from an opera singer (yep, there have been some unfortunate recent experiences), except he almost backed out of the gig. That would have been a shame. In between songs he said he was ultimately lured by the opportunity to work with composer/conductionist Butch Morris on the final night of the series.

The naked voice is a scary thing to put out there, especially when it's yours and you're singing to an intimate group of people a selection of songs that requires the placing of your heart on your sleeve. But Vutera rose to that, he allowed himself to be exposed with a maybe four feet between him and the audience--at eye-level no less on the Rose's low stage--singing songs that he loves. It was all there in his voice, and it was moving to witness. Vutera, a Sicillian, was born in Italy, and has lived in Belgium and New York (he's a long-time Williamsburg resident), where he sang with the New York Light Opera. But he was apparently changed forever by studying Cuban music, which he did for three years while living in Havana and working with coach and pianist Pura Ortíz and singing at the National Opera House. He has released an album which includes popular Neopolitan works along with traditional Cuban ones, and supporting him are some of the top musicians in Havana. Vutera called himself "a romantic" tonight, so it's not surprising the album is called Ammore (check out Vutera's playful bedroom eyes on the cover), it's also available in Spanish as Mi Amor. Where can you get it? Why, CD baby of course (love 'em!). Vutera live and unaccompanied was rawer sounding than what you'd hear on the CD (go to his MySpace page for more tracks), he was also more vulnerable and immediate. It's just a different experience, both for audience and musician. Fortunately, we were a crowd capable of appreciating Vutera's ultimate willingness to "go there" evidenced by repeated enthused applause (and not just from his biggest fan, the friendly María, who was collecting the cover charge, and to whom he dedicated the song "Maria O Mari").

Melvin Gibbs was up next, and though he said he's never nervous before playing a gig he was nervous yesterday about this one. The bass, he explained, is meant to be played with other things. It's not a solo instrument. I've never subscribed to this view having grown up listening to Charles Mingus, Ron Carter, Charlie Haden, and Jaco Pastorius. Even though they each "played well with others" (even the legendary ego that was Pastorius, RIP), I listened to them because I came to appreciate their particular musical voices.

But it's not like I was going to stand up and contradict the bass legend that is Mr. Gibbs.


There was no need for that anyway because Gibbs went on and pulled a breadth of sounds from a six string and a four string bass that made his hesitancy a moot point. Plus, he treated us to a couple of poems from a book he found during his recent touring in Europe, The Immeasurable Equation: The Collected Poetry and Prose of Sun Ra (pictured below right). Gibbs had been planning on bringing his laptop, as he makes his own beats and such (all the beats on his MySpace page are his own), but playing a laptop, he shrugged, was "so 2003, I just couldn't get with it [for this date]." (He mentioned the unfortunate issue with live performance and laptop music, where the musician is playing away but to the audience it looks as though s/he is checking their email.) I was grateful Gibbs wasn't feeling the laptop. Nothing wrong with those beats, it's just a huge gift to have the opportunity bear witness to an artist journeying "out on a limb" creatively. These days it's a pretty rare experience. It's also not a simple one; it was evident that Gibbs was pushing himself at different points during the set to go beyond his own expansive instrumental vocabulary. Gibbs, pulled lyrical passages, full sensual lead-lines, deft runs, funk, punk, deep growls and crunchy moans from his basses. He played with the bass as a melodic instrument--strumming, slicing, and arranging chord progressions; worked it as a spare rhythmic engine, sometimes giving a hard yet full sound with thumb and plucking; he worked note extensions with pedals, gave us a range of meaningful distortion, and played with harmonics from behind the pick ups--I didn't know that was possible.

There were dedications; a work speaking to the situation of the Jena 6. Gibbs shared that his mother and her sister had moved to New York because they witnessed a lynching in their town; they left for New York the very next day--so nooses hanging from trees aren't a silly prank to him. Also, Gibbs gave us an edgy instrumental commentary on the Jamaican vacation phenomenon known as "Rent-A-Rasta" of which he'd recently become apprised on his own vacation where he went to rest, look at the water, just relax, something he doesn't normally get to do when he travels because it's all about work. But some people go on vacation to experience "something" completely new. Nuff Said. Gibbs also played a beautiful and multi-voiced piece honoring Sonny Sharrock with whom Gibbs played for a number of years. Gibbs shared that over those years Sharrock only held one actual rehearsal--he preferred to teach Gibbs about playing through telling jokes, "because it was all about the timing." That's some profound trust in letting the process be what it's gonna be. Gibbs even accompanied himself on voice on a few songs, and played the mbira (pictured below right).

All told it was a profound experience, and if that's the first and last time Gibb is ever gonna play a solo set (which is what he inferred) I can't tell you how glad I am I was there.