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Raymond
Miles, “Heaven is the Place”
A Gospel for Now on BOL
"I know what it
means to miss New Orleans" Let me be the first to say I like gospel. I
was raised on gospel music. It is just as much a part of me as
the rhythm of my heart. It is not something that I can get away
from. Mahalia's voice/passion is my mother’s breast, my living
in the world. You see in a southern Virginia black church that
was the music—and Mahalia was the queen. So New
Orleans gospel is all mixed up with the blues and the people and
the freedoms of jazz. So New Orleans ain’t just in New
Orleans. It became an American music.
Now, let me say, I do not listen to a lot of
gospel these days. I don't care that much about the
sophistication and the jazz arrangements of popular gospel. Well
I still listen to James Brown. But he knows that the music—the
drum got to be true, how it really be.
When I saw him in B'more on Pennsylvania
Avenue at the Royal Theater, two times in one day – a matinee
and the following 8 o'clock show, it was then I understood what
the black preacher in that black church with a choir behind him,
what he was doing, in backwoods VA. I saw perfection in
"Please, Please, Please." A spirit man, an artist, an
actor, man of the people.
But that was the surface reality of the black
church. The real black church occurred during summer revival,
which lasted five nights, beginning Sunday with homecoming, when
your folk come from scattered places. They come home to thank
the Lord for his blessings, with their love ones, with their
peoples.
Well, that's the way it was done at the
country Baptist churches—the most independent of black
churches. These churches emphasized community. These are a new
people, a constantly renewing kind of people. Their faith is
caught up in their faith in the Lord.
Now when I was growing up there was no
hanging image of Christ. Of course, the fans and some of the
Sunday school material came from outside of the community with
the "classic" image of Christ made commercially
popular in the 50s. The true Christ came alive in the
pulpit—in the person of the preacher. Ours was Reverend
General Ruffin. black and stocky like he from Ghana, a shiny
chocolate, a beautiful set of teeth and about as serious a being
as a black boy ever feels from afar.
He commanded the elements. He had powers to
evoke the spirit and make it manifest itself in his person—and
in you, in the people, he could create, find oneness. That power
New Orleans music retains, been renewing for a century or more.
Let us say it's that African thing, that ancient man thing of
possession by the Spirit, by Being itself. Well, pop gospel gets
fancy, cute, sophisticated. And so the gospel this brother does
is different than all that. This gospel makes us special.
What is that us? Maybe it’s tribal. It sure
ain't upward mobile, trying to fit in where you can get in by
any deceptive means at hand. That ain't what New Orleans is all
about. That's why as a place, as a living thing, a little
experiment, it reminds us about who we are and what we be. What
is our promise and what is our gift to America.
Now, I ain't talking about these
million-dollar preachers we got now. Country Baptists are famous
for keeping preachers on the move. Because back then churches
were communities, families of achievement and all kinds and
levels, and we are all together, as one, worlds with their own
beginnings, ties, memories, working together, dying together.
And if a preacher couldn't truly bring the Spirit to sustain
that community then he got the boot. He is not the One. And
black folks are always on the outlook for the One.
During revival, before there was any
preaching, the congregation itself takes over the service, the
ceremony. Anyone can raise a song, and the congregation would
urge them on, responding, chanting his words out and if it’s
one of those spirited surging songs, they be moving their feet,
and they be swinging it, as natural and as steady as a day’s
work. Anyone can get up and speak, either to praise God or mock
bad behavior, and there would be amens, and clapping, too.
This vigorous congregation style is the true
black church. It is the black church at its most democratic, at
its most tribal, that is, with its emphasis on community and
compassion and responsibility.
In so much as the preacher, or a singer and a
choir, can evoke that and make it manifest itself in our hearts
and souls, he/she is one of us. New Orleans has this effect on
me, it refreshes, renews. That's what this brother's singing and
choir do, especially in the I'm Gonna Shout About It and the one
about Job and his faith.
He reminds me also of C.L. Franklin, who had much
more going on. Still I like what Miles does. It’s good
listening. . . . I know what it is to miss New Orleans.
*
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Forgetting Isn’t the Problem
Americans have a way of forgetting.
-- Miriam
I have been thinking about that. Well,
whether there are any historical parallels, semblances to the
losing of, destroying, of an American city, and dispersing
a million people from their homes, there's something unique
about this time, even as our country preacher speaks of
slave ships. People speak also of the Oakies, as the
closest that is similar to this forced migration of people. I suppose blacks
would think of 1910-20 and 1940s.
