#African-American string band

[marquiscampbell]

Limited Edition H.E.R. Stratocaster

[protoslacker]

Real history is messy and complicated. To get to the truth we need to rewind back to centuries before Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash – to the music created by enslaved people and a recording industry set upon segregation. Enslaved people of the African diaspora created the banjo in the Caribbean in the 1600s. This is historical fact. They also played other stringed instruments (such as the violin) and, whether enslaved or free, Black string bands became the de facto entertainment and dance bands of European societies from Barbados to Monticello to Rhode Island; from balls to banquets to political rallies. These musicians mixed with poor people of all colours and ethnicities who brought their own musical traditions into the mix over generations to create a truly American folk music.

Rhiannon Giddens in The Guardian. Black artistry is woven into the fabric of country music. It belongs to everyone

With Beyoncé becoming the first Black woman to top the US country charts, musician Rhiannon Giddens, who plays banjo and viola on Texas Hold ’Em, explains how capitalism and racism warped the genre

I only know a puny little bit about history and music, but Rhiannon Giddens's point about Black string bands is key.

[thorn-enterprises]

Fun Facts About Banjos: The Iconic String Instrument

The banjo is more than just a string instrument; it’s a cultural phenomenon that has brought joy to music lovers around the world for centuries. With its unique sound and vibrant history, the banjo is worth exploring in greater detail. Here are some fun facts about this iconic instrument that might surprise you!

Origins Rooted in Africa

The banjo has deep roots in African traditions, with its ancestors likely arriving in the Americas during the slave trade. The African instrument known as the "ngoni" is one of the closest relatives to the modern banjo, featuring a similar body shape and string arrangement. The banjo we know today evolved from these early designs, blending various cultural influences along the way.

The Early Banjo: A Different Look

Early banjos were quite different from the ones we see today. The first banjos were made from natural materials, such as animal skin for the drumhead and wood for the body. Some scholars believe that the original banjos had only four strings, compared to the five-string banjos that became popular in the 19th century. As the instrument evolved, its design diversified, leading to the creation of various styles and tunings.

The Five-String Phenomenon

The five-string banjo is perhaps the most recognized form of the instrument. The fifth string is shorter and usually placed near the neck, providing a unique playing style. This string is often referred to as the "drone string," and it plays a crucial role in the characteristic sound of bluegrass and folk music. The five-string banjo was popularized by musicians like Earl Scruggs, who developed a distinctive picking style known as "Scruggs style."

It’s Not Just for Country Music

While the banjo is most commonly associated with country and bluegrass music, its versatility spans multiple genres. You'll find the banjo in folk, jazz, rock, and even classical music. Artists such as Bela Fleck and the Flecktones showcase the instrument’s adaptability in progressive and experimental music. With its bright, twangy tone, the banjo can enhance any genre and surprise audiences with its range and expressiveness.

A Symbol of American Culture

The banjo has become a symbol of American culture and identity. It played a significant role in the development of American folk music and has been featured prominently in countless songs and performances. The instrument even found a place in popular culture through its appearances in movies, cartoons, and television shows, often embodying a sense of Americana that resonates deeply with audiences.

Banjos Are Still Evolving

Today, banjos are continually evolving, with modern luthiers experimenting with materials and designs to create new sounds. Some musicians have begun to explore electric banjos, while others incorporate unconventional techniques and effects. The banjo's resilience and adaptability prove that this beloved instrument is always ready for a new chapter in its storied legacy.

The banjo is more than just an instrument; it's a vital part of music history that continues to inspire generations of musicians and listeners alike. Whether plucking the strings around a campfire or jamming with a band, the banjo's joyful sound is sure to create memorable moments. So next time you hear the banjo in a song, remember these fun facts and appreciate the rich history behind this enchanting instrument!

[justforbooks]

The dapper and sagacious Ahmad Jamal may have looked more like a UN delegate than a jazz musician, but he was recognised as a truly great jazz artist by some of the music’s most notable pioneers. Jamal, who has died aged 92, was hailed in the 1940s and 50s by Art Tatum and Miles Davis, and more recently by McCoy Tyner and Keith Jarrett. In the 90s, when a jazz piano-trio renaissance was being led by gifted newcomers such as Brad Mehldau, Jason Moran, Geri Allen and Esbjörn Svensson, Jamal did not retire to the sidelines but played better than ever. The former Wynton Marsalis pianist and composer Eric Reed has said that Jamal is to the piano trio “what Thomas Edison was to electricity”.

He was a fascinating philosopher of contemporary music and a lifelong critic of the entertainment business, which he accused of fleecing African-American artists. Although he recognised the structural and technical distinctions of jazz and European classical music, he was adamant that there was no superiority of one over the other in what he called “the emotional dimensions”. “You have to know what the hell you’re doing,” he told me in 1996, “whether you’re playing the body of work from Europe or the body of work from Louis Armstrong.”

Jamal was born Frederick Jones in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and regarded the eclectic musical culture of his birthplace as crucial to his development. His father was an open-hearth worker in the steel mills, but his uncle Lawrence played the piano and at only three years old Jamal was copying his playing by ear. He took lessons from seven, and would recall “studying Mozart along with Art Tatum”, unaware of white society’s widespread prejudice that European music was supposed to be superior to that of African-Americans. Significant influences in his early years were the music teacher Mary Cardwell Dawson (founder of the National Negro Opera Company), and his aunt Louise, who showered him with sheet music for the popular songs of the day. Pianists Tatum, Nat King Cole and Erroll Garner were among the young “Fritz” Jones’s principal jazz influences, and he also studied piano with James Miller at Westinghouse high school.

At 17 he toured with the former Westinghouse student George Hudson’s Count Basie-influenced orchestra, worked in a song-and-dance team, and wrote one of his most enduring themes, Ahmad’s Blues, at 18. Two years later he adopted Islam, and the name Ahmad Jamal. He also joined a group called the Four Strings, which became the Three Strings with the departure of its violinist, and caught the ear of the talent-spotting producer John Hammond, who signed the trio to Columbia’s Okeh label.

The public liked Jamal’s distinctive treatments of popular songs, and so did Davis. Developing his new quintet in 1955, Davis sent his rhythm section to study Jamal’s then drummer-less group. Davis liked Jamal’s pacing and use of space (the prevailing bebop jazz style was usually hyperactive), and he noticed that Jamal’s guitarist, Ray Crawford, often tapped the body of his instrument on the fourth beat. Davis told his drummer, Philly Joe Jones, to copy the effect with a fourth-beat rimshot, which became a characteristic sound of that ultra-hip Davis ensemble. Davis began to feature Jamal’s originals and arrangements in his own output, including New Rhumba (on his 1957 Miles Ahead collaboration with Gil Evans), and Billy Boy (on 1958’s classic Milestones session).

The gifted young Chicago bassist Israel Crosby joined the trio in 1955, and the following year the percussionist Vernel Fournier – who fulfilled Jamal’s requirements for a subtle hand-drummer as well as orthodox sticks-player – replaced Crawford. The group became the house band at the Pershing Hotel in Chicago, and one night in January 1958 they recorded more than 40 tracks there. One was Poinciana, which had been a hit tune from the 1952 movie Dreamboat. Jamal modernised its Latin groove, maintained a catchy hook throughout the improvisation, and found himself with a pop hit that stayed in the charts for two years.

Eight songs from that night, including Poinciana, made up the million-selling album At the Pershing: But Not for Me. Jamal’s newfound wealth led him to branch out into club ownership by opening the Alhambra in Chicago, though the venture barely lasted a year. Crosby and Fournier left for the pianist George Shearing’s group in 1962, and Jamal recorded the Latin-influenced Macanudo album the next year, with a new trio and a full orchestra. He also explored his cultural and ancestral roots in Africa, then recorded Heat Wave in 1966 – with a new group (Jamil Nasser on bass and Frank Gant on drums) and a more contemporary feel, reflected in the funkier approach to his old piano hero Garner’s Misty.

Jamal’s knack of keeping audiences mesmerised with unexpected modulations, time changes and catchy riffs, while never losing the undercurrent of the tune, was still unmistakably intact. His trademark device of insinuating a song – through toying with its bassline or its characteristic groove, but endlessly delaying the appearance of the tune – was adopted by many later jazz pianists, including such contemporary masters as Mehldau.

