Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Solar Throat Slashed: Part Two with Clayton Eshleman


Show description for Sunday 8/28/2011 @ 3:00 PM - 6:00 PM


Our guest today on the 5 o'clock hour, Clayton Eshleman (pictured at right), discussing his most recent work, in collaboration with A. James Arnold, Solar Throat Slashed, the unexpurgated 1948 edition of the masterwork by Aimé Césaire.


Soleil cou coupé (Solar Throat Slashed) is Aimé Césaire’s most explosive collection of poetry. Animistically dense, charged with eroticism and blasphemy, and imbued with an African and Vodun spirituality, this book takes the French surrealist adventure to new heights and depths. A Césaire poem is an intersection at which metaphoric traceries create historically aware nexuses of thought and experience, jagged solidarity, apocalyptic surgery, and solar dynamite. The original 1948 French edition of Soleil cou coupé has a dense magico-religious frame of reference. In the late 1950s, Césaire was increasingly politically focused and seeking a wider audience, when he, in effect, gelded the 1948 text—eliminating 31 of the 72 poems, and editing another 29. Until now, only the revised 1961 edition, called Cadastre, has been translated. The revised text lacks the radical originality of Soleil cou coupé. This Wesleyan edition presents all the original poems en face with the new English translations. Includes an introduction by A. James Arnold and notes by Clayton Eshleman.

“Not only do Eshleman and Arnold give us excellent translations of Césaire’s at times syntactically knotty, etymologically abstruse, and semantically bedeviling verse; they also contextualize the poems—with an introduction by Arnold and endnotes by Eshleman—with crucial historical information and lucid discussions of the complexities of the poems’ language.”Brent Hayes Edwards, author of The Practice of Diaspora


ArtistSongAlbumLabel

Charles Mingus QuartetWhat Love?Charles Mingus Presents Charles MingusCandid

Mahmood JamalA Gift of BloodAn Evening of International PoetryAlliance Records

Mahmood JamalSilenceAn Evening of International PoetryAlliance Records

Bud PowellBlue PearlBud!: The Amazing Bud Powell Volume 3Blue Note

Bud PowellJohn's AbbeyTime WaitsBlue Note

Mushtaq SinghThe Respite An Evening of International PoetryAlliance Records
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Mushtaq Singh4 Lines in Urdu TranslationAn Evening of International PoetryAlliance Records

Lee MorganAll At Once, You Love HerCandy Blue Note

Bill EvansTenderlyEverybody Digs Bill EvansRiverside

Carmen McRaeHow Did He Look?BittersweetFocus

Carmen McRaeGuess I'll Hang My Tears Out To DryBittersweetFocus

Carmen McRaeThe Meaning of the BluesBittersweetFocus

Thad Jones Something To Remember You ByThe Magnificnet Thad JonesBlue Note

Accabre HuntleyEaster Monday BluesAn Evening of International PoetryAlliance Records
========================== Airbreak ==========================

Paul ChambersUntitled (Bebop Blues)Bass On TopBlue Note - Japan

Billie HolidayA Fine RomanceAll or Nothing AllVerve

Billie HolidayCheek to CheekAll or Nothing AllVerve

Charles MingusBugsComplete Candid RecordingsMosaic

Cecil RajendraThe Animal & Insects ActAn Evening of International PoetryAlliance Records

Gil Evans OrchestraStratusphunkOut of the CoolImpulse
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Beverly KenneyA Woman's IntuitionSings For PlayboysDecca

Beverly KenneyYou're My BoySings For PlayboysDecca

Beverly KenneyWhat Is Thre To SaySings For PlayboysDecca

Bill EvansWhat Is Thre To Say?Everybody Digs Bill EvansRiverside
========================== Airbreak ==========================

Bill EvansApril In Paris (excerpt)Solo SessionsMilestone

Interview with Clayton Eshleman by Justin DesmanglesInterview with Clayton Eshleman by Justin DesmanglesInterview with Clayton Eshleman by Justin DesmanglesInterview with Clayton Eshleman by Justin Desmangles

Bill EvansApril In Paris (excerpt)Solo SessionsMilestone

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Aime Cesaire: Solar Throat Slashed, Part One with A. James Arnold


Show description for Sunday 8/21/2011 @ 3:00 PM - 6:00 PM


Our guest today on the 5 o'clock hour, A. James Arnold, discussing his most recent work, in collaboration with Clayton Eshelman, Solar Throat Slashed, the unexpurgated 1948 edition of the masterwork by Aimé Césaire.

