All Jazz All Poetry for Bloomsday

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Artist	Song	Album	Label
Miles Davis & Gil Evans	Springsville	Miles Ahead	Columbia
Miles Davis & Gil Evans	The Maids of Cadiz	Miles Ahead	Columbia
Miles Davis & Gil Evans	The Duke	Miles Ahead	Columbia
World Saxophone Quartet	For Lester	Dances & Ballads	Nonesuch
Countee Cullen (James Earl Jones)	From the Dark Tower	A Hand is on the Gate	Verve-Folkways
Langston Hughes (Ellen Holly)	The Negro Speaks of Rivers	A Hand is on the Gate	Verve-Folkways
Robert Hayden (Moses Gunn)	Frederick Douglass	A Hand is on the Gate	Verve-Folkways
Paul Laurence Dunbar (Cicely Tyson)	We Wear the Mask	A Hand is on the Gate	Verve-Folkways
Nina Simone	Four Women	Wild is the Wind	Philips
Nina Simone	Lilac Wine	Wild is the Wind	Philips
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Johnny Dyani	Radebe	Witchdoctor's Son	SteepleChase
Johnny Dyani	Mbiza	Witchdoctor's Son	SteepleChase
Ishmael Reed	Judas	Conjure	Pangea
Woody Shaw	Tapscott's Blues	Moontrane	Muse
Thelonious Monk	Liza (All the Clouds'll Roll Away)	The Unique Thelonious Monk	Riverside
Thelonious Monk	Memories of You	The Unique Thelonious Monk	Riverside
Philip Whalen (Roy Glenn)	Big High Song for Somebody	Jazz Canto: Vol. One	World Pacific
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Billie Holiday	Love Me or Leave Me	Lady Sings the Blues	Verve
Billie Holiday	Too Marvelous for Words	Lady Sings the Blues	Verve
Jackie McLean	I'll Take Romance	Swing Swang Swingin'	Blue Note
Sterling Brown (James Earl Jones & Moses Gunn)	Ol' Lem	A Hand is on the Gate	Verve-Folkways
Helene Johnson (Josephine Premice)	Sonnet to a Negro in Harlem	A Hand is on the Gate	Verve-Folkways
Slim Harpo	Shake Your Hips	Shake Your Hips	Flyright
John Lee Hooker	Walkin' the Boogie	House of the Blues	Chess
Muddy Waters	Mannish Boy	The Real Folk Blues	Chess
Amiri Baraka	Class Struggle in Music, Part One	New Music - New Poetry	India Navigation
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Kenny Dorham	Lotus Blossom	Quiet Kenny	New Jazz
Sonny Rollins	Asiatic Raes	Newk's Time	Blue Note
Kamau Brathwaite	Calypso	Rights of Passage	Argo (U.K.)
Rahsaan Roland Kirk	Island Cry	Natural Black Inventions: Root Strata	Atlantic
Myron O'Higgins (Gloria Foster)	To a Young Poet	A Hand is on the Gate	Verve-Folkways
James Vaughn (Roscoe Lee Browne)	from Four Questions	A Hand is on the Gate	Verve-Folkways
Owen Dodson (Leon Bibb)	Counterpoint	A Hand is on the Gate	Verve-Folkways
Wayne Shorter	Wild Flower	Speak No Evil	Blue Note
Gwendolyn Brooks (Ellen Holly)	A Bronzeville Mother Loiters in Mississippi. Meanwhile, a Mississippi Mother Burns Bacon	A Hand is on the Gate	Verve-Folkways
Sarah Vaughn	Summertime	After Hours with Sarah Vaughn	Columbia
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Kamau Brathwaite	The Emigrants	Rights of Passage	Argo (U.K.)
Nina Simone	Wild is the Wind	Wild is the Wind	Philips
Miles Davis & Gil Evans	My Ship	Miles Ahead	Columbia
Miles Davis & Gil Evans	Miles Ahead	Miles Ahead	Columbia
Airbreak
Billie Holiday	I Thought About You	Lady Sings the Blues	Verve

Sun Ra: Black Man in the Universe, University of California, Berkeley, Spring 1971

 

This afternoon on New Day Jazz, in the 5 o'clock hour, we will be listening to the third lecture from Sun Ra's class, Black Man in the Universe, from the Spring Semester 1971, at the University of California, Berkeley. 