In 1970 Jamal recorded Johnny Mandel’s M*A*S*H theme for the movie’s soundtrack, and with the albums Jamaica (in 1974, which included Marvin Gaye’s Trouble Man as well as M*A*S*H) and Intervals (1979, which included a Steely Dan cover), showed he was not averse to toying with pop forms and even electric pianos. But he soon returned to the jazz of his roots. In 1982 he made the live album American Classical Music (it was the term he always preferred to the word “jazz”), sustained a steady output through the decade, and with Chicago Revisited (1992) sounded as assured and inventive as ever.

Now in his 60s, Jamal began to develop a higher profile in Europe. Sessions for the Dreyfus label in France led to The Essence (issued in three parts in the 90s), and found him in full flight with the saxophonists George Coleman and Stanley Turrentine and the trumpeter Donald Byrd. In 1995 his version of Music, Music, Music and the original take of Poinciana were featured in the Clint Eastwood film The Bridges of Madison County. He made what he regarded as one of his best recordings with Live in Paris 1996 (featuring Coleman again), and returned to the city to celebrate his 70th birthday in 2000 with Coleman; he was in inspired form on what would be released as the album A l’Olympia (2001).

With the exciting James Cammack on bass and Idris Muhammad on drums, Jamal’s composing blossomed. Striking originals dominated his 2003 album In Search of Momentum, and he even made a faintly stagey but soulful foray into singing, amid a raft of virtuoso keyboard displays, on After Fajr (2005).

Jamal’s alertness to an irresistible riff, like his keyboard contemporary Herbie Hancock’s, made him a favourite with hip-hop artists, and De La Soul’s Stakes Is High and Nas’s The World Is Yours were among many unmistakable testaments to that. Mosaic Records’ nine-CD set of his game-changing work in the late 1950s and early 60s was released in 2011, his group made a spectacular live appearance in London in 2014, and his last album releases came in 2022 with Emerald City Nights: Live at the Penthouse, parts one and two, featuring live recordings made in Seattle during the 60s. A third in the series is due for release this year.

Jamal was married and divorced three times – to Virginia Wilkins, Sharifah Frazier and Laura Hess-Hay. He is survived by a daughter, Sumayah, from his second marriage, and two grandchildren.

🔔 Ahmad Jamal (Frederick Russell Jones), musician, born 2 July 1930; died 16 April 2023

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

[bitter69uk]

“Although Dinah Washington is remembered as the Queen of the Blues, she effectively wrapped her vinegary style around everything from Big Band swing to Country & Western during her twenty-year career. Even so, her recordings were available only in ghetto record stores until 1959 when she scored an early R&B crossover with her sultry rendition of “What a Diff’rence a Day Makes.” Her subsequent teamwork with Brook Benton (“You’ve Got What It Takes” and “A Rockin’ Good Way”) gave her two more hits the following year, making her one of the top female R&B artists of the postwar years. While giving her the financial security to buy the Detroit restaurant she’d always wanted, success did little to soothe her tempestuous personal life. She made seven trips to the wedding altar – the last time with Detroit Lions football star Dick (Nighttrain) Lane, in the summer of 1963. In December of the same year, the thirty-nine-year-old singer, who had been using diet pills to get her weight down for an upcoming concert date, died after taking barbiturates and alcohol to counter the effect of the amphetamines.” / From Rock’N’Roll Confidential (1984) by Penny Stallings / Died 60 years ago today: turbulent jukebox diva Dinah Washington (29 August 1924 - 14 December 1963). One of the first African American superstars to enjoy crossover success on white pop charts, Washington was financially able to indulge her love of jewelry, furs and sports cars. A defiant and willful tough cookie, she was known to pull out a gun in disagreements. During recording sessions, she would pound back magnums of pink champagne (no wonder her vocals sound so relaxed and effortless! And no wonder – as the liner notes to one of my CDs claims - “records were released that Dinah didn’t even remember making”).  I know she’s most beloved for classics like “What a Diff’rence a Day Makes”, “September in the Rain” and her sumptuous, string-drenched version of Noel Coward’s “Mad About the Boy”, but I recommend two heartbreak ballads where Washington drops the trademark bravado to reveal a sensitive, bruised side: “I Want to Cry” (1948) and “You’re Crying” (1956).

[hernakedmuse]

Fawnskin

A/N: Okay so I'm new to this Tumblr fanfiction posting. This isn't very good but I feel a lot better when I write what my interests and create as an outlet. This hasn't been edited, fair warning.

Furthermore, I'm new to the Timothée Chalamet fan world, I don't pretend to know everything about him. With that said, please be gentle with me.

Themes: Trans OC, POC OC, an original character created by me, allusions to smut, Timothée pining, OC pining. (I think that's all).

Part 1

When I saw her…when I discovered her…it was tonight.

Tonight began at half past eight on sunset boulevard. It started when I entered the back way of the famous and legendary Viper room.

Small, galley-pathed, and obsidian lack of light. Smelled of so much alcohol I wouldn't dare to light a match…or maybe I would. Sweat and a small amount of alluring filth perfumed beneath,  like a scent of sin and rock and roll. This wasn't my usual scene, it's an interesting scene, a respected scene, a scene too cool for me, but not my scene nonetheless. 

I left my friends at LAVO, wandered down the strip aimlessly just needed some air, and I don't know why. Some unknown force just drew me here…to this claustrophobic nightmare drenched in black.

And then I heard it…her…

I heard synthesizers, drums, and guitars and a loud bass, but…I heard her , I heard her dreamy, yet raspy, tightly-reined yet soft, childlike and pouty yet seductive…voice. I never desired to hear a voice more than hers ever, nothing could compare ever. It was a beautiful whiny, powdery , Punk sounding sort of melodic vocals. I excused myself through the crowd of some young yet mainly middle aged and older crowd in band tees and leather and docs, and I wondered if the angel of this voice was older than she sounded.

But I somehow found myself at the front, right in front of the well used stage and came eye to eye with fishnet legs and teal, patent leather,  pointed toe heels with corset tight straps strangling delicate ankles. It made me want to save those exquisitely dainty ankles, and press a thousand and ten kisses to the ankle bone and her fibula…or tibula? Whatever, I want to kiss and suck every bone of her scrumptious feet.

I allowed my eyes to travel up long, clean-limbed, well formed legs, shapely thighs and and a doll‐like, hourglass figure that suffocated in a half zebra print, half cherry red, strapless dress, that was held together and cinched with zebra print string tied in a shoelace bow, the front…a shuddering, tantalizing, deep cut..almost down to the naval, opening greedy eyes to perky, perfectly rounded, visibly bouncy,  dewy, prettily fawn colored cleavage. I had a new favorite color and I think it might be…fawn.

With every bounce those luscious breasts knocked me out and caused embarrassing stirring in my pants. There was a slit in the middle, due to the dress being a wrap with only the string to hold it together, you could almost see the crotch area, but shapely fawn-colored (fuck me), thighs blocked the image beautifully. 

I was greedy suddenly and my eyes needed to see more, I looked up into the most prettiest face I could remember. Heart-shaped, dark espresso hooded eyes and long, dark sweeping lashes, big,full, lolly red painted lips too big for her delicate jawline, you could tell she's mixed with African-American, so damn beautiful.  And white-gold, blown out hair that fell past her shoulders framed her face in layers. 

She looked at me and I saw God.

—

A month later, in between breakups, I couldn't get her out of my head. I had gone back to the Viper Room to see if she would be there again but she wasn't. I asked the booking agent the name of the band, but she just laughed at me.

Why was it impossible to find her? I couldn't get her out of my head, she was like a nymph, a secretive mystery embodied in unknown desire. Fawn-colored skin, clean-limbed legs and white-sugar blonde hair, and that voice…like Nancy Sinatra but naughtier yet more innocent.

I gotta stop this obsession, but there's something about…this wasn't very healthy…

I woke up at two in the morning, wired like I was on something. I pulled on my sweatpants and a hoodie, I slipped on my Adidas and headed out, I just had to have the night (or early morning) air hit my face and wake me from these endless dreams.

I ended up driving around, Cudi's latest on low, the streets were surprisingly alive, but it is L.A. on a Thursday night.

But then I saw her, was I imagining her? Because those legs and that petite height were definitely that of a dream. I did a u-turn to see the front just to confirm that I am indeed losing my mind and it is someone else.

