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.).
  

Body and Soul: Prehawk

We've put a tied up a coupla knots in this B&S thread already. Let's now get to the start.

"Body and Soul" is a pop tune, from back in the day when pop tunes came from musical theater. It was a feature song in Three's a Crowd. The versionologist to takes it from the stage, samples it, makes it new by putting it into the tradition. Again and again. That's how we begin.

To this end, let's load a crowd of bullets in the clip from 1930. It's a straightforward case:

• Ruth Etting, "Body and Soul." Etting was not above living the blues. Check that portion of her bio where her husband shoots her lover and gets a year upstate.
• Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra, "Body and Soul." The vocal is by Whiteman's trombone player, Jack Fulton. No need to tell you that Whiteman was the Elvis or Eminem of his day, grinding hits that more proper people wanted curbed 'cause they were creating bad habits among the youth. But that's all in the tradition, too.
• Louis Armstrong* and His Orchestra, "Body and Soul." Odd man out. Here's where the story begins.

J Y E A H

* We have so much things to say about the man. We'll be back at it. He basically made the 20th century up from mud and straw in the streets. We're still living under that spell.

Found Object -- Old Time

• Floyd Gordon, unknown title or date. Found rolling in the back woods of the dirty dirty.
  

We never quite know what to do with this kind of picturing of the old south. The brovah, who stands above most of this work for his strong views of the city & storybook colorism, consistently traffics in nostalgia, and we're asking ourselves whether that's a bad thing. It may be a very different kind of unnaground that he's walking through, and while he's busy resurrecting what he wishes happened, we're walking the streets doing only the same and wishing for the wrong things.

I would ask the queen of the blues what she thinks, but only after Dust Tracks. She might have the right thing to say.

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.

مصرمصر

We were digging for threads through the house -- the devilin archeology, 'spose. In one of the back corridors, under stacks of newspapers, we found a clip of bullets that taught us another thing about the unnaground: You dig deep enough into the ground you reach outerspace; you dig deep enough into the past you find Great Black Music, ancient to future.

We been wanting to tug on this thread for a long time, but we 'a begin in the middle.

We first came across Greg Broussard late* in the game, during M.I.A.'s pre-pregnancy tourstop in Dogtown. It's hard to remember back that far, but the recollection is that the show ate him up: too much space; not enough time. But there was something big, even if it was buried under all of M.I.A.'s momentarily big personality/sound system. And it was good to see him fresh, not packed into some oldies tour like Artis Leon Ivey, Jr.

Chaboy threw down his back in the day tracks. The kids got their feet off the wall a few times. They wanted to hear it, even though they never had the opportunity to remember it:

Pyramids are Oh so shiny
The women here are Oh so cute
The freaks are on the floor now
Dancing to beats that I compute

We listened hard and heard all this back-to-afro-futurism stuff all at once. It was like Charles Ives, you know: at the crossroads where all the parades come together. You could hear the Sun Ra. You could hear the Earth Wind and Fire. You could hear the Burning Spear, calling the children of the ghosts back to homelands free of oppression.

We are not sure, now that we listen backwards on this clip where that homeland is, but I think it is somewhere on the dancefloor, somewhere near the serpentine fire.

• "Egypt, Egypt," Egyptian Lover
• "Egypt Strut," Sun Ra and Salah Ragab
• "Little Egypt," The Coasters. Listen for the chipmunks coming in at the end. Fo sho, ma bro.
  
• "Nights Over Egypt," The Jones Girls.
  
• "'Mid the Pyramids," Clarence Jones.
• "Serpentine Fire," Earth Wind and Fire

I been reading recently some of Stanley Crouch's hateration (more on that later his genius self gotta give it up and find some love for all of us and not just the 10th that he's in; it's an ungenerous way of life). He needs listen hard to this and find a new path to the crossroads, one that brings all of the 10ths to the future through the past.

P E A C E

* N.B.: We got to admit that when we're devilin' we are always late, we're always falling behind. That's the way.

Old and New Dreams

In putting ideas into poetry, I have tried in each case to use the medium most specific for the purpose. I owe allegiance to no master.

-- Claude McKay, "Author's Word," Harlem Shadows (1922)

This morning we read these powerful words, and we asked ourselves about McKay's use of the word medium. It was powerful, especially in light of our recent move, and our new home, in Our Piece of the Rock. Any trip from here to there needs a guide.

So we offered: made a small pile of flour and placed an egg in it. We asked to see one way to do less* than splain how we do. Our vision is sketched out in the bullets. It is a pitcher of a journey: beginning, middle, end, middle, beginning. It's a homegoing of sorts. It's a fabric of sorts. It's a beauty of sorts. It's, as always, a story of sorts. It's also the way we do the things we do here.

Give this pitcher a listen. Make of it what you will.

• "Ghosts: First Variation," Albert Ayler Trio†
• "I Believe I'll Dust My Broom," Robert Johnson
• "Handwoven," Old and New Dreams
• "Cross Road Blues," Robert Johnson
• "Ghosts: Second Variation," Albert Ayler Trio

* That's 'cause less is more.
† The brovah Gary Peacock deserves some very big ups for hanging w/ this caterwaul, creating groove w/out the bars. Chea.

Reversion: In Walked Bud

Back here in OPotR. Brushed the dirt of both travel and admin off my shoulders for a day or two, stared into the stacks and found the 'pod pointed to a deep stream. This is cause for two threads. First, as always, is more. Second, is how versioning be.

ONE -- More

The simplest way to get at this is w/ some bullets. I'm not gonna shoot the clip, but the aim is true on these.

