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CDs by Rahsaan Roland Kirk
Blacknuss
/
Volunteered Slavery /
Bright Moments /
Brotherman in the Fatherland /
The Inflated Tear
Music Video:
Rahsaan
Roland Kirk
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Sun Ra Music CDs
Space Is the Place
(1972) /
Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy/Art Forms of
Dimensions Tomorrow (1992)
Lanquidity (2000) /
Angels & Demons at Play/The Nubians of Plutonia (1956,
1993) /
The Magic City (1965; 1993)
Super
Sonic Jazz (1956; 1992) /
Jazz in Silhouette: Music (1958, 1992) /
The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Vol. 1
(1965, 1999)
/
When Angels Speak of Love
(2000) /
Nuclear War (1982, 2001) /
Visits Planet Earth/Interstellar Low Ways (1956, 1992)
Sunrise in Different Dimensions (1980, 2007) /
Atlantis (1967, 1993)
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CDs by James
Brown
Live
at the Apollo /
Messing with the Blues /
20 All-time Greatest Hits /
Star Time /
50th Anniversary Collection /
Foundations of Funk
The PayBack /
Say
It Live and Loud
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Long Live the Kings of Black Entertainment
James Brown
— Rashaan Roland Kirk
— Sun Ra
By Rudolph Lewis
James Brown's dramatic death Xmas
morning caused me to reconsider his impact on my life.
He was a childhood icon that later became a bit
tarnished. One might say that outside of my family
church his was the first dramatic performance I
experienced. That was at the Royal Theatre in Baltimore
on Pennsylvania Avenue, then the Negro entertainment
district, before the 1968 post- MLK assassination riots.
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I was twelve, maybe fourteen years
old up from the countryside visiting my mother
for the summer when she lived in Cherry Hill. The exact
time is a bit vague, though I suspect that it was before
I graduated from high school in 1965. But by that time,
I think I had listened to jukebox 45s of “Try Me”
(1959), “Think” (1960), “Bewildered” (1961), maybe even “Lost
Someone” and “Night Train” (both issued in 1962). But it
was a great troupe of stars that came on before. JB
closed the program with his first hit. But it
was the way he performed rather than sang
“Please, Please” (1956) that ever stands out in
memory and of course his dancing—his quick feet and the
splits and his seemingly tireless energy, as in his
performance of
"Night Train." |
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In those days on the chitlin circuit,
stage shows would begin on maybe Wednesdays and extend
until Friday night. There would be two performances a
day—a matinee in the afternoon and then an 8 o'clock
show. On Fridays, there would be three performances,
ending with a midnight show. I saw James Brown for the
matinee and the 8 o'clock show.
Back in those days, one could go into
a theater for a movie or a live performance and stay all
day, as long as one remained in the building. I was too
young for the midnight show.
As I said, the only theatre I had
seen to that point occurred in a black Baptist church,
in my early days under the pastorate of Reverend General
Ruffin, a very dark, short stout man, very handsome and
very demanding morally. I was a childish believer, then.
With Ruffin, unlike the preacher who replaced him, there
was no silliness in the pulpit. He was thoroughly
convincing in bringing God into our presence.
James Brown did not necessarily bring
God into our presence at the Royal, but he certainly
brought a wholly convincing improvisational spirit into
our presence. As thrilling as any classic Negro sermon.
I was thoroughly convinced by his
“Please, Please” performance and when I saw it a
second time I was surprised that it was such a precise
copy of the performance that had been given hours ago,
with the same energy and with the same passion. Still it
was more than just an act, though it caused me to
reflect on Reverend Ruffin's performance in the pulpit.
In both cases it was more than just spirit possession
but consummate skill and planning and stunning
execution.
It was years later as an adult that I
saw a performance that rivaled JB's onstage presence.
Before I go on I must say, Brown's late sixties
performances and onward from
"Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" (1965) to "Say it Loud -
I'm Black and I'm Proud" (1968) to "Sex
Machine" (1970 disco) did little for me. They were
memorable indeed. But I had become politically aware
then and though James' funk was the in thing, he had
gotten a little
"Stoned To The Bone" (1974) for my taste. Of
course, he always remained Mr. Dynamite, the Hardest
Working Man in Show Business and however difficult I
found him, I couldn't help from loving and admiring him
because he was always running to stay ahead of what
everybody else was doing or trying to do and he was
successful in doing so.