But walking past Mel's drive in, in a long teddy coat falling off her shoulders, a ripped, wine red turtleneck dress that's ripped and ribbed with safety pins in the tears, hugged her body like a pin up, making it painfully obvious she wasn't wearing a bra again. I slowed my bmw 5 series, the windows thankfully tinted. Those shapely legs encased in ripped fishnets again, velour , leopard print platform boots pounded the avenue, giving the illusion of average height. Her elvish blonde hair was up in a pretty, messy updo, held up hazardly by pins, her layered bangs framed her doll face, she had heroin chic smokey eyes and her lips painted a quietly provocative, nude-brown, almost fawn-colored..tone. safety pins adorned her ear as earrings and a black, patent leather, heart shaped bag dangled from her hands. 

Before I could stop myself, I rolled down the window. I looked like a crazy person, but maybe she wouldn't be too scared, I'm famous enough right? God, that sounded arrogant.

"Hey, hi! " I hope my hazardous greeting didn't come out too harsh. 

She stopped abruptly, looking every bit of the word startled. Like a deer in the headlights, her dark chocolate eyes widened and she looked up before looking around then down.

I felt like a creep, I didn't like seeing that expression on her face but…but this was a rare chance to find her again, it's been an entire month! I can't go through that again, I don't even know her goddamn name!

"I'm sorry, I don't mean to scare you, I know this looks weird." I ran a hand through my curls.

She looked up, a hint of recognition flickered in her eyes before she stared down again.

"I saw your show at the Viper Room last month. But I never got your name, I had to meet my friends and left…".

I didn't really know what else to say.

She crossed her legs a little, bending her knee a bit, biting her sensuous full bottom lip, I felt stirring in my sweats and was glad I was still in the car.

"Madison." 

The angel speaks.

Her speaking voice is as beautiful as her singing voice. Raspy and light, sweet and scratchy. I wanted to record it. 

Madison, Madison,  Madison…I've heard the name so many times but never once did it sound so pretty.

"Madison." I repeated.

She nodded. "Madison." She smiled, it was small but it felt like she gave me the rarest and most valuable gift. I couldn't help but stare, she's so pretty and delicate.

"Kelly, Madison Kelly." She finished,  she had a dreamy sort of tone to her voice, accent a little valley, you could tell she was from around here and not one of the many transients.

Her voice and her smile was healing and satisfying.

"What's your name?'' She was now relaxing a little more, her smile didn't look to be going anywhere and I couldn't get enough of it. 

I wondered if she was humoring me, trying to make me feel more comfortable by feigning ignorance of who I am. It's considerate and sweet. I played along with a smirk. "Timothée. "

She giggled, it strangely made me hard. "That's so cute, such a sweet name." 

I smiled and looked at her. "Why are you walking the street so late? It's dangerous. "

She bit her lip like she was caught doing something naughty. "I ran away."

I frowned, she does look young, but I was hoping at least eighteen, but she's wearing so much makeup she could be sixteen under there.

"From home?"

She smiled, "No, my friends."

I nodded, my eyes roamed her form,  I wanted to measure her wide hips with my hands. 

"Are you heading anywhere in particular?" I couldn't stop myself, I wish I would just shut up and act normal, I didn't want to scare away this…fawn.

Looking closer I see an attractive, rhinestone stud in her nostril, I had the urge and necessity to lick it.

I gripped my steering wheel, she noticed the small detail but didn't say anything. She stared at my hands for a long time.

"I just needed to walk…I get overwhelmed sometimes in crowds." She explained as she hugged the lamp post.

I wish it were my body she clung to…great, Tim you've lost it, you're now jealous of a fucking lamp post.

"You did good with them at the Viper Room."

She smiled,it was faraway and dreamy. "I focus on one person, and pretend I'm only singing to one person." She hid her face against the post and giggled.

I was even more enamored with this adorable little creature.

"We could go to Mel's over there, get a milkshake or coffee or fries or a burger, I don't care. I don't want you to freeze out here."

To my fucking luck and surprise, she nodded and timidly walked over to my car. 

I got out of it, she looked up at me a bit wide eyed, noticing our height difference, had to be about five inches,  and she's wearing platform boots. I smirked as I opened my door. The passenger seat was facing the streets, and even though there aren't many drivers out right now. I didn't want to risk her.

She half stepped in and I half helped her up by her waist. Just touching her, smelling her very rosy, sweet smelling shampoo, I knew I had to sit her down before she would feel her effect on me and think I'm some creep.

I buckled her in, and she watched me with a soft smile. I looked up into her dark doe eyes as I latched the seat belt together, it pressed into her stomach.  I smiled a little and she bit those sinful lips and looked away. I eyed one of the holes of the dress that rested on her plump breast and licked my lips before sitting in the driver's seat and starting the car back up.

I drove us across the street to the parking lot of Mel's. There were a good amount of people there for 3am close to 4, but not packed like it was at midnight. I didn't let Madison get out on her own. I got out so fast and opened her door for her,  reached over and unbuckled her seatbelt, before lifting her by her waist and helping her down delicately.  I hadn't  let her go yet, my thumb gently stroking her prettily wide hips. She didn't seem to be upset, she just held onto my shoulders,  she leaned in and looked around , accidentally her cheek brushes against my chest, it was almost like I was holding her.

"Thank you." She said and then before I knew it, she was out of my arms, heading inside, and thanking the security. 

I followed behind her so fast, I was practically on her ass before taking her soft hand and leading her to the booth farthest away from everyone, trying to avoid being noticed.

We were in the corner and immediately a friendly waiter came over asking us what we would like, but saying hi to Madison, tell her it's always nice seeing her. She giggled and asked him how everything was and I was hideously jealous,  she should be looking at me talking to me that way. It was an absolute thing to do but I interrupted.

"Madi, did you want a milkshake?" My voice sounded a little strained, my fingers twitched, they were a stretch away from hers, the nails not too long, and wore black chipped nail polish.

She was delayed in her response, she slowly looked away from the waiter and looked up at me,  her dreamy eyes made my heart stop and speed up at the same time. Her pouty lips parted and then she smiled, it was sweet and genuine, she looked so happy, and I felt ten feet tall because I made her that happy, not the waiter.

"Can I have this one?" She sweetly slid the menu over to me, pointing to what was called the Lana del Rey milkshake, it was an oreo milkshake with chocolate syrup. 

I smiled at her, sweet girl. "You can have anything you want."

She smiled wide before biting her succulent lip.

I ordered her shake and ordered mine, plain chocolate. I also ordered fries.

"You-uh, smell very nice." Wow Timmy, that was lame.

I looked to see if she was smirking unimpressed,  but the angel before me looked elated, her eyes just completely lit up and she was beaming. "Thank you Timothée,  it's basically samples…perfumes are expensive but…I get samples,  I have a friend who works at Sephora um…yeah I forget which, I sprayed a lot of different ones." She giggled, sitting up a little straighter. 

My eyes gently, briefly glanced at her breasts that bounced. I cleared my throat and dragged my gaze to her warm, deep eyes. "Your voice is beautiful, do you sing for a living?"

She was flustered at the compliment, aside she didn't know she was amazing. "I sometimes sing. Like once a month, it's a cover band called Rapture, we always cover Blondie or Anita Lane usually, sometimes others." 

I don't know who Anita Lane is but I'm a little familiar with Blondie, I like what I've heard. Seems like my little fawn is a nostalgic girl, which is very sexy. 

"What do you do when you don't sing like an angel?" Our shakes arrived and I thanked the waiter.

She did too before wrapping those cocksucking lips around the straw, unintentionally so distracting. "My keyboardist, Kyle, he does indie films, they're very artsy, he likes to film me…and he likes me to perform at his art shows too." She ended in a gossamer, shy tone.

I was enthralled, she's an intriguing nymph of a girl, it would make sense someone would capture her beauty and present it as exactly what she is, art.

Time was irrelevant with her, I don't remember her eating my fries but I do remember the moment when my heart decided it was hers.

It was nearly six in the morning when we left the diner. She was rubbing her smokey eyes adorably like a sleepy toddler. I carried her into my car and she tiredly gave me the address to where she lives.

I watched the sun rise on her face until we were at an apartment building in koreatown. I carried her to the fifth floor, she fumbled with her keys and opened the door. With the prettiest sleepy,  doe eyes, gorgeously smudged with makeup, she said goodnight Timmy…I didn't see her for a year.