A. JAMES ARNOLD is an emeritus professor of French at the University of Virginia. He is the lead editor of Césaire's complete literary works in French (in progress) and author of Modernism and Negritude: The Poetry and Poetics of Aimé Césaire.

Soleil cou coupé (Solar Throat Slashed) is Aimé Césaire’s most explosive collection of poetry. Animistically dense, charged with eroticism and blasphemy, and imbued with an African and Vodun spirituality, this book takes the French surrealist adventure to new heights and depths. A Césaire poem is an intersection at which metaphoric traceries create historically aware nexuses of thought and experience, jagged solidarity, apocalyptic surgery, and solar dynamite. The original 1948 French edition of Soleil cou coupé has a dense magico-religious frame of reference. In the late 1950s, Césaire was increasingly politically focused and seeking a wider audience, when he, in effect, gelded the 1948 text—eliminating 31 of the 72 poems, and editing another 29. Until now, only the revised 1961 edition, called Cadastre, has been translated. The revised text lacks the radical originality of Soleil cou coupé. This Wesleyan edition presents all the original poems en face with the new English translations. Includes an introduction by A. James Arnold and notes by Clayton Eshleman.

“Not only do Eshleman and Arnold give us excellent translations of Césaire’s at times syntactically knotty, etymologically abstruse, and semantically bedeviling verse; they also contextualize the poems—with an introduction by Arnold and endnotes by Eshleman—with crucial historical information and lucid discussions of the complexities of the poems’ language.”Brent Hayes Edwards, author of The Practice of Diaspora

“Since Césaire first came into our view, he has seemed to some of us to be, with Breton and Artaud, one of the three truly unbounded poets of Surrealism—not so much lyrical, as with some other, more readily accessible poets (Eluard and Desnos the finest among them), but as Diderot had it over two centuries ago: the maker of a poetry that was and had to be ‘barbaric, vast and wild.’ It is the genius of the present gathering to rescue from previous editings and literary compromises the full force of Césaire’s remarkable 1948 work, Soleil cou coupé/Solar Throat Slashed. The result—in both the original French and in Eshleman’s and Arnold’s remarkable and no-holds-barred translation—is a reconstituted masterwork of the twentieth century and ample grist for the century to come.”Jerome Rothenberg, editor of Technicians of the Sacred







ArtistSongAlbumLabel

William Parker featuring Leena ConquestIf There's A Hell BelowI Plan To Stay A BelieverAUM - Fidelity

William Parker Organ QuartetThe StruggleUncle Joe's Spirit House Centering Music

Wasimxzama Khan NaseriKavaliMusic In the World of Islam: VoicesTopic Records

Dunya YunisAbu ZelufMusic In the World of Islam: VoicesTopic Records
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Henry Threadgill ZooidExtremely Sweet WilliamThis Brings Us To, Vol. 2Pi

Henry Threadgill ZooidPolymorphThis Brings Us To, Vol. 2Pi

Henry Grimes & Rashied AliRapid TransitSpirits AloftPorter

Michael BisioTravel MusicTravel Musicmichaelbisio.com
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Louie Belogenis TrioTiresiasTiresiasPorter

Henry Threadgill ZooidWhite Wednesday Off the WallThis Brings Us To, Vol. 1Pi
========================== Airbreak ==========================

Farmers By NatureOut of This World's Distortions Grow Aspens and Other Beautiful ThingsOut of This World's DistortionsAUM - Fidelity

Interview with A. James Arnold by Justin DesmanglesInterview with A. James Arnold by Justin DesmanglesInterview with A. James Arnold by Justin DesmanglesInterview with A. James Arnold by Justin Desmangles

Farmers By NatureOut of This World's Distortions Grow Aspens and Other Beautiful ThingsOut of This World's Distortions AUM - Fidelity

Sunday, August 21, 2011

10 Years That Shook The City

Show description for Sunday 8/14/2011 @ 3:00 PM - 6:00 PM

Our guest this afternoon on the 5 o'clock hour, Chris Carlsson, author, activist and most recently editor of the newly published collection of essays Ten Years That Shook the City

A collection of first-person and historical essays spans the tumultuous decade from 1968, the year of the San Francisco State College strike, to 1978 and the twin traumas of the Jonestown massacre and the assassinations of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk. This volume provides a broad look at the diverse ways those ten years shook the City and shaped the world we live in today. From community gardening to environmental justice, gay rights and other identity-based social movements, anti-gentrification efforts, neighborhood arts programs and more, many of the initiatives whose origins are described here have taken root and spread far beyond San Francisco.

