Music Sweet Music

Lots of thoughts about music today. Several events have inspired this somewhat random collection of music meandering.

I just brought a new netbook. Whenever I buy a new computer, one of the things that I have to do is add my entire music collection to it. I have thousands of cd's , so this is no one or two hour task. I discovered on this go round that the artists that have the most cds in my collection are Miles Davis, Stevie Wonder, The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Funkadelic, Various Brazilian artists, Prince(Symbol included), Fishbone,U2,George Duke,Marvin Gaye , Herbie Hancock, Jay Z, Cassandra Wilson, and Eryka Badu. Two surprises were Dianne Reeves and Keb Mo. I didn't realize that I liked them like that. Oh yeah I also have more than my share of Marley music( Bob, Ziggy, Damien, Kymani)

I mourn the inevitable death of record stores. My best friend after High School owned a small shop twenty years ago. He turned me on to so many sounds. Before his tutelage I thought that Jazz was just for old people. Although his shop didn't last, it gave me a lifelong love for music stores. I loved Tower Records for it's listening stations that included written invitations/descriptions to try out music that was new or outside of the square boxes of pop. A third of my collection probally resulted from either browsing through the store or listening at the stations. R.I.P Tower. Virgin Records is now closing in NYC. Floors of CD's, posters, memorabilia, Music DVD's, and all of the visceral pleasures that are part of walking through a music store will be gone forever. In NYC we've also lost The Wiz, HMV , and The Record Shack on 125th in Harlem. I Tunes can't replace that.

Tonight I Saw the Jazz At Lincoln Center Orchestra here in NYC and run by Wynton Marseilles. I have a real respect for Mr Marseilles' mission. He is making sure that there is a home that allows living masters of Jazz to play in an institution completely devoted to its art form. He has players of all ages and many cultures in the orchestra. They all solo.They all do arrangements. They all can play their asses off. He also gives so much history in both the music, and his spoken intros before the tunes. I have experienced some serious concerts there.

Grab a person under the age of 25 and force them to listen to an entire CD from start to finish. Imagine separating Joni Mitchell's Blue, Mile's Kind Of Blue, Parliament's Mothership Connection, Sgt Peppers Lonely Heart Club Band, John Coltrane's Love Supreme, Stevie Wonder's Innervisions(or any 70's Stevie for that matter) Lenny Kratviz's Mama Said,Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon, Hendrix's Electric Lady Land, Bob Marley's Exodus,Marvin Gaye's What's Going On?, or any work of music that is connected into a beginning middle, or end into singles for ring tones? Many of the above mentioned albums are before my time. Some older person(s) pulled my coat and said "check this out"

Beauty, Blackness, And the heartbreaking Statement Of A 14 Year Old Girl - reposted because I Wonder If A Michelle Obama Effect has trickled Down

I just read an excellent series of statements about Michelle Obama's beauty and power in this week's New York Magazine. Respected writers from all cultures acknowledged both of these qualities. I wonder if things have changed since the campaign and election for this 14 year old girl that I wrote about a year and a half ago? This post is from 07. Hopefully we are in a remix.


As long as I live,I will never understand the level of cruelty, self hate, misogyny, various phobias( homo and others), and forgetfulness that happens in our African American Community.We have these issues for sure. We are working on them.Why is darker skin still a weapon that is used to tear down a person's self esteem?
Now I'm no" Pull yourself up by your bootstrap" Booker T Washingtonian republican with disdain for our people. I don't subscribe to Bill Cosby's pound cake stealing thug who should stay away from the pristine Spellman College debutantes theory. I recognize that we have never collectively recovered from slavery, Jim Crow, the murders of our leaders and warriors, or the myriad ways that White Supremacy has worked it's number on us. I even understand first hand how hard it is to escape both the ghetto and it's psychological effects on your brain. Just erasing the word Nigger from my thoughts took a mental revolution of epic proportions that didn't happen in a day or two. What I don't understand is how in this day and age I could hear the statement that I recently heard from one of my 14 year old girl drama students.