That other performance occurred on
Charles Street near North Avenue at a program of the
Left Bank Jazz Society, which presented its programs
cabaret style, BYOB. It was Rahsaan Roland Kirk,
the blind jazzman who played multiple instruments all at
once. Like Brown he came off as a supernatural force.
His circular breathing (ballooning jaws), which he claims to have learned
from the Australian aborigines, is a wonder that gives
the impression of continuous dynamic energy, much like
Brown’s dancing and footwork And his costumes
behind huge black sun glasses with bags of instruments,
two/three horns in his mouth at once and he's blowing
and fingering. And you spacing and dancing and the whole
world is filled with beautiful sounds inspired by
Rashann.
At the Left Bank program, Rashann's band came back from a break and
Ra announced that he was told that his group had to quit
the stage for a rock n roll band. So Rashaan and his band broke out
into "Volunteer Slavery." They rocked it and
rolled it and brought the house down.
Rahsaan had folks dancing on the tables, lined up
before the stage snorting coke, and the show ended with
him breaking up chairs on stage. . . . He was never invited
back to Baltimore. His stage presence was too dynamic,
too unpredictable.
The other greatest performer was
Sun Ra, again, presented by the Left Bank
Jazz Society. But this time at Coppin State College
Auditorium. I had listened to Sun Ra's records before I saw
the performance, his heliocentric worlds. I think he did Baraka’s
Black Mass.
Ra’s was the strangest performance I had ever seen, sort
of neo-African, cosmic mystery, much stranger and
definitely more intriguing than George Clinton's
Parliament. But Ra's performance at Coppin did not
possess the magic as I had imagined it. The problem I
think was the setting—the college auditorium. It was too
huge and too much light and open space. The same problem with
stage shows at the Civic Center. There was a problem
with intimacy.
There are film clips however that are
much more successful in capturing
Sun Ra as performer. In these he is thoroughly
convincing. It comes off as more than Act. The man plays
such wild music but he floats around quiet and
self-possessed—"destination unknown." Sun Ra was on a
different plane than anyone on Planet Earth. In capes
and Egyptian headdress I wouldn't be surprised if he
visited us sometime soon.
I suspect that the best ancient
dramatic performances occurred after dark or in the
twilight with artificial light (all kinds), instrumental music,
human voices, movement (to and fro), and costumes (all colors). All of these
performances were on the borderline of the secular and
the sacred, of reality and myth, the ordinary and the
extraordinary.
Strangely the first drama as drama I actually saw was a
play by
Amiri Baraka
(LeRoi Jones), not in a theatre but in a
church just off Fremont Avenue and Edmondson Avenue in
Baltimore. That was probably in early 1968. Stokely
Carmichael, as well as LeRoi and his group, was there.
All of these were in what Baraka calls the tradition of
African American entertainment. Words cannot fully
capture what it is that these performers and
performances achieved and
the impact that they had/have on consciousness.
One must experience JB,
Rashann, and Sun Ra directly to appreciate truly the
uniqueness and the wonder of their performances. There
are not words sufficient to describe the impact they
had/have. They each had their own unique way
of transporting us from the doldrums of our workaday
worlds, from soulful depression, from fragmentation and
alienation to thrilling heights of elation, fulfillment,
and wholeness. In seeing them at work, one cannot help
but smile in somewhat unbelief at what is being
observed. . . . Long live the messengers of the gods!
Read also
Jamie Walker's Tribute
—
http://www.pageturner.net/gbc/
(The Royal Theatre image above is from a painting by
Kaki)
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James Brown Interview 1978
Brown talks about the difficulties of his early life. He only
went to school through 7th grade but he says the lack of
education also ensured that he would learn about life through
experience. "I know the whole thing and I'm glad I know it," he
says. "I have a 7th grade education formally but a doctor's
degree in the street. I know what it's about."
Before his musical success, he says, he worked at a lot of hard,
low-paying jobs, such as shining shoes and picking cotton. But
at the time interview, he owned three radio stations and was
producing his own syndicated television show. Brown startles
Scott by announcing it is his 45th birthday, rising from his
chair and launching into a series of dance moves that included
dropping to his knees and popping back up to his feet. Scott
asks how Brown can keep doing that kind of thing at his age.—Matrix
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James Joseph Brown, Jr.