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Artist	Song	Album	Label
Johnny Dunn	Dunn's Cornet Blues	Steppin' on the Gas	New World Records
Charlie Johnson	The Boy in the Boat	Sweet and Low Blues	New World Records
James P. Johnson	What Is This Thing Called Love	Jive at Five	New World Records
Sidney Bechet	What Is This Thing Called Love	Jive at Five	New World Records
Billie Holiday	I Can't Get Started	When Malindy Sings	New World Records
Johnny Hodges	Passion Flower	Jive at Five	New World Records
Cab Calloway	Ebony Silhouette	Jammin' for the Jackpot	New World Records
Coleman Hawkins	Body & Soul	Jive at Five	New World Records
Serge Chaloff	Body & Soul	Introspection	New World Records
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James P. Johnson	Mule Walk	A Decade of Jazz 1939-1949	Blue Note
Edmund Hall	Seein' Red	A Decade of Jazz 1939-1949	Blue Note
Meade Lux Lewis	Honky Tonk Train Blues	A Decade of Jazz 1939-1949	Blue Note
Edmund Hall	Profoundly Blue	A Decade of Jazz 1939-1949	Blue Note
Sidney Bechet	Summertime	A Decade of Jazz 1939-1949	Blue Note
Bud Powell	A Night in Tunisia	A Decade of Jazz 1949-1959	Blue Note
Horace Silver	Senor Blues	A Decade of Jazz 1949-1959	Blue Note
Airbreak
Gigi Gryce	Nica's Tempo	Thelonious Monk and Herbie Nichols	Savoy
Hampton Hawes	Jumpin' Jacque	Black California	Savoy
Art Pepper	Surf Ride	Black California	Savoy
Herbie Nichols	'S Wonderful	Thelonious Monk and Herbie Nichols	Savoy
Herbie Nichols	Nichols and Dimes	Thelonious Monk and Herbie Nichols	Savoy
Helen Humes	Helen's Advice	Black California	Savoy
Helen Humes	Knockin' Myself Out	Black California	Savoy
Dizzy Gillespie	The Champ	The Historic Savoy Sessions	Savoy
Airbreak
Sun Ra	Astro Black (excerpt)	Astro Black	Impulse
Sun Ra	African-American Studies 198: The Black Man in the Universe	Spring Semester 1971	University of California, Berkeley
Walt Dickerson & Sun Ra	Astro (excerpt)	Visions	Steeplchase
Airbreak
Horace Parlan	U.M.M.G.	Like Someone in Love	Steeplechase

Night's Dancer

Show description for Sunday 3/11/2012 @ 3:00 PM - 6:00 PM

Our guest this afternoon on the 5 o'clock hour, Yaël Tamar Lewin, dance historian, writer, dancer, and most recently author of, Night's Dancer: The Life of Janet Collins, new from Wesleyan University Press

"Night's Dancer: The Life of Janet Collins is an enthralling read. It reinforces Collin's struggle, personal strength and ultimate success. While following her dreams with endless energy, she leapt over boundaries."—Karen Barr, Dance International

The biography of the first African-American prima ballerina

Dancer Janet Collins, born in New Orleans in 1917 and raised in Los Angeles, soared high over the color line as the first African-American prima ballerina at the Metropolitan Opera. Night’s Dancer chronicles the life of this extraordinary and elusive woman, who became a unique concert dance soloist as well as a black trailblazer in the white world of classical ballet. During her career, Collins endured an era in which racial bias prevailed, and subsequently prevented her from appearing in the South. Nonetheless, her brilliant performances transformed the way black dancers were viewed in ballet. The book begins with an unfinished memoir written by Collins in which she gives a captivating account of her childhood and young adult years, including her rejection by the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. Dance scholar Yaël Tamar Lewin then picks up the thread of Collins’s story. Drawing on extensive research and interviews with Collins and her family, friends, and colleagues to explore Collins’s development as a dancer, choreographer, and painter, Lewin gives us a profoundly moving portrait of an artist of indomitable spirit.

“With Night’s Dancer, Lewin has produced a major work that continues to correct the absence of historical writing on African Americans in ballet and modern dance. The author incorporates Collins’s own writings, intimate details from the artist’s life, and rich contextual material to create a work that is emotionally touching and incredibly informative.”—John O. Perpener III, author of African-American Concert Dance: The Harlem Renaissance and Beyond

“Blessed with extraordinary gifts for dance and painting, Janet Collins broke barriers as the first African-American prima ballerina at the world-renowned Metropolitan Opera. Her life’s journey is inspirational. History should recognize her as one of its pioneers. Janet Collins was truly one of earth’s angels.”—Arthur Mitchell, co-founder of the Dance Theatre of Harlem

