Listening to music differently

There’s something in the blues that moves my everything—my skin, my spirit—in that familiar, Langston Hughes lazy sway kind of way. But this morning, I noticed the music, though it sounded the same, still running over with the yearning of a drought-plagued South for rain in July, its affect on me was different. The blues pulls at the heart, paints over pain as a lover, bitter but sweetly, says good bye to her love. My body still swayed, my fists still clenched to almost white, but my heart did not move beyond me. I have been heading to this place for some time—this place where music can be enjoyed and felt without having a direct connection to my current state: I don’t have the blues. My man loves me, lays with me, and the sun shines through his smile. There is no wish in me for the blues to burn, for the love to be returned or loved harder. I only want to continue to feel, to move as the current of a lethargic, forgotten body of water, to listen as the river speaks to me through the weary, I-been-born-to-roll-on-and-die, just-feel-me-cuz-ain’t-nobody-else-feelin-me blues. Because what beautiful shades of blue.

Lizz Wright's The Orchard gets prose poetry out the wannabe critic

Being moved by good music is like being loved by a good man. I should know. My man is love, is music. And when my man’s words love me, ain’t no sound more better, more like life. I hold my breath sometimes just to hear them, feel them, feel him better. I do the same thing when it comes to good music. Cuz ain’t nothing between me and these songs but the same kinda distance that’s between my man and me, so I hold to these songs, their words like I hold to the smell of him, like without it, I just, I just fold in on myself, curl my body around the memory of him cuz he was once in the this very space and in this very space I didn’t really curl my body around him right, enough. I just get moved by good music, by Lizz singing those sexy come-lay-with-me blues: I wanna make love to you/when the lights are low/scream to you babe/just to let you know/all I want/is just a little touch from you/just a little bit attention/you know is gonna see me through . . . . and I smile cuz I got a good man lovin me whose good lovin hands I’ll be fillin soon. I smile. I smile and I manage to keep myself together as her blues become mine and mine never mind the feelins. They get a voice so good, my lips part as the music steps out of me to sing words I can hold on to.

Podcast: Full Moon of Sonia

. . . Because I'm still on Sonia, a podcast reviewing her spoken work cd, Full Moon of Sonia. It's an amazing performance collection and a reminder that poetry, always meant to be read aloud, can, when read by the right person, jump into our ears and move our souls to better.

An article about a concert of the cd in NYC from Dec. 2004
http://reviews.aalbc.com/fullmoon.htm

An article about the cd, with track samples

http://cdbaby.com/cd/soniasanchez

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

Jill Scott is The Real Thing

R&B singer Jill Scott rocks come-do-me open-toed heals on a three-by-three inch disclaimer to her new album, The Real Thing: Words and Sounds, Vol. 3: Eroticism is chosen over explicit lyrics, so the album plays like pages of a journal read. Recently divorced and known especially for her sensuality, Scott is stark in her expressions.

The sex-laced quickie, “Crown Royal,” is strictly for the bedroom. Over a quiet beat, Scott whispers, “Your hands on my hips pull me right back to you/ I catch that thrust give it right back to you.” The song is about that regal man who just can’t be had, not right now, which is why he’s Crown Royal (“on ice”).

The Real Thing makes “delicious” of words (shout-out Scott’s first album, Who Is Jill Scott?), even though the first single “Hate on Me” sounds like a battle between voice and band. She goes vintage in “All I,” where she talks over a beat and then with grown woman kinkiness: “I’ve been a goodie daddy/ but I don’t have to be/ if you don’t want me to/ I’ll be ya nasty baby”—lyrics that dirty up the sweet hook of “Baby when I close my eyes/ all I dream about it making love.” And Scott stays true to her poetic roots in “Epiphany,” where the spoken word is so fine listeners are transported to a blue-light café with retro mic, song complete with crisp breaths and popped p’s.

Jill Scott’s lyricism tops her expressive game in The Real Thing. Her delivery is at times playful, at others, full of pain; and though fans may have expected more organic beats, the album isn’t about how hard it knocks; with words so honest, the album’s about life, the images that make it up and the lines it can fit into.