Miles Davis

I learned through the incredibly knowledgeable Theo Cateforis, my History of Jazz professor, something about Miles Davis the man more than Miles Davis the musician. And can you believe it was actually through a fantastic bootleg documentary? Yeah. Bootleg can be all right.

A bright-skinned drummer in the Miles Davis Quintet (his name escapes me but for this blog he can be Drummer) spoke of a show in which Davis was real sick. This was during the fusion between jazz and rock, and so Miles was playing and pushing and playing and pushing his trumpet and his quintet further than the extremes of the music wanted to allow. But of course, it was Miles Davis. And the music allowed the pushing and the playing.

Anyway, Drummer said that on this particular night, Davis was so sick that it was all he could do to play ballads. Miles played ballads at a time in his musical career when ballads just weren't "hot" as we young folk like to say today. Eventually the set got to be too much for the sick Miles and he had to step down. This bright-skinned Drummer went with him.

And Miles looked to Drummer, says Drummer as he recapped for the camera. And Miles said, "Hey Drummer, you know why I don't play ballads anymore don't you?" And Drummer answered, "No" (an answer he would have given even if the truth had been yes. me too.). And Miles said, "I don't play ballads anymore because I love playing ballads." Drummer went on to explain the depth of such a comment, though I would think its water would be obvious.

There's no murkiness in a statement like that. A statement like that is a blue more clear than a Mississippi blue night sky. So clear: Give up what you love. For the sake of better. For the sake of growth. Give up what you love.

"Freedom Sings" and mourns and rejoices

As a poet, I am certain that words often fail. It is a sheer love of them that keeps a poet writing--love of words, craft and purpose. Poets are people that have something to say, and what is especially a joy is when poetry is the muse for other arts. Words may fail but often only because they cannot be the only justice a purpose or a people receive.

I say this because attending "Freedom Sings" last week, I am more than proud to call myself a poet. The concert, a 2-hour exploration of banned music throughout America's history, is a call (and reminder) to action. We have a right to speak, to sing, to express--as Dudley Randall did in 1965, two years after the 16th Street Church bombing in Birmingham that killed four beautiful little black girls.

"Ballad of Birmingham": http://www.ctadams.com/dudleyrandall4.html

His poem reads as it should. Solemn. And with much importance. It was for the little girls, Addie Mae Collins (14), Cynthia Wesley (14), Denise McNair (11), and Carole Robertson (14). It is for the girls and in their remembrance. But I think it is important also to note that poetry is not an expressive medium often chosen by the masses (here I send thanks to the heavens) but music is. And if done correctly, for craft's sake, the two together are hard not to hear.

The song: http://www.balladofbirmingham.org/

Randall's "Ballad of Birmingham" was set to music in 2004 by three students at Tennessee State University. The poem is given only a piano and the voices of two women. The piano is quiet, never in the way of the interpretation and never too loud to hear and understand every word. When poetry and music occupy the same realm, affect is inevitable.

And of "Freedom Sings," well, yes it does. It also mourns and it also rejoices. God bless the souls of those little girls who maybe knew too much of their time, who wanted freedom as much as the grown folk around them. May God continue to hold them and their spirits, as well as all our fallen, in the palm of His hand. . .

Nashville Public Radio talks to the TSU students behind the song "Ballad of Birmingham": http://faculty.tnstate.edu/hmaddux/balladofbirmingham/Nashville%20Public%20Radio%20-%20Welcome.htm

Langston Hughes wouldn't have liked me

I was twenty, a junior in college, when I first learned of Langston Hughes's Racial Mountain. The essay, The Negro and the Racial Mountain (http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/299.html), is still one of my favorites, especially as a black poet. But upon the initial reading, I didn't get through the first section before I began to wonder if Langston would have even liked me. I have grown into one of those black folk who loves being black, but I was unsure whether this would have mattered much to him.

In his essay, written in 1926, Langston Hughes discusses the disdain that the black middle class had for all things non-white. He speaks of the word white and how it became a symbol of virtue in the black middle class household, and though I knew not of his reasoning preceding this statement, I knew well what followed. "[White] holds for the children beauty, morality, and money. The whisper of "I want to be white" runs silently through their minds." Yes. That was it. That was my childhood; it has become more memoir than memory (but that's a blog for another day). I found myself upset at my parents for establishing themselves before making family, because there I was black and loving beautiful, from money well-worked for but money nonetheless, and I couldn't shake the thought of Langston Hughes not liking me.

I smile as I type. To think back at such jovial thoughts incites more than a smile at my lips. I am also smiling with my eyes and down into my fingertips as they key away the contents of this blog, this blog whose importance is in establishing who I have come to be. A black woman who wouldn't dream for anything else. A beautiful black woman who wouldn't pray for anything else.