But never, even if we take the Oakie example,
never have there been such a dispersion in a short period of
time, the only semblance is Reconstruction, maybe as confused,
which shows you how clumsy American governments are. But
not even Jubilee-Reconstruction has been so photographed and
images dispersed so thoroughly as the destruction of New
Orleans, my sweet woman abused and raped.
We were spectators—the whole global network
of cyber technology users. We too must conclude, even if I
exaggerate about the amount of paper spent on images and ink,
paper rots, and cyberspace is almost like a living thing that
goes on and on, like that bunny. There's no way this event can
be swept under the carpet. There are too many witnesses. So I
don't think "forgetting" is gonna be the problem.
This one we can win.
I think America is special. Maybe it's my
early training in a backwoods one-room framed school in southern
Virginia, home of Presidents and other great men, and greater
women. Maybe it’s that one teacher (pretty, beautiful hand,
Miss Trisvan), her seven grades, fifty or so students, a pot
belly stove in a sandbox. The American flag with the 48 stars.
Our pledge of allegiance. The nation's songs that spoke of we
the American people.
They say the earliest teachings one recalls
even in senility. So I admit I have been trained. But even the
poet Langston Hughes believes in America, in his poems. Black
folk have always believed in America. I can't recall a
historical time, now you may correct me if I'm wrong, that black
folk as black folk didn't believe in America.
So I'm gonna believe that the comfortable
middle-class of whatever complexion, believe that they are
Americans and Americans deep down believe in the we. Now they
may indeed forget or behave as if they don't know the we. That's
self-blindness. That's cynicism. That's loving comfort over
principle. That's deviltry. I think, nay, I believe, I don't
know it as hard evidence (because I been disappointed a many a
time), I have faith that Americans are greater than their
colors. America has a soul, an enduring soul. It has grown,
learned from its people and its others.
Now I ain't gonna say that many won't drag
their feet. And they got all kind of weights to hold a thing in
place. Not least among these are the corporate media and
academia. One thing we have learned in the last two weeks, most
people have concluded that one cannot depend on the corporate
media for all of the story, or to report the story with
objectivity, or photo or caption things as they really are,
were.
Reporters are moved too often by
sensationalism. The circus. That is what gets the public
attention. And, man, the ratings pay the bills. And you can
become a star if you got the appeal "right."
But as the politicos discovered in the last
presidential election the cyber-networks are powerful. We in a
new place. Many come to the table without being rich, without
being the Alpha male, and influence the course of American, or
channel of American, thinking and feeling -- partly because with
these cyber-networks we can bring the people of the world in as
our audience. Let them too have a voice, encourage them to
speak. What should America be doing in this particular
situation. If She can't deal with her most intimate
problems of social justice, who're they to be so self-righteous
with us, so Christian.
So no not again, there won't be any
forgetting. It's the doing that's the problem. Can we use these
cyber-networks to force people to do what they should do? That's
up for grabs now. How many can we bring into our world, feel
with us, work with us?
As ever and always,
Rudy (12
September 2005)
*
* * * *
burning
all four wheels.
It's the truest poetry, we need singers in
these times of the movement of people, these sojourners. The
Uptown Rulers don't want to be nowhere else. They want to go
home. And that's the way it ought to be. So we should make it
be. You telling me with all our technology we can't make it be
in the 21st century.
This is the time, my brother, this is, the
time of the separation. America's gonna be obliged to change her
way. America is before the court of world opinion. Which road
will she take? These questions are on the dock. How's America
gonna confront this first great crisis of the 21st century.
How shall she in we come to terms with the
visual relation of race and poverty, and the aural and visual
class racism as a sophisticated sport. Which way America -- What
road will you take -- Can you heal yourself America -- Fulfill
your promise?
It won't be easy. But I believe we can talk
her into it. If we make the right appeal. White people are 70%
of the population and let's say the overwhelming majority of
them are middle-class or working class with money and want to
hold onto as much as possible. We need them, they need us. It is
a creative and dynamic combination.
I think that we as we can speak to these
people as we speak to ourselves in a language that they can
understand. Like they understand our dance, our music, our
songs. Maybe now is the time they can understand our words, our
reason, our hearts, and souls, and have pride in us, as we have
desired. A gift, a revelation. Maybe this is the now time for
America, the real America to be.
I we the wordmasters we say we with powers
from the Most High. This is not too great then a task for us to
bring forth when there are ears to listen, and a people open for
understanding. I say let it be and it be. Now all together. Say
amen.
As ever and always, Rudy (13
September 2005)posted 13 September 2005 |