" I didn't know how Black and ugly I was until I came to this school."

What??????

With 40 -50 years of Maya Angelou's, Essence and Ebony Magazine, Roots, Malcolm, Spike Lee, The Panthers, Oprah, Toni Morrison, The Color Purple/Alice Walker, e.t.c why are we still here in 07? This is a school that exists mainly of students of color. There are no nooses connected to dubious and arbitrary prosecutions of Black children. There is not a chapter of the KKK presided over underground by the principal or the math teacher. She was not being escorted by the National Guard while the good White citizens of the town spat on her. This happened in Brooklyn ,NY. Jackie Robinson ( a dark man) led the Dodgers to the baseball promised land. Spike Lee admonished us to do the right thing. Dark Shirley Chisholm ran for President of The United States here. The community of Weeksville was built here by a Community of free Black folks who owned their own property and businesses . The most diverse grouping of African Diasporan Peoples on the planet lives here. So where in the hell did this 14 year girls peer tormentors get the idea that dark skinned people are ugly?
It's an old idea that is clearly not just perpetuated by both white supremacists and lighter skinned members of our race. Why won't it die? Why is it still the show stopper of insults? Why are the darkest people on the planet some of it's most oppressed?
I don't want to cast aspersion on Brooklyn as the self hate capital of the U.S. Here's another story that involves a friend of from Harlem: My friend, a well respected actress was involved as a volunteer on a trip that took a group of Black and Brown young people on a trip to perform as part of a national theatre festival. At some point during the trip a discussion took place amongst some of the girls about hair. One of the hair weaved young ladies got into a heated argument about good hair with some of the more conscious young ladies. Finally in exasperation one of the young women asked her to point out an example of good hair. Hair weaved 16 year old pointed to my regal short Afro wearing friend and said "It aint that". My friend was crushed. You see this is a person who spent time in the movement. This is a person who has dedicated all of her adult life to an aesthetic of Black Pride and upliftment through the arts. This is a person who although not a star, has major peer respect in the business. This is a person who brings quality Art In Education with an equal passion to the children. This is a person of beauty.
There are many people who feel that the ideas of the sixties and below are outdated . Many believe that "Say it Loud , I'm Black and I'm proud " belongs in the museum of quaint played out old school. But maybe those Langston Hughes Poems aren't meant for the oppressor to see our "beauty and be ashamed". Maybe we need to dig into those crates to find the beauty in ourselves. Are little black girls still reaching for that blond doll as the standard of beauty?
To fling my arms in some place of the sun
Dance whirl dance
Till the white day is done
Then rest at cool evening
A tall slim tree
While night comes on tenderly
Black
Like Me
quote from Dream Variation by Langston Hughes