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Michael SmithSay Natty / GoliathAn Evening Of International PoetryAlliance Records

Mushtaq SinghThe Respite / 4 Lines In Urdu TranslationAn Evening Of International PoetryAlliance Records

Art Ensemble Of ChicagoJa (Bowie)Nice GuysECM

Art Ensemble Of ChicagoCyp (Mitchell)Nice GuysECM

Mahmood JamalA Gift Of BloodAn Evening Of International PoetryAlliance Records

Mahmood JamalSilenceAn Evening Of International PoetryAlliance Records

Accabre HuntleyEaster Monday BluesAn Evening Of International PoetryAlliance Records

Joseph Jarman - Don MoyeOde To Wilbur Ware (Moye)Black PalladinsBlack Saint

Jim AgardStereotypeAn Evening Of International PoetryAlliance Records

Jim AgardGraffiti In A British Rail Waiting RoomAn Evening Of International PoetryAlliance Records
========================== Airbreak ==========================

Chico FreemanAscent (Freeman)The Outside WithinIndia Navigation

Cecil RajendraThe Animal And Insects ActAn Evening Of International PoetryAlliance Records

Linton Kwesi JohnsonDi Great InsohrekshanAn Evening Of International PoetryAlliance Records

Joe HendersonSerenity (Henderson)An Evening With Joe HendersonRed

Bennie Green Soul Stirrin' (Green)Soul Stirrin'Blue Note - Japan

Ernie HenryCleo's Chant (Henry)Presenting Ernie HenryRiverside - Japan
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Claude McKayIntroduction To If We Must DieAnthology Of Negro PoetsFolkways

Claude McKayIf We Must DieAnthology Of Negro PoetsFolkways

Bobby Hutcherson Ghetto Lights (Hill)DialogueBlue Note

Charles MingusMoanin' (Mingus)Blues & RootsAtlantic

Calvin C. HerntonJitterbugging In The StreetsNew Jazz PoetsBroadside Records

Kenny Dorham featuring Ernie HenryIs It True What They Say About Dixie?2 Horns 2 RhythmRiverside
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Jackie McLeanParker's Mood (Parker) excerptLive At MontmartreSteeple Chase

Interview With Chris Carlsson By Justin DesmanglesInterview With Chris Carlsson By Justin DesmanglesInterview With Chris Carlsson By Justin DesmanglesInterview With Chris Carlsson By Justin Desmangles

Jackie McLeanParker's Mood (Parker) excerptLive At MontmartreSteeple Chase

Charlie Parker - Dizzy GillespieShaw 'Nuff (Parker-Gillespie)BebopNew World Records
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Bud Powell - Oscar Pettiford - Kenny ClarkeShaw 'Nuff (Parker-Gillespie)i grandi del Jazz Bud PowellFabri Editori

Thursday, August 11, 2011

An Open Statement to the Fans of The Help: On behalf of the Association of Black Women Historians

Friday, August 12, 2011

ABWH Logo

An Open Statement to the Fans of The Help:

On behalf of the Association of Black Women Historians (ABWH), this statement provides historical context to address widespread stereotyping presented in both the film and novel version of The Help. The book has sold over three million copies, and heavy promotion of the movie will ensure its success at the box office. Despite efforts to market the book and the film as a progressive story of triumph over racial injustice, The Help distorts, ignores, and trivializes the experiences of black domestic workers. We are specifically concerned about the representations of black life and the lack of attention given to sexual harassment and civil rights activism.

During the 1960s, the era covered in The Help, legal segregation and economic inequalities limited black women's employment opportunities. Up to 90 per cent of working black women in the South labored as domestic servants in white homes. The Help’s representation of these women is a disappointing resurrection of Mammy—a mythical stereotype of black women who were compelled, either by slavery or segregation, to serve white families. Portrayed as asexual, loyal, and contented caretakers of whites, the caricature of Mammy allowed mainstream America to ignore the systemic racism that bound black women to back-breaking, low paying jobs where employers routinely exploited them. The popularity of this most recent iteration is troubling because it reveals a contemporary nostalgia for the days when a black woman could only hope to clean the White House rather than reside in it.

Both versions of The Help also misrepresent African American speech and culture. Set in the South, the appropriate regional accent gives way to a child-like, over-exaggerated “black” dialect. In the film, for example, the primary character, Aibileen, reassures a young white child that, “You is smat, you is kind, you is important.” In the book, black women refer to the Lord as the “Law,” an irreverent depiction of black vernacular. For centuries, black women and men have drawn strength from their community institutions. The black family, in particular provided support and the validation of personhood necessary to stand against adversity. We do not recognize the black community described in The Help where most of the black male characters are depicted as drunkards, abusive, or absent. Such distorted images are misleading and do not represent the historical realities of black masculinity and manhood.