—---------------------♡♡♡♡♡♡—--------------------

Madison's POV

I called Kyle Kimberley a liar and closed the door in his face when he told me Amazon wanted to pick up his movie. 

We've known each other since special Ed math, at Venice High school. He's the only friend from high school I still had, and I'm very glad. He's always been there for me and has never been toxic.

For as long as I can remember he's had a fascination with film and nostalgia. He likes how they used to do it and looks up to David lynch, Neil Jordan, Joe Schumacher… 

He even uses the same camera as Lost Boys and the company of wolves.

He looks like a mix of 80s Kyle Maclachlan and Cole Sprouse. Everything he wears and owns is from a thrift store and he smells like clove cigarettes and Aramis. 

Sea, Swallow Me, was the film they picked up. It's about a runaway trans teenage girl from Paris, Texas. She named herself Holli Daryl, after Holli Would in Cool world, and Daryl Hannah. The movie starts out at dusk, her parents come home to find the movie Splash playing, a note on pink paper written in violet crayon with Lisa Frank stickers detailing how Holli (her dead name, Connor) made sure their neighbors The Weiss's were watching their Doberman, Billy so he wouldn't witness her becoming a mermaid. They found her drowning herself in the pool, the movie volume on high. They then committed Holli to a mental hospital. After one week at Esperanza Valley Mental Hospital, fifteen year old Holli meets psychologist Dr. Lewis Reed, they have an affair and she loses her virginity to him, he gets her hormones and despite her being too young, he gets his surgeon friend to give her sex reassignment surgery. A year at Esperanza Valley, Dr. Reed's wife, Amanda, shows up, she finds out about her husband's affair. She shoots him in the head and then shoots herself.

Holli is devastated and runs away, Dr. Reed was the only one who protected her from the abuse at the hospital and the main security was always trying to sexually assault her. She hitchhiked, on her way to Los Angeles. In Tucson, at a truck stop at two in the morning, she comes across a handsome, 27 year old drifter named Axel, who's played by my ex boyfriend, Fallon Robbins, and lead singer of our cover band.

They fall in love right away, before having sex, Holli tells Axel that she's trans and he tells her he doesn't care. The movie surrounds their toxic, obsessive love, Holli doesn't shy away from Axel's possessiveness because she's never felt love. 

Kyle paid a lot of money to have the Cocteau twins play music for the soundtrack.

He had one viewing at an AMC in Inglewood, someone saw it and he got a call.

The big Hollywood  premiere is a week after Coachella,  it's incredible. I feel surreal, couldn't believe this was happening to Kyle and that they want interviews with me. Designers have been sending me clothes, I couldn't believe it. Kyle bought a suite at Hotel Marmont like the classics he said. 

The cast and crew of Kyle's film were given tickets to Coachella from Amazon,  like a promotion. 

Coachella never was our thing, we liked mainly music before the 21st century. But it'll be fun, I'm sure of it. There were all expenses paid for staying at the Paloma Resort, which gave me a Palm Springs feel.

Everything has-been so wonderful,  everyone so kind. But when I checked into my room I collapsed onto the bed feeling empty.

A feeling I haven't been able to rid myself of since I met Timothee.

I ended up finding out he's a very famous actor. I don't watch too many new things so I was a little clueless.  But now I know and I have seen some of his projects, I am impressed, I am bewitched and melancholy. 

I miss the man I met once who smelled like weed and laundry detergent, who bought me milkshakes and shared his fries. Anytime I go to Mel's I now sit at that seat.

The morning after I left I lost my phone, I must have left it at the diner in the bathroom. 

I feel so stupid crying right now, on one of the best days of my life.

Kyle knocked on the door. "Madi, get dressed, we're heading over soon."

 Sniffling, I wiped my eyes. "Okay!"

I got up and took off my Edward Scissorhands t-shirt, I stripped out of my split denim shorts and black Vans hi-tops. I reapplied my strawberry and vanilla deodorant. I turned on my Spotify and Love my Way flooded the room. I washed my face with aloe vera cleanser and slapped on a tony moly sheet mask. I washed my vagina always making sure to take extra care, I was careful about what I put in and on my body, so many things could go wrong with my situation. I brushed my teeth and finished prepping, I left my hair in its natural , bleached, ringlets, adding some curl cream and mousse and gel, doing a slight wet look. I recreated Rose McGowans '98 MTV awards dress, chain link, chain mail, dress that left nothing to the imagination. It's Coachella and you gotta dress risqué. 

I'm a little curvy and like any human have a million and one insecurities, but at the same time I have this weird, perverse compulsion to expose my thick thighs, ample backside, and soft stomach. I was proud of my breasts, though, they turned out perfect and they're the only thing on my body that doesn't make me cringe. I zippledup my patent vegan leather, grommet stiletto boots with the Patrick charm, adding some accessories, I decided to wear a lot of eyeliner, black glittery eyes, and deep red lips. I sprayed on Persian rose by Pacifica and grabbed my star-shaped sunglasses and velvet rat-shaped purse.

Kyle and I headed to the festival together, he looked fabulous in silver faux leather overall shorts, and silver docs, black eyeshadow, black eyeliner, lip gloss, and black curtains of hair falling in his face. 

"This entire year has felt like dementia…" he then grinned at me. "But in a good way."

"In the best way, you've worked so hard Kyle, this is all you. I'm so proud of you." I exclaimed.

"Oh please, you gorgeous girl, your looks and uncanny talent of penetrating the audience with your skills got me here, you're like the black Pam Anderson with the talent of Isabella Rosselini!"

"You're dramatic, and Pamela is very skinny remember?"

"You're right her body is nowhere near as great as yours, very Kim Petras."

I laughed and rolled my eyes. Kyle does not allow me to trash myself, I'm very lucky to have him.

"Okay stop talking in celebrity, it's very Gilmore Girls."

It was a little difficult but we found the Empire Polo club  where the festival takes place. Everyone looked amazing like they were going to a rave in a fairy realm, there was a lot of energy. 

"I am counting the moments to where I'll be beautifully Byroned. " Kyle said as he headed to VIP parking.

"So fucked up?" I giggled.

"Mmm" he responded with a secret smile. "Let's go." He grabbed his fanny pack and we both got out of his white Jeep Gladiator.

He held my hand and we walked together,  phones were out and people were calling our names. I kept my head down, it was surreal, it was wild. I was nobody and now I'm the indie, trans actress from an American art film.

I saw no reason to keep being trans a secret, I'm proud of who I am and my journey, I never desired fame. This was all sudden and while I'm used to being on stage and small clubs, crowds like this made my anxiety spike. Kyle rubbed my back to calm me down as he smiled and said hello.

I wanted to say hi and be nice to all these people being so kind and supportive of me, but it's hard to deal with that much attention at once. I need to gather myself. I felt guilty. 

Once in, I took deep breaths relaxing a little. Kyle rubbed my arm. "Babes, you wait right here, I'll be right back, I'm going to get us tacos and cerveza,  okay? You alright now?"

I nodded with a smile. He smiled back and kissed my head before heading to the food trucks.

I didn't want to immediately go to VIP, Kyle and I discussed that we didn't want to be closed off to people. God, it's so weird that we have to think about that. Last year, we were broke with 3 different jobs in our Koreatown apartment, spending too many nights at the Viper Room, the whiskey, the rainbow, Barneys…we were poor skater kids who went to Venice High School. Now look at us.

I drank some water I brought with me, sipping and feeling a lot better and looked around.

"Madison?"

My heart stopped, hearing the voice that has plagued my dreams every night. I turned around to see Timothée. 

Timothée's POV

I couldn't wait for Coachella, I needed a serious distraction. My friends didn't understand how one girl could have such an effect on my everyday life.

But she was always the only thing, she invoked the passion in my acting, the anger of her not returning my texts and calls, the sadness of losing something someone that could have been, the uncontrollable lust to fuck her so hard she can never walk away from me again, and the pure and utter joy I get tickling in my intestines whenever I think of how her eyes lit up when I got her that strawberry milkshake.  When I kissed when I made love on screen, it was her I was touching, it was her tongue I was sucking, it was her body I was slamming against the wall.

Seeing her buxom figure lazily contained in dripping chains, no effort to disguise any bit of delicious, fawn-colored flesh, just a flimsy, French cut black thong, but sizable, round, Hazel colored nipples bounced on display. Her body is soft and lusty, its statuesque and stacked.  Her ass is thick, ample, and bouncy, a quarter would certainly bounce off of it with no trouble. 