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	Artist	Song	Album	Label
	Henry Grimes Trio	Dancestors	Sublime Communication 2: Live At Edgefest	Private Recording
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	Ran Blake & Jeanne Lee	You Stepped Out Of A Dream	You Stepped Out Of A Dream	Owl
	Ran Blake & Jeanne Lee	Newswatch	You Stepped Out Of A Dream	Owl
	Declared Enemy	Flowers	Salute To 100001 Stars: A Tribute To Jean Genet	Rogue Art
	Declared Enemy	Alberto's Workshop	Salute To 100001 Stars: A Tribute To Jean Genet	Rogue Art
	Declared Enemy	Mettray	Salute To 100001 Stars: A Tribute To Jean Genet	Rogue Art
	Woody Shaw	Stepping Stone	Live: Volume One	High Note
========================== Airbreak ==========================
	William Parker	Philadelphia Clay	Crumbling In The Shadows In Fraulein Miller's Stale Cake	Centering Music
	Tom Cora	Cows Stars Rivers And Giants	Gumption In Limbo	Sound Aspects
	Derek Bailey & Cyro Baptista	Rio Branco	Cyro	Incus
	Quincy Troupe	A Man Walks In Slow Motion	A New Tongue	Sound Art
========================== Airbreak ==========================
	Freddie Hubbard	Breaking Point (excerpt)	Breaking Point	Blue Note
	Interview With Yael Tamar Lewin By Justin Desmangles	Interview With Yael Tamar Lewin By Justin Desmangles	Interview With Yael Tamar Lewin By Justin Desmangles	Interview With Yael Tamar Lewin By Justin Desmangles
========================== Airbreak ==========================
	Henry Grimes Trio	Ritual Future / NowSongNew (excerpts)	Sublime Communication 2: Live At Edgefest	Private Recording
	Tyrone Brown featuring John A. Williams	Readings From Safari West	Suite For John A. Williams	Dreambox

Speaking with Joanne Griffith, editor of Redefining Black Power

Show description for Sunday 2/19/2012 @ 3:00 PM - 6:00 PM

Our guest this afternoon, on the 5 o'clock hour, Joanne Griffith, editor of Redefining Black Power, new from City Lights Books.

"Redefining Black Power is an important, historical rumination on race, class, power and politics in the Age of Obama. The conversations with such figures as Van Jones, Michelle Alexander and civil rights icon Dr. Vincent Harding are thoughtful, probing, nuanced insights into the state of African-American political power at this historic moment. The book raises challenging questions, but rather than offer definitive answers, it provokes the reader to personally define 'Black power' and inspires all of us to continue the work of 'deepening the meaning of democracy.'" – Wade Henderson, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights

"I agree with economist Julianne Malveaux, who says the notion that Obama's election made America 'post racial' is utter nonsense, when you look at current rates of poverty, income and unemployment among black people. Van Jones, former Green Jobs Czar at the White House, intrigued me when he claims that the youth who believe that electing a black president changes nothing were right. Joanne Griffith, of the Pacifica Radio Archives, interviews these and other long distance runners for justice to provide a lively array of conflicting, complex and critical attitudes the first black U.S. president has evoked, to answer the question of whether it's time to redefine Black Power." -- Kathleen Cleaver