I am a blackwomanKentuckypoet who better understands this mountain to which Langston spoke of so many years ago, and I am still moved by his expressions. His love of craft, music and man is relevant to all young black artists, such as myself. We have the expression of "our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame" down pat; some may argue it comes as easy as breathing. And Langston may be quite proud of us, all of us, no matter our class or our parents' class, because, though now we may be the mountain standing in the way of ourselves, we have at least removed the urge "toward whiteness"; for it is white America now that moves, so often with such intent, toward blackness.

P.S. "We know we are beautiful. And ugly too." Now we must work on those "temples for tomorrow," building them as "strong as we know how" and without fear of asking questions if we don't.

What Be Ghetto: a book review of Ghettonation by Cora Daniels

Uncle Sam is featured on the cover of the book Ghettonation by journalist Cora Daniels. He is complete with red do-rag under white top hat, a blinged-out American flag gold chain, and iced-out rings on his peace sign fingers. Or are they A-town down? Either way, an intact sense of humor graces the front cover, while the back, which gives the original definition of ghetto (as the noun it was: a Jewish quarter of a city) along with the most recent usage (and misusage: “authentic, Black, keepin’ it real”) as an adjective, suggests that the book is complete with lessons and laughs.

Ghettonation: A Journey into the Land of Bling and the Home of the Shameless examines the impact of all things ghetto. That would be persona, language, thought, and action; though Daniels is not just pointing fingers or making fun. The book is a social commentary that at times reads like memoir. Daniels exposes her own relationship to ghetto, so as not to demean the culture holding to the word so as to admit that we are in over our heads. More than saturated in ghetto, we are (so) ghetto—Ghettonation.

From noun to adjective, she takes the six-letter word further by classifying it as a mind-set. With this, she gives ghetto a new authority; no longer just a description, ghetto becomes an umbrella. And under it, too many things are trying to stay dry, too many folk are trying to keep so fresh and so clean, living for only today because tomorrow may be worse.

But before the commentary can weigh too heavily on the reader, Daniels inserts a “That’s so ghetto. . .” page where she pulls from the mind-set itself, giving examples like driving a luxury car but renting an apartment or drinking Kool-aid from a mayonnaise jar. She doesn’t skirt around any subject, not from Lil Jon and his middle-class upbringing to gold teeth, candy-colored weaves, and names, oh the names. Her support is convincing. And funny.

Daniels discusses Gwyneth Paltrow naming her daughter Apple, as if that’s any different than naming a child Alize, Diamond, or Lexus. She successfully snatches “who be ghetto” from every rung of every ladder—social, economic, and racial. Her rail on Paltrow continues in light of her claim that hip-hop has “become American culture.” Example: Paltow, the “ghetto mama” herself, says that Apple loves hip-hop, especially Jay-Z. In fact, Apple rocks her head to The Black Album and really loves “99 Problems” (as in “I got 99 problems and a bitch ain’t one”). Ghetto.

At its core, Ghettonation is a journey into the land of Black—its culture, people, music—and how the capitalization on Black (or ghetto) is further damaging the people that make it up. Because of this, Daniels’ attempt to keep all of America aboard her Ghettonation journey fails. The mind-set is supported almost entirely by examples from Black America. All-America just gets caught up in the hype. And so the book looks at America’s obsession with urban culture, which is often taken as Black culture, which is often looked at as poverty-stricken, thuggish, and dangerous.

Daniels discusses education, success, relationships, and violence in this Black community. But at times her memoir-like prose distracts from the voices she finds to tell this new, too-proud nation’s stories, like that of 19-year-old Daniel, an aspiring filmmaker. During the filming of his documentary Bullets, a gun was drawn on him, trigger pulled. The gun wasn’t loaded, but instead of delving into him and his story, allowing him to explain his understanding of success—measured by the number of days he can live, not dollars or degrees—the author mulled through her own experience of worlds colliding (college with the hood). She let the reader down as well as uncomfortably full with unanswered questions about this kid.

Though Daniels speaks objectively about ghetto, no solution besides taking responsibility is given. But, as a black woman, newly aware of my own ghetto (I’ve been known to drop the n-bomb with little regard for what forward-moving steps I blow-up in the process), I have a suggestion: These books, written in our youths’ language, with their words and about their lives, need to be in their classrooms, each idea being unraveled and action understood. Suggestion is the start of solution (a blank suggestions-for-solutions page should’ve ended the book, not a fill-in-your-own-“that’s so ghetto” page). And an educated mind can never be imprisoned.