I desired nothing more than to have my head crushed by her luscious thighs. I swallowed as my eyes traveled up her comely form to the ideal face, heart shaped with a wide jaw, hugely plump lips painted in an obscene dessert shade of candied-strawberry red, I wanted to eat them on a plate, cover them and sugar and devour them slowly. Her wide, dark eyes were even bigger due to the smoky paint around them. Her white-gold ringlets bounced in perfect layers around her doll-like face, tickling her shoulders.

She's so little, probably around 5'2 without the stiletto boots that made her legs look long.

I nearly fell to my knees like I was in her cult to worship her at her altar.

I wanted to be angry, to demand a fucking explanation for ghosting me. But she looked so damn happy at the sight of me, her eyes lit up again, her honey skin glistening like gold in the California sun, and maybe it made me an idiot but, I slid over to her.

I caressed my hand up her neck, my other gently claimed her soft hip. If this all goes awry, I'll blame the copious amount of weed I smoked and how soft her silky beige skin feels beneath my fingers, how fucking unfairly good she smells- what is that? Roses? One million and one? I was a goner. Stupidly I focused on her pillowy, blood colored mouth as I just rubbed them with mine, I just had to feel them just a feel…not a kiss…but I broke that promise when she sighed so softly and gossamer, pressing her mouth against mine with starvation. 

[southafricansongs]

Umlandi

South African music keeps being part of the global music conversation and the artists are doing their best at exporting it across all frontiers. South African popular music might be having the best years it has had in recent history. Carrying on from the momentum gained during the pandemic and its lockdown/travel restrictions, 2022 has been one of the years artists get to eat the fruits of their hard labour.

Contemporary artists are touring, performing at the biggest global stages amongst the best the world has to offer. From the Grammys and Coachella to Ibiza and Afronation, everyone is outside and is putting out their best music while at it. South African music is part of the global African music conversation and the artists are doing their best to export the music.

South Africa is known for its music that has played a huge role towards the country's society. The music of South Africa is very diverse with a wide variety of genres such as Marabi, Kwaito, House music, Isicathamiya, Gqom and Amapiano etc.

With countless hits, such as Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika, Pata Pata, Umqombothi (song), Vulindlela and legendary singers such as Miriam Makeba, Brenda Fassie, Hugh Masekela, Yvonne Chaka Chaka and Lucky Dube, South African music has played a huge impact in Africa(especially in Southern Africa, to a point where countries such as Namibia and Botswana have their own versions of South African music genres such as Kwaito etc.

Afrikaans music was primarily influenced by Dutch folk styles, along with French and German influences, in the early twentieth century. Zydeco-type string bands led by a concertina were popular, as were elements of American country music, especially Jim Reeves. The most prolific composers of "tiekie draai" Afrikaans music were lyricist Anton De Waal who wrote many hit songs with songwriters, pianist Charles Segal ("Hey Babariebab Se Ding Is Vim", "Kalkoenjie", "Sy Kom Van Kommetjie" and many others) and accordionist, Nico Carstens. Bushveld music based on the Zulu were reinterpreted by such singers as Marais and Miranda. Melodramatic and sentimental songs called trane trekkers (tearjerkers) were especially common. In 1973, a country music song won the coveted SARI Award (South African Music Industry) for the Song of the Year – "My Children, My Wife" was written by renowned South African composer Charles Segal and lyricist Arthur Roos. In 1979 the South African Music scene changed from the Tranetrekkers to more lively sounds and the introduction of new names in the market with the likes of Anton Goosen, David Kramer (singer), Koos du Plessis, Fanie de Jager, Flaming Victory and Laurika Rauch. Afrikaans music is currently one of the most popular and best selling industries on the South African music scene.

After World War I, Afrikaner nationalism spread and such musicians as Jewish pianist and composer Charles Segal and accordionist Nico Carstens were popular.

CONTRACT US

Phone: +2349120010105

Website: https://umlandi.com/

Social Link: https://twitter.com/naijasong

[coolclaytony]

So I'm either:

A skeleton archeology professor whose estranged with his ex-wife and child.

A fox martial arts master.

A half-witted black cat who learned the secrets of magic from a god.

A demon lord who presides over bullies and petty criminals.

The princess of a kingdom ruled by PBS-kids style cartoon logic.

The magic rainbow fairy tree that the aforementioned princess worships as a deity.

The god of atheism.

The king of skeletons.

The king of the bogeymen.

A witch who turns people into newts as a hobby.

An British dandy who eats babies and likes the Beatles.

An evil owl queen who wants to conquer the universe.

A nigh indestructible robot samurai security guard.

A mad scientist goblin.

A sexy goblin who's good at magic.

A 9-year-old Korean-American girl who likes weird stuff and to whome weird things seem to always happen.

Her 9-year-old anthropomorphic pig French-Canadian boyfriend who wants to be a chef.

A 7-year-old Indian-Palestinian nerd girl who fears dogs and the ocean.

A 9-year-old Jewish Italian-American girl who's learning wrestling. Her favorite band is Disturbed.

A 10-year-old Hatian child who runs track and studies existential philosophy.

A 11-year-old Japanese-American pretty-boy who is a hopeless romantic and is also very sensitive.

An 11-year-old Inuit boy with a mysterious and cool personality and who's backstory is a convoluted string of noodle incidents.

A gender-fluid 10-year-old white kid who's only real defining trait is having a lot of money and a willingness to give it away.

A 13-year-old Cajun boy with a guardian complex and a righteous contempt for fascism and capitalism.

An 8-year-old African-American girl who likes bugs and lizards.

[dustedmagazine]

Animal, Surrender! Listed

Animal, Surrender! is a duo made up of Sunwatchers’ Peter Kerlin on bass and Rob Smith on drums. On their first, self-titled album, the pair execute, loping, elastic grooves, nodding towards folk and blues but never quite settling into genre. In her review, Jennifer Kelly called the song, “Led by the Bit,” “an intriguing rattletrap construction, bounded by intricate, syncopated percussion but with Kerlin’s bass musing its bass-like dreams within these constraints.” Here’s what Kerlin and Smith are listening to.

Kelan Phil Cohran & Legacy — “White Nile”

PETE: I first started to slip into the Animal, Surrender! sound world upon hearing African Skies, by Kelan Phil Cohran & Legacy at Domino Sound in New Orleans in 2011. I asked the purveyor, “What is this and please tell me it’s for sale.” It’s been in regular rotation since. Pure magic, flawless without being precious for a single moment.

Jeff Parker — “2019-07-08-ii”

ROB: The drummer here, Jay Bellerose is my favorite currently-working drummer... all space, tone, and touch. Earthy patterns intersect and breathe in ways that simultaneously nurture and tug at the other voices in the ensemble. Although I absolutely love what he does with groups as dad-rockish as Alison Krauss & Robert Plant, this heady double-LP from Eremite really gives us a clear open view of his masterful creativity with timbre and air.

Ann O Aro — “Zardin”

PETE: The economy of the arrangements on this record and the spare, precise production were a touchstone in the recording stage of A,S!. There is some crazy stuff going on here though. O Aro’s voice is clearly a thing of beauty but that is 100% not the point at all. The music has an undeniable force and is bound together with an incredible tension. An example of the Maloya anti-colonial music from the Island of Reunion where she hails and a deeply personal dredging and catharsis synthesized seamlessly. Shout out to Mike Bones for turning me on to it.

Gunter Schickert — “Puls”

ROB: Klaus Schulze’s roadie didn’t use any synthesizers or sequencers to craft his own singular, prowling Berlin hypnosis. The warp and weft of multitrack tapes, guitars, and drums is exactly the kind of mind-fabric that prepared me for working within Animal, Surrender!

Jack Rose & The Black Twig Pickers — “Kensington Blues”

PETE: Rose loomed large for me. This track played on repeat in my mind for years. It’s so effortless, it’s as if the music existed already, unheard, and the band is just revealing it. My effort to balance multiple voices on the bass comes out of a fascination with this ��American Primitive” sound. Nathan Bowles is here on percussion. Bowles shared the drum chair with Rob in Pigeons!