Harlem On My Mind Part 1

*When Smalls had it all.
I wish I'd been there y'all. Mama's face and daddy's grace make a tree of hope standing tall.
Langston , Garvey,and Zora Neale created words about that Uptown feel.
X's Text-Ellington's A Train next
-migration's test created the best.
* The previous writing is from a poem that I wrote shortly after moving back to Harlem from Texas in the late 80's. "When Smalls Had It all " The Smalls that I refer to is the former great nightclub in Harlem called Smalls Paradise. The ending lines of the poem:
"Tenements aren't good remnants of the glory that was.
Now Rats crawl out of Smalls.Shells of men sleep with them.
When Smalls had it all-I wish we'd been there y'all."
Of course now in the 00's , an Ihop restaurant sits in that spot.The building also includes the excellent Thurgood Marshall Academy for Learning and Social Change. Like so many positive changes in Harlem, this came about because of The Abyssinian Development Corporation which is an organization of the historical Abyssinian Baptist Church. I mention this to show how far back from the brink Harlem has come. Thank goodness for all of the active organizations and churches that are trying to empower the folks of Harlem as best as they can in this Uptown of fast changes that have gone from one extreme to another. Those extremes include neighborhood establishments( many long term) going out of business due to high jacked up rents while luxury apartment buildings are being filled up with tenants even before they are finished being built. This mecca for so many who were literally forced to live there during the early parts of the 20th century is being rebuilt, re-imagined, rezoned, remixed, and redistributed to the richer amongst us . For those Harlemites lucky enough to have profited from this boom I say "More power to you" For those pushed out who provided goods and services to a community that for years was disenfranchised and undervalued I say "What a damn shame! " Gentrification is not new to many urban areas. The difference with Harlem is its place in the annals of American History. The stories of so many of the Who's Who of giants of Black began or were developed in Harlem . Langston Hughes, Ralph Ellison, Dubois, Marcus Garvey, Zora Neale Hurston,Billie Holiday, James Baldwin, Duke Ellington, Malcolm X, many Be Bop pioneers ,writers, painters, e.tc all called this slice of the Apple home. The East side of Harlem was fertile ground in the development of Puerto Rican American culture. From the tobacco fields of Virginia to the Hills of Jamaica and all points of African American and Afro Diaspora points between , Harlem was more than a destination; It was an idea known throughout the world. However when I was a little boy in Harlem my world was closer to the one that Claude Brown (Manchild In The Promised Land) and Piri Thomas ( Down These Mean Streets) described in their excellent coming of age in Harlem memoirs. Although my time was twenty years later than theirs, many of the ills that led to it's described decline were in full effect. My mother was relieved and grateful that she could move the family upstate(shortly afterwards to Texas) where junkies,liquor stores, bucket of blood bars, violent schools, abandoned buildings, and visual poverty weren't all part of both the landscape and mind states. My memory didn't involve just the negative though. Wide avenues, music everywhere, block parties, The Apollo, play streets, the mix of West Indian/Southern U.S/ New York accents, and the smells of Soul food also stayed with me as memories of what I knew was the most unique place on the planet. I learned so much about Harlem history while away from it. A woman that I dated a few years back said that I have a Mecca idealized version of Harlem that has nothing to do with it's current state. She could be right. It is very difficult for me not to imagine all its history while strolling Lenox Avenue. I wonder as I wander its streets about the stories of the people who walked them too. I marvel at the architecture of brownstone and limestone houses. I am fascinated by the sights and sounds coming out of it's playgrounds and parks. I take long walks through the heights of Sugar Hill.Broadway and Amsterdam Avenues have become extensions of The Dominican Republic. The bodegas are full of music, light banter in Spanish, and coffee with a kick. 116th street on the west side looks like West Africa consciously deposited some of its people as a new kind of treasure for these shores. My walks allow me to feel that I am walking through both the past and the present. My son was fascinated with the history shown as he and I sat through a film showing of Harlem History during an open house at The Apollo Theater. He told me later that he didn't know that so much had happened at that theater for so many people. The beauty of his revelation is that it wasn't forced fed to him by me.The images spoke for themselves. I highly suggest to anyone reading this that you attend the open houses hosted there by the excellent Billy Mitchell.
What is Harlem for the residents who are coming in droves because of gentrification? Is it simply a good deal that they can't resist? Or will they add to a new kind of history? Is the lack of sustained outrage about people and small businesses being replaced due to the fact that the powers that be and the displaced see it as eminent domain? Are these higher income folks good for the community? Will there presence improve the schools? Are all of these corporate food chains a sign of progress or capitalism at all costs? Most of my favorite Soul Food places are gone. Why didn't we protect places like the historical Record Shack( http://www.observer.com/2008/real-estate/record-shack). Why is The Mart on 125th, a former location of independent vendors still closed? The streets do seem cleaner. Is it because of the new attention being paid to our community? I must admit that some services are better( same question as the prior one). For years, one had to go for blocks just to find a bank;Now they are everywhere in the neighborhood. The food in the supermarkets seems fresher than it was.
I don't want to put it out there that I think that all of the changes in the "new" Harlem are bad. I must admit that I was slightly amazed and amused at the glittery view of Harlem that is shown on a recent show involving a group of self absorbed 20 somethings called "Harlem Heights" on BET . It looked pretty good from the very limited and highly edited version presented to us. Is Harlem becoming a tale of two cities? Are the wealthier amongst us looking down from their brand new sparkling glass towers at the still too many poor or struggling with disdain or indifference? Our Hamlet still leads the city in some of the more negative and challenging statistics also. Is Harlem still a place where the creation of culture is still considered to be one its greatest contributions? Is there trickle down economy at work that will benefit all Harlem residents. Will Harlem as we understand it from the past even exist 20 years from now? Is being a Harlemite a residential thing or a state of mind? I moved back to Harlem 10 years ago after living in midtown for most of the 90's. I was always in Harlem anyway. I wonder as I wander its streets why anyone wouldn't feel the soul?

