Working Through: P R O S P E C T

Now that we are moving our quicker thoughts, glimpses and lissening notes over to the red light, the blue light becomes the place for our longer thoughts only. The Body and Soul Project, still underway, is the best and maybe the only example of what we gonna be up to.

In upcoming weeks, we'll be working through extended exercises that we will call working through. The all about will remain the same, though. We're gonna make the fabric of what the AEC called ancient to future out of other peoples' threads.

Five starting points:

• James Weldon Johnson, The Book of American Negro Poetry
• Devilin.' This thinking was given to us by Allen Lowe, a heroic anthologist, who proves there is salvation at the crossroads between what we know and the new details we learn.
  
• Raekwon, Only Built 4 Cuban Links
• Goodie Mob, Soul Food
  
• OutKast, Aquemini

There's plenty of other threads, and we expect to work them in as we go. The last three are, obviously, an indulgence in the love massive we have for a body of hiphop that takes its place in a history it enacts.

In the mean time, we'll keep elaborating on the threads we're already playing out:

• Life and Times of Marvin Gaye (what ever happened to that one, anyway).
• Body and Soul
• Versionology. The psuedoscience that the old world likes to label variation on a theme (to be confused w/ fugues and fugue states, conditions it treats with escalating gravity, hoping to cure it w/ copyright and other controls.).
  

Strange Sights from the Land of Harmony

'Member that project w/ devils and the alphabet?* We're at the letter j. Brings us to James Reese Europe. In the face of the re-discovery of Europe, we must just pause to observe a few convergences.

There's the pre-war stuff: hyenawild instrumentation, big groove, yowling bandleader, sexy dancers and an explosive mix of disciplined bandsmanship on the one hand and dionysian improvisation on the other. They've been telling us that we gotta do a re-eval on this period for decades now. You lissen to these few slabs, you can hear the shout: bring us more, bring us more. What's going on? There's a riot going on.

Then there's the Hellfighters stuff. It brings out the devils, too. It's a cauldron of entendres, doubling over. See those notes flying everywhichway? That's cause the boys in the band gointa free the minds of thousands of Europeans who've been waiting for this kind of liberation for, well, maybe centuries.

Get to this, from 1919:

They call it "Jazzola!"
Nobody knows its origination,
Jazzola!
It's just a dance full of syncopation,
And if you crave a new sensation,
Come with me,
You will see,
Strange sights from the land of harmony!
Old folks and young folks cry for Jazzola!
It's like a tonic, take it with each meal;
How good you'll feel!
My old granddad heard the news,
Dropped his cane for dancing shoes!
The whole world's going crazy 'bout Jazzola!

Just take your sweetie sweet
Out for a jazzy treat,
And she'll love you like she never did before;
What's more,
No need of fine wine,
You'll have a much better time,
Get those jazz musicians,
Choice positions
To play it o'er and o'er!

More gangsta sh*t, straight outta the second decade of the 20th c. The second verse is almost Snoop Dogg in it's pleasure principle, and you gotta love how the spirit of jesgrew, one of the real devils @ the crossroads, occupies the first.

It's time to come and get to this short clip for your lissening pleasure.

• James Reese Europe's High Society Orchestra, "Down Home Rag." Do you feel better?
• Lieutenant Jim Europe's 369th Infantry Hellfighter's Band, "That's Got 'Em."
• Lieutenant Jim Europe's 369th Infantry Hellfighter's Band, "Jazzola."
  

There are these rumors that the Clef Club† sometimes brought together as many as 150 musicians into a single show. We think there are hundreds of minds, freed by this example, that imagine a sound this full of noise. It's been an example our people've been looking to copy every since.

Our purpose is not to be writing history; we are not wishing to bring back the past. We are talking about what's going on. But sometimes a tear or two falls from our historiographical third eye and leaks into these jottings. From that source, we drop a couple more bullets into the clip, just to make a point. And when we do, voila, the political reappears -- strange sights from the land of harmony.

• Lester Bowie's Brass Fantasy, "Journey Towards Freedom." Could be James Reese Europe's greatest follower, and without doubt one of our heroes.
  
• Funkadelic, "Free Your Mind and Your Ass Will Follow." George Clinton always makes himself relevant w/out further ink.

* We started this 'nothering exercise here. We had the time and inclination a coupla weeks ago to spill our a box of devils in a different order. It's been harder to pick up the project since those days, if only because the day to day subtracts the free time that makes such exercises possible. As of today, we still rest in the letter j.
† There is so much lore in these two words that wikiologists can only leave a stub behind.

Going to 'Nother Territory

One of the things that our role models have in common is that they all know it's so high you can't get over it, and so low you can't get under it. They are the proof that it goes on and on and on and on... So we are big fans of Noz and the whole movement @ T.R.O.Y. Since they are always on the lookout for that 'nothering place, we will always rep their threads.

We thought we would take the luxury of a free Thursday and a slow Friday to follow in their direction. We gathered up all of the tracks in Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune* and spilled 'em out in alpha order by artist using the magic of music management software. All we wanted was out of the ties that bind when you dig through the crates in chronological order.

We weren't through w/ the letter a when we found that source of inspiration we were looking for: some gangsta sh*t straight outta the dirty south by Alphonso Trent. I put a few bullets in the clip for your edification, and then loaded some Li'l Jon up next to 'em just to put the obvious in front of you more plainly. This is club music @ its best. It is as distinctive as bounce,† or gogo, or music from the yay, or any of those territories we go to when we look for the unnaground.

Here's the all about it, 80 years apart: big crews taking up space and getting loud, call and response, get your stuff off the wall and an excess of move in the groove. And when you get up, you've found your fresh again.

• Alphonso Trent & His Orchestra, "St. James Infirmary."‡ Straight up gangsta. She's dead. He wants to look good when he's in a coffin.
  
• Alphonso Trent & His Orchestra, "I Found A Brand New Baby." You gots to be heartless to lay her out on a cold white table and then follow up w/ this. As outrageous as anything coming from the club floor these days.
  
• Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz, "Throw It Up."
• Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz, "Get Low."

We'll let the scholar's sort out the difference between Alphonso Trent, Walter Page and Bennie Moten. They'll wake up 80 years later and get the book on the differnece between Lil Jon, E40 and Project Pat. You got the point: it's regional music on the move, mang.

And as for that alpha list, we'll keep you posted. Two days in, we're to the letter d.Throughout the procedure, we will rise again and and again w/ new fresh.

P E A C E

* Rumor has it that Allen Lowe is gonna do his thing w/ a 36 disc blues set. Long overdue. Someone has to school our ears on that sh*t. We'll keep you posted on those devils.
† And where is that 10th Ward Buck book, anyway?
‡ There is a long post on this song coming from somewhere. If you make a list of the great songs of the 20th century and this one's not on it, the problem is with the list.