Hopkinson Smith — “Robert de Visée: Pieces de Theorbe”

ROB: One of the greatest musical conversations I ever had was speaking intimately with the genius lutenist Hopkinson Smith over pints of stout about unmeasured preludes and the intersections of baroque string music and bluegrass. This incredible 1979 recording of works for theorbo, an epic bass lute, shows how a multi-course bass instrument originally designed for accompaniment can take the spotlight, much as Peter’s 8-string bass does within this group.

Jessica Pavone — “Dawn to Dark”

PETE: I was split about which Pavone track to include here. Her recent “less tempered” works are riveting, but I chose this early Pavone chamber piece featuring my old bandmate, Emily Manzo, a pianist of extraordinary ability, who is also a gifted songwriter and singer. Here Pavone casts her as a vocalist. There’s musicality and presence in every nanosecond of her performance. Stunning yet never bombastic. The pacing and restraint that Jessica brings to the whole record leads you deep into some psychic space, you forget you’re listening to “chamber music.”

Henry Cow — “Nirvana for Mice”

ROB: Chris Cutler’s way of feeling deep grooves inside of twisted, asymmetrical compositions always sounds brand new and shocking to my ears despite this album’s 1973 session date. He’ll crack a nasty backbeat inside a careful avant woodwind arrangement, forcing your ass to swivel despite your brain being patiently sliced open on the band’s dissection table. Dada blues for sure.

75 Dollar Bill — “Beni Said”

PETE: One of the most consistently inspiring live bands in New York for the past decade. It was while lost in one of Che’s asymmetrical Mauritanian riffs on his modified Hagstrom 12-string that I had an “ah ha!” moment about the 8-string bass and how to bring it into the foreground. We’ve had an ongoing dialogue about it that has kept me going in those moments when I’m questioning this weird obsession I have with this uncooperative instrument.

Bullwackies All Stars — “Kicking Scott, Rockfort Dub”

ROB: Lloyd Barnes’ Bronx dub devastation provided an early shared navigational system for us in Animal, Surrender! Wackie spirals you down infinite, dissociative avenues of echo paved with the deepest bass around. Melodic organisms bloom from the cracks and illuminate pathways through the twisted urban ecology, clouds of pungent smoke notwithstanding.

[citymousesd]

Check out this listing I just added to my Poshmark closet: NEPENTHE Custom Vintage Dynafelt Hat.

[1001albumsrated]

#1: Frank Sinatra - In The Wee Small Hours (1955)

Genre(s): Jazz Vocals, Big Band, Orchestral

"Hey I don't know if you knew this, but good music started in 1955 with In The Wee Small Hours; there was simply no good music prior". This is the mighty bold claim that has been implied at the beginning of every edition of 1001 Albums since its original publishing in 2005. And this is, of course, the exact sort of bullshit opinion you end up with when you let a bunch of professional rock and pop critics write your list.

Look, I don't mean to come out swinging on the first post, and the point of this blog isn't to completely lampoon the books; we're going to come across some truly excellent and essential albums on our journey here. That being said, as a diehard music fan, I can't ignore the treatment that jazz (and black American music at large) gets in these books. By starting the list with In The Wee Small Hours you've already lost the plot, creating a fictional alternate universe where schmaltzy big band jazz vocals emerged fully formed from the womb of space, with Ol' Blue Eyes himself dressed to the nines and puffing on a half-finished cigarette, descending to earth exogenous of all other forms of expression or culture.

This fiction is, of course, just that: fiction. Orchestral jazz vocals descend from the swing big bands of the 30s & 40s and early pop vocals/the Great American Songbook, which themselves descend from blues, early jazz/ragtime/Tin Pan Alley songs, folk, and Western classical, of which the former three descend from earlier African forms of folk and traditional music and the latter of which comes from earlier forms of European "Early Music" and Western folk traditions. And so on. Obviously you need to draw the line somewhere. The authors have chosen to entirely omit classical & early music (used here as a broad strokes term) and traditional/folk music (again, used as a broad strokes term). I think this is the correct choice for the story they're trying to tell, which is focused, broadly speaking, on modern popular music. Attempting to include pre-20th century music and modern "art music" (broadly used to refer to modern compositions of classical descent, such as the works of Stockhausen or John Cage) would jam up the list and prevent them from capturing the breadth necessary to tell the popular music story at hand. However, I think it is a massive mistake to jump headfirst into big band jazz of any stripe (and moreso Sinatra, which I would argue is one step further removed from his origins than the contemporary works of Ellington and Basie coming down the pipeline in a few posts). I would argue the correct starting point here is the 2CD set of The Complete Recordings of Robert Johnson, both on its historical merits and its aesthetic merits, and additionally on account of its wide availability (supposedly a metric for consideration according to the authors). Blues (here meaning "authentic" traditional blues, broadly speaking) is another genre that mostly gets the shaft on the list, despite the excess of blues rock and other blues derivatives we'll encounter further on.

Regardless, here we are with good ol' Franky. I'll be honest with you, I've never been a Sinatra guy. His music always makes me wish I was listening to Johnny Hartman instead (who unfortunately also gets the shaft in the book; listen to his eponymous album with John Coltrane if you want to hear the peak of male jazz vocals, in my humble opinion at least 🙂). I find his orchestral recordings particularly defanged and uninteresting. If I have to partake I much prefer his "truer" jazz albums with a small ensemble. But I have a notoriously low tolerance for big string sections in jazz of any kind, so no surprises there.

All that being said, MUST you hear In The Wee Small Hours before you die? Let's start this series off right with our first No, and arguably our first Flamin' Hot Take. No, you don't need to hear this before you die. If you're interested in the pop music and sounds of the time then it's well worth listening to (looking at you, Laufey fans), or if you're looking at this from a purely historical angle rather than an aesthetic one then sure, this has historical significance and was very popular at the time. But for the modern ear looking for the essentials, this just doesn't make the cut. The sound is very much stuck in time and presents little of interest to those not already enamored with the crooning, sentimental sounds of the era (keep this thought in the back of your mind for some of the upcoming jazz albums we'll discuss, which will contrast Frank in this regard). There's a lot of early jazz I'd tell you to listen to first before resorting to this. That being said, it's certainly not an unpleasant listen; it's just not a significant one. In The Wee Small Hours will never offend, but by the same token it will also fail to impress for most.

And that's a wrap! Thanks for checking out the new blog, more to come soon. Make sure to check out my other account @randomcollectionitem if you want to read more ramblings about music in the meantime. 1 down, 1088 to go! That's right, we will also be reviewing the Albums You No Longer Must Hear Before You Die, aka the brave few that have been removed from the list in later printings to make room for new releases... because 1001 just wasn't enough 🙃

Also, I'll be including the format I listened to for the few nerds who care. For this one (and likely most of the albums I don't already own in some physical format) I listened in hi-res on Qobuz, my preferred streaming service.

[throwdownyourheart]

@some-stars asked for recs, so here are a couple of my favorite playlists with black country. Enjoy!

COUNTRY’S B(L)ACK is a great playlist for more modern-leaning country, including some fantastic hick-hop songs (Down By The Riverside by Willie Jones is in there, and it’s been living in my head rent-free for weeks)

BLACK BANJO THROWDOWN is all about the banjo and black banjo players, and celebrates the African roots of the instrument (and American folk music as a genre).

BLACK GIRL SOUTHERN GOTHIC is exactly what it sounds like: songs by black women that lean into Southern gothic as an aesthetic, a literary tradition, and a musical style.

BLACK COUNTRY, FOLK, BLUEGRASS, AND OLD TIME MUSIC has it all! Modern country, outlaw country, alt-folk, honky-tonk and rockabilly, traditional string bands, hick-hop, and everything in between.