Furthermore, African American domestic workers often suffered sexual harassment as well as physical and verbal abuse in the homes of white employers. For example, a recently discovered letter written by Civil Rights activist Rosa Parks indicates that she, like many black domestic workers, lived under the threat and sometimes reality of sexual assault. The film, on the other hand, makes light of black women’s fears and vulnerabilities turning them into moments of comic relief.

Similarly, the film is woefully silent on the rich and vibrant history of black Civil Rights activists in Mississippi. Granted, the assassination of Medgar Evers, the first Mississippi based field secretary of the NAACP, gets some attention. However, Evers’ assassination sends Jackson’s black community frantically scurrying into the streets in utter chaos and disorganized confusion—a far cry from the courage demonstrated by the black men and women who continued his fight. Portraying the most dangerous racists in 1960s Mississippi as a group of attractive, well dressed, society women, while ignoring the reign of terror perpetuated by the Ku Klux Klan and the White Citizens Council, limits racial injustice to individual acts of meanness.

We respect the stellar performances of the African American actresses in this film. Indeed, this statement is in no way a criticism of their talent. It is, however, an attempt to provide context for this popular rendition of black life in the Jim Crow South. In the end, The Help is not a story about the millions of hardworking and dignified black women who labored in white homes to support their families and communities. Rather, it is the coming-of-age story of a white protagonist, who uses myths about the lives of black women to make sense of her own. The Association of Black Women Historians finds it unacceptable for either this book or this film to strip black women’s lives of historical accuracy for the sake of entertainment.

Ida E. Jones is National Director of ABWH and Assistant Curator at Howard University. Daina Ramey Berry, Tiffany M. Gill, and Kali Nicole Gross are Lifetime Members of ABWH and Associate Professors at the University of Texas at Austin. Janice Sumler-Edmond is a Lifetime Member of ABWH and is a Professor at Huston-Tillotson University.

Word Count: 766

Suggested Reading:

Fiction:

Like one of the Family: Conversations from A Domestic’s Life, Alice Childress

The Book of the Night Women by Marlon James

Blanche on the Lam by Barbara Neeley

The Street by Ann Petry

A Million Nightingales by Susan Straight

Non-Fiction:

Out of the House of Bondage: The Transformation of the Plantation Household by Thavolia Glymph

To Joy My Freedom: Southern Black Women’s Lives and Labors by Tera Hunter

Labor of Love Labor of Sorrow: Black Women, Work, and the Family, from Slavery to the Present by Jacqueline Jones
Living In, Living Out: African American Domestics and the Great Migration by Elizabeth Clark-Lewis

Coming of Age in Mississippi by Anne Moody

Any questions, comments, or interview requests can be sent to: ABWHTheHelp@gmail.com

ABWH Statement The Help (pdf) pdf button

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

To Undertake My Corners Open


Show description for Sunday 8/7/2011 @ 3:00 PM - 6:00 PM

Now to talk to me about black studies as if it's something that concerned [only] black people is an utter denial. This is the history of Western Civilization. I can't see it otherwise. This is the history that black people and white people and all serious students of modern history of the world have to know. To say it's some kind of ethnic problem is a lot of nonsense. - C.L.R. James, (1969)
O-Jazz-O
by Bob Kaufman

Where the string
At
some point,
Was umbilical jazz,
Or perhaps,
In memory,
A long lost bloody cross,
Buried in some steel cavalry.
In what time
For whom do we bleed,
Lost notes, from some jazzman's
Broken needle.
Musical tears from lost
Eyes.
Broken drumsticks, why?
Pitter patter, boom dropping
Bombs in the middle
Of my emotions
My father's sound
My mother's sound,
Is love,
Is life



pictured at right, Yves Tanguy, Dame a l'Absence, 1942

pictured above, Henry Treadgill, photo by Claudio Casanova


ArtistSongAlbumLabel

Henry Grimes & Rashied AliThis Must Have Always HappenedGoing to the RitualPorter

Odean PopeScorpio TwinsPlant LifePorter

Wordwind Chorus (Q.R.Hand)The Rap From Living On DreamsWe Are of the SayingWordwind Chorus

Michael BisioZephyr RevisitedTravel Musicmichaelbisio.com

Henry Threadgill ZooidAfter Some TimeThis Brings Us To (Volume 1)Pi

Al YoungSundays In DemocraciesSomething About the BluesSourcebooks
========================== Airbreak ==========================