• "In Walked Bud," Thelonious Monk. Antipiano version. Or is it the version where the band is the piano?
  
• "In Walked Bud," Amiri Baraka. Black rage version.
  
• "In Walked Bud with a Palette," Clarence Major. Chimp eatin' termites version.
  
• "Blue Skies," Art Tatum. He's the masta versionologist, the refixer, the scientist of the dubscience. He'll steal it from you, sell it back to you and leave you feeling better for the trade. But in't what we're talking 'bout?
  
• "Blue Skies," Frank Sinatra & Louis Armstrong. Play it on Satch.
  
• "Blue Skies," Sun Ra, the Lintels. Sing it on Sun.
  
• "(We've Got) Blue Skies," The Jackson 5. Actually stranger than the Lintels when you listen. When you're off the hits, the J5 is some pretty freaky sh*t. I'm not running it past my family. Are you?
  

Blue Days, every one of them gone. There's still plenty in the clip and one in the chamber. I'm'a be back on this tip.

TWO -- Versioning

There are about a dozen wotnesses in this house. And someone might say one wotness of this house is to play that dozen into dozens. You following? Good. See, we is Topsy.

Now that's off our chest, we've been about to say that versioning (aka the next number, aka the cover tune, aka the dub) is the way we take was and make it into gonna be again. In other words, it's a way of living.

So when we make a little pile of stones, as we have today, and leave (did we say live, or leaf?) them for you, it enacts that way, just a little bit, so you can pick them up for yourself.

Please feel free to come back by. You can even leave your own stones on the pile. That's the way it works.

P E A C E

Mo Devilin'

While we're on the devilin' thread, let's make the quick case that chaboys Sacha, Elliott, the Chairman, Gabriel and Brent are a team up ≥ Allen Lowe. They take the slowed down nostalgia for coulottes and espadrilles in Nelson George*and remind us that just 'cause we didn't have the money to by the rekkids during the eight zero area code, or just 'cause we were pimpin the industry (but calling it indie) during the same, doesn't mean we can't listen to more now. How much of hip hop's first 10 years did Nelson miss? I am trying to visualize the circumference of how much he didn't see.

Keep up w/ it. It's a matter of staying close to the truth.

• "Rapping and Rocking the House," Funky Four Plus One
• "New Rap Language," Spoonie Gee and the Treacherous Three
• "Jazzy Sensation (Bronx Mix)," Afrika Bambaataa Jazzy 5

Yes, yes, y'all. It cant stop and it won't stop. So we'll come back to this, too.

* Let's just confess here and now that Nelson George plays the role of an easy target. I don't want to be a hater, tho. Think of him as the Smithsonian Collection of Classic HipHop. As iffing.

Devilin'

It's that big.

A while ago, at least for those who grew up when Coleman Hawkins was alive, The Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz surveyed the circumference of jazz. I can remember sitting in my room nexta the rekkid playa trynta to put every note of songs like "Harlem Air Shaft" to memory in case I wore the groove flat and I could not find another copy. The collection's purpose was simple: You went in looking for giants and you found 'em.

And yet, you'd listen and no matter where you listened there was no room for Maceo Parker next to John Coltrane, or even Skip James next to Billie Holiday. For every "Lonely Woman," there were 100s of other ones not on the tracklist.

Here is where the Art Ensemble of Chicago comes in. The professors offered a course of "great black music, ancient to future." Although many saw the reference looking backward as a creator of a tradition, in my blindness, I always saw it as forward looking. I could see all around, from vaudeville and ragtime and field songs to Bootsy Collins and Malachi Thompson and Kool Herc.

In this time after, chaboy Allen Lowe*has taken 36 discs to fall short in 1950, proving that circumference a.) is too big to measure and therefore, b.) is a dangerous science. He's composed a quirky box that only sends the listener back to gaze in the fire looking for more because so much is missing, even before 1950. It's no longer about the giants; it's about all them devils living in the details.

The work of making history is really the work of making a beautiful story. Every attempt to tell the story from the beginning is never more than a story where you start out from the end. With this understanding, I take my own devilin' view of things as if there is a panhiphop tradition. That's cause there's angels in the details, angels.

So one place to begin might be at the end of 2008, where chaboy Trav @ radio WYDU has left a cookie jar of 200 tracks from the last year. There's more going on here than in any top 10. I'm'a listen for some mo angelin' tunes.

In the mean time, why'on't you stare into this fire:

• Art Ensemble of Chicago, "Nice Guys"
• Bert Williams & George Walker, "My Little Zulu Babe"
• Elzhi, "Motown 25 (feat. Royce da 5'9")"

NB: part of ongoing observations on historical syncretism and the panhiphop tradition; not to be confused with the tag "historiographers," which signifies exemplary artists whose aesthetic is made from historical syncretism then and now.

* I am amused by, but not convinced by, much of what Allen Lowe has to offer as jazz history. He is correct to check Marsalis and Burns for their errors, but he does not always correct them from any vantage point.

Elijah Wald is Right

Dig this big crux:

"That duality -- sometimes gangsta, sometimes smooth, cuddly and pimpish -- defines Snoop and has allowed him to have a long career in which he's loved by both gangbangers and soccer moms."

Can't find the RS author who wrote this, but it holds.

Oh my God, look at my yard.

NB: Begins a thread where we do some splaining about the panhiphop tradition, which is a story that can only be told backwards, but allows you to include a whole lot of cool characters in ways they haven't been thought about at the beginning of the story.

P E A C E