I think a lot of what's currently informing my fellow white people curdling like milk and shitting their pants when asked to interrogate their relationship with rap is the way many people (especially well-meaning white people) still can't help but think of racism as something that you get accused of rather than something that influences the entire world in pernicious ways.

like, I think a lot of people currently posting the most cringe takes about rap right now would very much agree that Racism Is Bad and probably even acknowledge that rap has been and is still widely maligned and devalues for racist reasons.

but that last step, acknowledging that your personal tastes and interests are also influenced by systemic racism, is where a LOT of people stumble. it's very easy to assume that because you consider yourself against racism, then your tastes and interests cannot possibly be at all informed by racist. if you're a white American, that's simply extremely unlikely to be true.

speaking from personal experience, I had to Work to decenter whiteness in my media tastes. when I was like 19 I listened to a podcast where a white Jewish man talked about keeping a spreadsheet of the books he read to make sure he was reading a roughly equal number of men and women, and I started doing the same thing to track how many authors of color I was reading. at the time I took pride in my belief that I was reading diversely, but when the year ended I was shocked to discover that people of color had written barely a quarter of the books I'd read. I had been giving myself way too much credit while still unintentionally prioritizing white authors, because white authors were the ones I knew best. so I started making an extremely conscious effort to seek out books by authors of color, both fiction and nonfiction, that sounded like my kind of shit.

music was extremely similar. I grew up a little white girl in a very white city in a very white state; nobody was offering me an education in rap or r&b or soul or hip hop. as an young adult there were definitely some Black artists I liked, like Janelle Monáe, but I had to take the initiative of seeking out more artists to find out who I fuck with. you're not going to like everybody, which is fine, but are you even giving anyone a chance? are you even looking?

racism has roots everywhere, bro. it's not enough to just acknowledge it, you have to actively get digging.

[lboogie1906]

Dr. William Grant Still, Jr. (May 11, 1895 – December 3, 1978) Considered by many as the dean of African American composers, the son of educators, was born in Woodville, Mississippi. He entered Wilberforce College as a pre-med student, taught himself to play several instruments, and composed his musical pieces which were performed by the school band, which he conducted, and a string quartet he assembled and participated in as a cellist. He studied music at the Oberlin Conservatory after a year in the Navy.

He veered from classical music into the popular music of the era derived from African American culture—namely ragtime, jazz, and blues—and for a while toured with the legendary bandleader W.C. Handy, arranging some of Handy’s hits like “St. Louis Blues.” He was in New York City writing musical arrangements for the theater, working as musical director of Black Swan Record Company, and, with a rekindled interest in classical music.

His composition, Afro-American Symphony, was performed by the Rochester Symphony Orchestra, thus becoming the first work of its kind by an African American composer to be performed by a major symphony orchestra. Numerous successes in both classical and popular music continued, among them his direction of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra in a performance of his compositions in the Hollywood Bowl, his Symphony #2 in G Minor, his score for Pennies From Heaven; and the choral cantata “And They Lynched Him on a Tree.” He was awarded the Jubilee Prize of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra for the Best Overture. His opera Troubled Island with libretto premiered at the New York City Opera, and excerpts from his “Laredo Suite” were used as background music for Perry Mason, The Three Stooges, Have Gun, Will Travel, and Gunsmoke.

The recipient of two Guggenheim fellowships and two Harmon Awards, he was bestowed honorary doctorates from Wilberforce, Oberlin, the University of Arkansas, Bates College, Howard University, and USC. He was twice married and fathered six children. He was inducted into the Mississippi Musicians Hall of Fame. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence #kappaalphapsi

[singeratlarge]

Happy heavenly birthday to Johnnie Ray. On a stage, he was like a punk rocker in a lounge singer's body. His vocal style crossed Billie Holiday-jazz-vocalese with blues and pop standards, foreshadowing rock'n'roll and modern r'n'b. He was practically deaf, and some say that prompted his loud vocal delivery, as he threw his entire body into the notes with over-the-top emotion. Born in Oregon, he was a singer-songwriter and pianist who developed his animated style in small African American nightclubs in Detroit. That’s where he was discovered in 1949 and signed to Okeh Records (the R&B subsidiary of Columbia). His star rose fast, netting him roles in feature films, and Tony Bennett called Ray “the father of rock’n’roll” as he generated teen hysteria well before Elvis Presley. Today Ray is cited as an influence on artists ranging from Leonard Cohen to Morrissey.

Ray had several hits in his early career (he wrote “The Little White Cloud That Cried”), but “Cry” became his signature work, becoming an international chartbuster when it debuted in 1951. In Ray’s original vocal-heavy arrangement with The Four Lads, the arching chord progression is relatively straightforward, suitable for country, jazz, or pop renditions. The progression repeats two times (no bridge) and builds to a passionate outburst, taking us from a broken heart to a bittersweet climax. Letting the tears flow leads us to a healing revelation, to finding “the light behind the cloudy skies.”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDOvIR3Kn_8 Produced by Mitch Miller, Ray’s single lodged in the US charts for three months. “Cry” has been remade countless times and it was a repeat hit with Ronnie Dove (1966), Lynn Anderson (1972), and Crystal Gayle (1986), but no one has taken ownership from Ray’s heart-wrenching delivery of “Cry.” 

His 1952 JOHNNIE RAY debut LP on Columbia Records stayed in the charts for four months. It featured the single “Walkin’ My Baby Back Home” as well as sturdy covers of “cowboy songs.” After a string of sell-out concerts and hit TV appearances, he turned in an admirable acting role in the major motion picture THERE’S NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOW BUSINESS with Ethel Mermen and Marilyn Monroe. However, due to a variety of factors, Ray’s star faded in America and he was dropped by Columbia in 1960. Fortunately, he continued to draw audiences in Australia, England, and in Europe. Then his American career rebounded in the 1980s. In this clip, you can hear he still had the power, singing “Cry” in the same key of C he did as a younger man https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AYZ0Omz1h4 He passed away in 1990 (age 63).

For many years I worked with Davy Jones (of The Monkees), and Davy he was a big fan of Ray. Davy met Ray in the 1970s, saying, “It was when Ray was in a career slump, playing with a pick-up band in a dingey Manhattan nightclub. The band kept trying to put funk into the songs, but it wasn’t working. It was kind of sad, but at least I got to meet him.”

Davy wanted to produce a musical about Ray, and in 2008 Davy and I sat and studied stacks of Johnnie Ray videos and took notes. We also interviewed first-wave fans of Ray who’d seen him in the 1950s and got his autograph. In an obvious move, Davy remade “Cry” for his 2009 SHE album, and his “Cry” cover is the star of the album—a recording with that mystique that comes when lyrical intent, sounds, and raw feelings push into a timeless realm. The stunning orchestrations by Chris Andrews and Skip Kline blend perfectly with Davy's powerful vocal--arguably one of the strongest in his career. 12 years later I revisited the track to make this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc-wUPJ1LX4  Suddenly, waves of emotion came over me, then I cried for 2 days. Then I felt better, just like the song promised.

In 2023 I added “Cry” to the set list I perform in assisted living homes (demographically it folds right in). In a nearly Pavlovian response, I cry when I perform it. Perhaps it’s the waves of emotional and spiritual invested in “Cry,” washing through me and reminding me of the lives who’ve been reached by one little song. HB JR, and thank you for your voice and expression.

#davyjones #monkees #johnnieray #cry #loungesinger #popmusic #chrisandrews #skipkline #johnnyjblair #felipetorres #emotions #marilynmonroe #mouseketeers #singersongwriter

[musiconanironingboard]

19 January 2023: Dom Flemons Presents Black Cowboys, Dom Flemons. (Smithsonian Folkways, 2018)

I never got into the black string band Carolina Chocolate Drops, beyond loving one tune by them, “Day of Liberty,” that appeared on the 2013 various-artists comp Divided & United: The Songs of the Civil War. I don’t quite know why I didn’t explore the band itself, but that track was enough to get me interested for a while in the solo work of member Rhiannon Giddens. Last fall, my friend Al posted a song on God’s Jukebox by Leyla McCalla, a cellist and banjo player who served in the Carolina Chocolate Drops for a couple of years; I was intrigued enough to read more about the McCalla solo album it came from, and I wound up buying that album, Breaking the Thermometer, on a post-Christmas trip to Milwaukee, and listened to it a lot in January. Like many projects done by musicians in the Carolina Chocolate Drops circle, it has a historical bent; McCalla’s album is an examination of her Haitian roots as well as serving as a soundtrack for a multi-disciplinary stage production about Radio Haiti, the first station in the country to broadcast in the native tongue of the country’s downtrodden. The station was such a boon to democracy that Haitian tyrants constantly physically attacked the station, eventually murdering the owner.  I describe it here because this page was on hiatus when I bought it and I won’t be posting about it. Listening to the musicians in this circle is often going to be an interesting learning experience, and the album I’m posting here is no different.