Henry Threadgill ZooidLying EyesThis Brings Us To (Volume 2)Pi

Farmers By NatureSir Snacktray SpeaksOut of This Worlds DistortionsAUM-Fidelity

Wordwind Chorus (Reginald Lockett)A Veteran Contemplates the Fate of His Immigrant StudentsWe Are of the SayingWordwind Chorus

Darius Jones & Matthew ShippBleed Cosmic LiederAUM-Fidelity

Darius Jones & Matthew ShippUltima ThuleCosmic LiederAUM-Fidelity

Al YoungConjugal VisitsSomething About the BluesSourcebooks
========================== Airbreak ==========================

Michael BisioLivin' LargeTravel Musicmichaelbisio.com

Henry Threadgill ZooidTo Undertake My Corners OpenThis Brings Us To (Volume 1)Pi

David S. WareDuality Is OnePlanetary UnknownAUM-Fidelity

Farmers By NatureOut Of This World's Distortions Grow Aspens and Other Beautiful ThingsOut of This World's DistortionsAUM-Fidelity
========================== Airbreak ==========================

Henry Threadgill ZooidIt Never MovedThis Brings Us To (Volume 2)Pi

Wordwind Chorus (Reginald Lockett)The MovementWe Are of the SayingWordwind Chorus

Odean Pope featuring Marshall AllenCustody of the American SpiritUniversal SoundsPorter

Henry Threadgill ZooidExtremely Sweet WilliamThis Brings Us To (Volume 2)Pi
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Corey Wilkes & Abstrakt PulseLevitationCries From Tha GhettoPi

Marc RibotSpiritsSpiritual UnityPi

Ran Blake & Jeanne LeeNewswatchYou Stepped Out of a CloudOwl
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Art Ensemble of ChicagoEveryday's a Perfect Day[Sirius Calling]Pi

Thursday, August 4, 2011

I heard Erzulie singing on the waters of night


Show description for Sunday 7/31/2011 @ 4:00 PM - 6:00 PM


Desmangles



Let me bring some relief to my name,
famous for hiding runaway slaves
and future kings, sons of Europe,
whose marriage, arranged by Laveau,
brought stock to the fortunes of Creoles
and voodoo tyrants alike.

Let me display the roots and tethered vines,
the fetid swamp which covers this secret
with protoplasm, and basalt theory.
Wreckage from a promise kept,
beneath the fire of the fortaleza,
the villa of inquisitional escapees
mattering with Dahomey chiefs,
the ouster of Napoleon,
and the coinage of Négritude,
Césaire's notebooks, leaves
on the brackish ponds of my namesake.

And just below the freedom
of a million castles burned,
a slave masters whips drys
in the window of a museum,
near the blouse of my Corrina.

For a Bluesman's pluck and dash,
a railroad capsizes. The iron rails
of a ship going nowhere
in particular except home.

There, my swamp secret begins,
in the foliage of this poem.

The first breath
in a long song unsung.


ArtistSongAlbumLabel

Phineas Newborn Jr.What Is This Thing Called Love?Phineas' RainbowRCA

Dave BrubeckWaltz LimpCountdown: Time In Outer SpaceColumbia

George RussellConcerto For Billy The KidThe Jazz WorkshopRCA

Eddie Heywood The ContinentalEddie Heywood 1946-1947Chronological Classics

Tommy FlanaganUgly BeautyThelonicaEnja

Chick CoreaEronelTrio MusicECM
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Steve Lacy & Mal WaldronLet's Call ThisLet's Call ThisHat Art

Mary Lou Williams45 Degree AngleThe Jazz PianoRCA-France

John LewisSilverOrchestra U.S.A.RCA

Duke EllingtonPrimpin' For The PromPrimpin' For The PromCBS-France

Duke Ellington & Jimmy BlantonBluesDuke Ellington & Jimmy Blanton RCA

Dexter GordonShiny StockingsGettin' AroundBlue Note
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Jelly Roll Morton King Porter StompBlues And Stomps From Original Piano RollsBiograph

Benny GoodmanKing Porter StompBenny Goodman LiveAirshot

AirKing Porter StompAir LoreNovus

Steve Lacy & Mal WaldronWell You Needn'tLet's Call ThisHat Art

Chick CoreaLittle Rootie TootieTrio MusicECM

Tommy FlanaganOff MinorThelonicaEnja
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Dizzy GillespieBebopFor Musicians OnlyVerve

Bud PowellTempus FugitJazz GiantVerve
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Les McCann & Eddie HarrisComapred To WhatSwiss MovementAtlantic