The N word by any other defintion or use smells just as bad to me

Nigger is a noun in the English language, most notable for its usage in a pejorative context to refer to black people, and also as an informal slang term, ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigger -

Picture this: A crowded New York City Subway car on it's way to Brooklyn . The time
is a little bit after 3 in the afternoon. Many school aged kids are in the car. They are sharing space with the multi-cultured passengers who make up the mosaic of strap hangers on their journeys . The kids are loud , rambunctious , and slightly annoying in terms of the volume levels that accompany even the smallest of exchanges. " Yo, my nigga you going to your cousins house?" says one clearly Latino girl to her possibly African American friend. "No my Nigga , I'm going home " The possibly African American girl screams across the crowded car while trying to exit through the cramped doorway. Other kids enter and exit. Variations of the "my Nigga exchange take place. After so many years of hearing this in various locations and situations , I am still not desensitized , Every time I hear it, it reverberates as a reminder that there is a cultural consciousness battle that has been almost completely lost. I have heard all of the arguments about the word being transformed, detangled, and stripped of all evil because it has been inverted by its use as a both a term of endearment and a acknowledgment of realness. I have tried to understand a statement from a very intelligent friend who said to me once in the presence of a white man " We have bigger problems to deal with as a culture than the distraction of worrying about that word." I have witnessed an older White teacher allow his students to call him their nigger. His defense was that the Black and Latino students weren't doing any harm to him by calling him that. I was once called "nigga" by a 10 year old kid in Croatia who thought that the word was an informal greeting (reserved for the rare chance that he would actually meet a real Black person).
My middle school aged son is a witness to the surrender to this word. He says that teachers and staff at his school act as if they don't hear it. I tell him that in terms of the kids, he can't correct his peers. No one wants their teenage peer to be the language police. I am just glad that he hasn't surrendered. Before I do Black History month monologues in schools of characters who triumphed during Jim Crow , I have to preface them with an explanation of the racist/deadly connotations of the word as expressed by characters who either say it or hear it.
I understand the whole Stagolee badass describing himself in this way historically. That was a folk art way of trying to turn it around. Dick Gregory, Richard Pryor, The Last Poets, e.t.c were all trying to shatter cultural barriers, shock the status quo, or make people aware of a whole world that was treated as invisible or problematic by the mainstream. I get that.I also know that many of them later expressed some regret about their choice of that word to show authenticity. They nor rappers created the word. The original intent of the word was dehumanization. I think that it still does that. I asked one of my students how she felt about being greeted by her friends with"Whats up Nigga?" She says that in her head she says to herself" Couldnt you have greeted me better than that?" I feel that. So many people who have no connection to the historical pain attached to the word think that it's some kind of joke. Another young person (AA) who I am very close to had a post on her facebook page from one of her white friends that said "See you later my Nigga" . My friend said that she didn't even notice it until I brought it to her attention . It is not uncommon for many non Black people to greet each other that way in the presence of Black people. Many Latinos in NY use it even more than we (AA's do)
Words have power. Am I oppressed by the word ? No I'm not. Am I bothered by the word? Clearly it irks me to no end. When African American kids use it in my presence I ask them not to. 99 percent have said "My bad, I'm sorry." Most know that it's not a great word. However we all allow it to flow so casually. I've always wondered how it is processed by non Black folks.