(May 3, 1933 – December 25, 2006) was an American singer and
entertainer. Eventually referred to as "The Godfather of Soul",
Brown started singing in church groups and worked his way up. He
has been recognized as one of the most influential figures in
the 20th century popular music and was renowned for his vocals
and feverish dancing. He was also called "the hardest working
man in show business" As a prolific singer, songwriter, dancer
and bandleader, Brown was a pivotal force in the music industry.
He left his mark on numerous artists. Brown's music also left
its mark on the rhythms of African popular music, such as afrobeat, jůjú and mbalax,
and provided a template for go-go music—Wikipedia
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Rahsaan
Roland Kirk on YouTube
Volunteered Slavery /
Bright Moments, part 1 /
Bright Moments, part 2
Nightmusic /
I Say A Little Prayer /
Balm in Gilead /
Buddy Guy, Roland Kirk, and Jack Bruce
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RRahsaan Roland Kirk (August 7, 1935 – December 5, 1977)
was an American jazz multi-instrumentalist who played tenor
saxophone, flute and many other instruments. He was renowned for
his onstage vitality, during which virtuoso improvisation was
accompanied by comic banter, political ranting, and the ability
to play several instruments simultaneously. Kirk was born Ronald
Theodore Kirk in Columbus, Ohio, but felt compelled by a dream
to transpose two letters in his first name to make Roland. He
became blind at an early age as a result of poor medical
treatment. In 1970, Kirk added "Rahsaan" to his name after
hearing it in a dream.
Wikipedia
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Mockingbirds at Jerusalem
(poetry
Manuscript)
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1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus
Created
By Charles C. Mann
I’m
a big fan of Charles Mann’s previous
book
1491:
New Revelations of the Americas Before
Columbus, in which he
provides a sweeping and provocative
examination of North and South America
prior to the arrival of Christopher
Columbus. It’s exhaustively researched
but so wonderfully written that it’s
anything but exhausting to read. With
his follow-up,
1493, Mann has taken it to a
new, truly global level. Building on the
groundbreaking work of Alfred Crosby
(author of
The Columbian Exchange and, I’m
proud to say, a fellow Nantucketer),
Mann has written nothing less than the
story of our world: how a planet of what
were once several autonomous continents
is quickly becoming a single,
“globalized” entity.
Mann not only talked to countless
scientists and researchers; he visited
the places he writes about, and as a
consequence, the book has a marvelously
wide-ranging yet personal feel as we
follow Mann from one far-flung corner of
the world to the next. And always, the
prose is masterful. In telling the
improbable story of how Spanish and
Chinese cultures collided in the
Philippines in the sixteenth century, he
takes us to the island of Mindoro whose
“southern coast consists of a number of
small bays, one next to another like
tooth marks in an apple.” We learn how
the spread of malaria, the potato,
tobacco, guano, rubber plants, and sugar
cane have disrupted and convulsed the
planet and will continue to do so until
we are finally living on one integrated
or at least close-to-integrated Earth.
Whether or not the human instigators of
all this remarkable change will survive
the process they helped to initiate more
than five hundred years ago remains,
Mann suggests in this monumental and
revelatory book, an open question. |
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Say it Loud: Poems about James Brown
Edited by Michael Oatman and Mary Weems
Preface by Lamont
B. Steptoe
This anthology is a
tribute in poems to James Brown and includes work by
over 30 poets including Amiri Baraka, Emotion Brown,
Katie Daley, Thomas Sayers Ellis, Kelly A. Harris, Tony
Medina, Ayodele Nzinga, Michael Oatman, Michelle Rankins,
Patricia Smith, Lamont B. Steptoe, George Wallace and
Mary Weems.
"On May 3, 1933,
James Joseph Brown was born in Barnwell, South Carolina
in the heart of Jim Crow America. On December 25, 2006,
JB, the hardest working man in show business passed on.
These poems celebrate, memorialize and speak to the
legacy of the Godfather of Soul. They share
their memories from childhood to adulthood of the man
who was influenced by such musical giants as Little
Richard, but who laid the physical and musical steps for
artists such as Michael Jackson and many current Rap and
Hip Hop musicians today."—Adah Ward-Randolph
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The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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If you like this page consider making a donation
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Negro Digest /
Black World
Browse all issues
1950
1960
1965
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
____ 2005
Enjoy!
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
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The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
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Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
/
January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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posted 27 December 2006
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