Dom Flemons, another member of the now defunct Chocolate Drops, has here produced a double LP of historical songs from the wild west, focusing on the contributions of the countless black pioneers who helped build the country. It’s part of a series of albums by the Smithsonian Institute called African American Legacy Recordings, also connected to the National Museum of African American History and Culture. The aforementioned Rhiannon Giddens and Leyla McCalla are also part of an album in this series, Songs of Our Native Daughters, alongside likeminded musicians Amythyst Kiah and Allison Russell. I may have to buy that as well. 

In the second half of the ’90s, I was in thrall to old-timey historical recordings. This was prompted by the widespread release of Harry Smith’s 1950s multi-volume bootleg collection The Anthology of American Folk Music. I bought that box and carried on buying as much of the stuff as I could afford. I was often interested in black history, as well, and by the late ’90s I had started a graduate program in which my major research was devoted to black history, focusing on the Civil Rights movement. If I’d been able to have an album like Black Cowboys at the time, I would have loved it. (Actually, now that I think of it, I might have spurned it for being new recordings by a modern dude rather than archival performances, but today I’m less of a pedant about that.)

Above we see the front and back covers of the Black Cowboys album.

Below is the opened gatefold. As you can tell, Flemons likes to dress in period garb. This borders on cosplay to me, but I shouldn’t split hairs about it.

Here is the booklet. It’s an odd size and shape for a vinyl release; it’s taller than a CD booklet, yet not as wide.

Below is side one’s label. All four look the same.

Right after buying this, which I was thrilled to just find languishing in the folk section of my neighborhood store, I learned that Flemons now lives here in Chicago and it turns out that I just missed a performance by him. He appears to play here a lot, so maybe I’ll get a chance to see him before long.

Now that I realize I’m interested in multiple members’ solo work, I may need to make an effort to hear some actual Carolina Chocolate Drops albums.

[jonathankatwhatever]

22 Jan 2023. Waiting for the cat to come in from outside. He’s an American cat, whoo hoo. I have a deep love for trashy music.

That’s something I forgot to put down yesterday, the pet theory that black African and European exchanges led to the development of jazz through this basic idea: the African singing style was influenced by the tearing or broken quality of some European styles, notably Irish. I believe this is true because I’ve heard a lot of African and Caribbean music and the way that evidences in European traditional music is plaintive in a different way, one that expresses vocally as a more tearful style, one that directly conjures emotion, which conveys a vividness. That style has been around through my lifetime and, heaven knows, I’ve heard enough traditional Irish music too. And of course, it is at the root of much other European musical styles, including the various Jewish forms we call klezmer. I’m thinking of the opening of Rhapsdoy in Blue. That laughing clarinet was added during rehearsal from the klezmer.

The tearfulness is also in the way the clarity of tone changes by controlling the vibrato to make a sound similar to drawing a bow over a string, which of course speaks to the fiddle. That brings up the other pathway, which I assume is more well known: Italian immigrant band music, like the kind in The Godfather. The first pathway is older, since the Irish came in the 1840’s, and some came before that as part of the British Empire. The second means the 1880’s, when Italians arrived en masse, which fits the timeline for ragged time, because it’s like the band music Verdi would write for a scene that requires one of those bands on-stage. You can tell I’m thinking this through as I’m typing: wasting words.

I’m trying to say Verdi wrote music to sound bad in an opera that sounds polished. He has each piece play a wrong part, sometimes off in pitch, sometimes off in rhythm, but and varying the amount by which you hear individual wrong notes, so it sounds like they’re all being held together by their own wandering paths collectively leading them from start to finish. You can hear where they’re going and can often sing along, but they’re rarely all on the correct notes in the correct time. Like life in general, which I imagine is how Verdi saw it: his musical imagination would present the intrusion of actual life in that somewhat cacophonous style. It’s a wonderful inversion of the way reality actually is: regular life is occasionally enlivened by the perfection of his own music, and that inverts to his own music being interrupted by reminders of the world outside.

I was thinking about quaternions, trying to hear the voice that connects them to the dimensional structure. That’s a good way of getting into it: it’s a voice because there is a thread which actually connects, and that thread has to ‘sound’ in your head for you to perceive it. Anyone who thinks hears voices in their heads. The difference among people and peoples is, in many senses, is the nature and extent to which they hear the differences between and among those voices.

I think that idea first became rigorous in the concept of LUS, the lack of a true universal set, because - and I thought this was subtle at the time - then that’s like hearing only no, which means there must be a yes which isn’t where you are hearing no, which means there is no yes there, look elsewhere, and that elsewhere only exists if you decide the no must be the label at the visible end of a some connection where the other end is yes, and that must be true everywhere, all the time, so whatever constructs yes on the other end is what constructs yes from this end, which makes a pair whose relationship we can figure out, and that relationship is over LUS, which we called the Mirror, and which is now also a Counter, because the relationship is analyzed by looking at the 1-0-1 connection over the Mirror. That brings the ideas together: we Count over the Mirror. And there is an Observer to this, because Counting over the Mirror, cannot be done directly; you can’t look directly in the Mirror because you are a construction, a voice of voices, and all the movement among the many threads that make you present as ‘you’ but there’s no single you that can look directly in the mirror. You get flashes where you see yourself in some depth in some image, like in ideals, like this is how you look your best, or being goofy, or however, done perhaps to the maximum you can, as though you’re paid to act that way, which of course is the truth because everyone’s an actor at being themselves. But you can’t see all the way through, all the way down, all the way across, without a reflection.

And that is why quaternions aren’t commutative. Isn’t that riot? What we described above is basic Triangular into grid squares. Say I’m learning how to move like a left-handed swordsman, and I’m using that to increase my mobility by tying it to skills that translate into dance, where ideal movement has non-violent form, so connecting the passions from aggressive to receptive and back. That has always been 1-0-1 where the 0 is 0-1-0 and that 1 is everything. And that includes the everything of the Mirror, exactly as described above. This means the old visions of a spinning ball were correct. That was my intuition about Kurt’s spinning dust ball, that he didn’t realize it has to attach, which means a shell which attaches from the other side.

So, if I think about this in terms of completeness, we’ve identified how dimensions beyond what we can see, and thus answers beyond what we can see, follow this very process of 1-0-1. Oh, now I remember, at one point we called it the 1-0-1 Process. That’s actually a very good name. Look at your hand: you see it and that registers in your head, repeatedly, over and over, 1-0-1. As you turn it, 1-0-1, meaning the information passes over the Counters as the physical object, which is not at the location of your eyes. That’s the key really to understanding human development: we’ve born into a world of spatial awareness, meaning a world in which distance counts, in which there is perception between perception, and how that becomes more concrete as your senses are exposed to the world outside your womb. The you inside you moves farther away from the you that began as you: you develop response patterns that manifest a personality that is both unique and yet familiar in its traits, meaning both as a child whose development can be evaluated on a scale and as a relative.

So, you can look into the sun, particularly if you take the ancient concept of the sun as being God, as being the eye of God, whose other eye is the moon, which you personify in stories of all sorts, which you identify with a deity who represents a manageable conception of what cannot be conceived, a human face for creation. But you can’t look directly in the mirror. That has two parts. One is that you are a construction emitting, meaning how you see yourself depends on what you are looking for at that moment and how well the actual look you give fits what you are actually looking for. The other is what you see, and thus how you react. That makes a cycle in which you process the differences and the similarities to come up with an image you like or hate or find suitable for the moment in some way.

Why that cycle? Quarternions! They follow the basic rule of 3 to 1. That’s rather obviously then why they can’t commute: the 1-0-1 Process generates similarities and differences, not a constant result. That is because when you cycle through the possible arrangements, they divide, because the threads have to break apart so they can combine to break apart.

Think about Humpty-Dumpty in that light. As an egg personified. You can’t crack an egg and uncrack it, but you can crack another and then another. The process of making eggs goes the one way, and that means it cycles through iteration of Objects, which is an iteration of an Object.

To be clear, I’m saying they can’t commute over the Mirror, as represented by the 1-0Segment which divides an fD and which becomes the Bip as where the hypotenuses, which expands the concept of fD and 1Space over higher dimensions (just as higher dimensions reduce to Triangular) so gs processes make grid squares and so on. That was very difficult to reach.

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I slightly edited the above for clarity.

To continue after a nap. That was begun at 6AM. I let him out when it’s about to become light to reduce the odds of him running into a predator, who by then is likely nearer home territory. Ere dawn, the cat emerges, seeking the late mouse and early bird.