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	Artist	Song	Album	Label
	Countee Cullen (read by James Earl Jones)	From The Dark Tower	A Hand Is On The Gate	Verve-Folkways
	Langston Hughes (read by Ellen Holly)	I've Known Rivers	A Hand Is On The Gate	Verve-Folkways
	Robert Hayden (read by Moses Gunn)	Frederick Douglass	A Hand Is On The Gate	Verve-Folkways
	Paul Laurence Dunbar (read by Cicely Tyson)	We Wear The Mask	A Hand Is On The Gate	Verve-Folkways
	Abbey Lincoln	Laugh Clown, Laugh	Abbey Is Blue	Riverside
	Tadd Dameron	Just Plain Talkin'	The Magic Touch	Riverside
	Kenny Dorham featuring Ernie Henry	Sposin'	2 Horns / 2 Rhythm	Riverside
	Eric Dolphy & Booker Little	Far Cry	Far Cry	New Jazz (Prestige)
	Frederick Williams	Babylon A Turn The Screw	An Evening Of International Poetry	New Alliance
	George Russell	All About Rosie	The 3rd Stream	RCA
	Count Basie	Little Pony	Classic Count	CBS
	Billie Holiday	Mean To Me	A Love Story	CBS
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	Eric Dolphy	Out There	Out There	New Jazz (Prestige)
	Sterling Brown (read by James Earl Jones & Moses Gunn)	Ol' Lem	A Hand Is On The Gate	Verve-Folkways
	Helene Johnson (Read by Josephine Premice)	Sonnet To A Negro In Harlem	A Hand Is On The Gate	Verve-Folkways
	Arna Bontemps (read by Leon Bibb)	Southern Mansion	A Hand Is On The Gate	Verve-Folkways
	Langston Hughes (read by Ellen Holly)	Mother To Son	A Hand Is On The Gate	Verve-Folkways
	Abbey Lincoln	Lost In The Stars	Abbey Is Blue	Riverside
	Abbey Lincoln	Long As Your Living	Abbey Is Blue	Riverside
	Tadd Dameron	Look, Stop & Listen	The Magic Touch	Riverside
	Hank Mobley	The Breakdown	Roll Call	Blue Note
	Steve Lacy	Criss Cross	The Staight Horn Of Steve Lacy	Candid
	Edward Brathwaite (Kamau Brathwaite)	The Emigrants	Rites Of Passage	Argo (U.K.)
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	Charles Mingus	Los Mariachis (The Street Musicians)	Tijuana Moods	RCA
	Roscoe Mitchell & Anthony Braxton	Off Five Dark Six	Nonaah	Nessa
	Roscoe Mitchell & Malachi Favors	A1 TAL 2LA	Nonaah	Nessa
========================== Airbreak ==========================
	Art Ensemble Of Chicago	Theme De Yoyo (excerpt)	Les Stances A Sophie	Nessa
	Interview With Joanne Griffith By Justin Desmangles	Interview With Joanne Griffith By Justin Desmangles	Interview With Joanne Griffith By Justin Desmangles	Interview With Joanne Griffith By Justin Desmangles
	Art Ensemble Of Chicago	Theme De Yoyo (excerpt)	Les Stances A Sophie	Nessa
========================== Airbreak ==========================
	Kenny Dorham featuring Ernie Henry	The End Of A Love Affair	2 Horns / 2 Rhythm	Riverside
	Bob Dorough & Bill Takas	Small Day Tomorrow	Beginning To See The Light	Laissez-Faire

Telling It Like It Is, with Daruis Jones & Paul Mooney

Show description for Sunday 11/27/2011 @ 3:00 PM - 6:00 PM

We are honored this afternoon on New Day Jazz to welcome one of the most exciting voices in jazz today, alto saxophonist, bandleader, composer, Darius Jones, in the 5 o'clock hour.

Also this afternoon, on the 4 o'clock hour, writer, actor, comedian, Paul Mooney returns to New Day Jazz. Mr. Mooney will be appearing at the Punch Line, in Sacramento, Dec. 1st - 4th.

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	Artist	Song	Album	Label
	Freddie Hubbard	The Intrepid Fox	Red Clay	CTI
	Dave Holland	Interception	Conference of the Birds	ECM
	Miles Davis	Directions	Paraphernalia	JMY
	Jack Hirschman	Occuparty Arcane	Private Recording	Private Recording
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	Darius Jones	Chasing The Ghost	Man'ish Boy	AUM-Fidelity
	Darius Jones	Big Train Rollin'	Man'ish Boy	AUM-Fidelity
	Hamiett Bluiett featuring Quincy Troupe	Snake Back Solos	Nali Kola	Soul Note
	Abbey Lincoln	You Made Me Funny	You Gotta Pay The Band	Verve
========================== Airbreak ==========================
	Henry Grimes & Rashied Ali	Moments (Poem)	Spirits Aloft	Porter
	Henry Grimes & Rashied Ali	Rapid Transit (excerpt)	Spirits Aloft	Porter
	Interview With Paul Mooney By Justin Desmangles	Interview With Paul Mooney By Justin Desmangles	Interview With Paul Mooney By Justin Desmangles	Interview With Paul Mooney By Justin Desmangles
	Henry Grimes & Rashied Ali	Rapid Transit (excerpt)	Spirits Aloft	Porter
	Louie Belogenis	Alabama	Tiresias	Porter
	Louie Belogenis	Seven Lives	Tiresias	Porter
	Darius Jones	A Train	Big Gurl (Smell My Dream)	AUM-Fidelity
	Darius Jones	Ol' Metal Faced Bastard	Big Gurl (Smell My Dream)	AUM-Fidelity
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	Darius Jones & Matthew Shipp	Overvoid	Cosmic Lieder	AUM-Fidelity
	Darius Jones & Matthew Shipp	Weeja Dell	Cosmic Lieder	AUM-Fidelity
	Darius Jones Interviewed By Justin Desmangles	Darius Jones Interviewed By Justin Desmangles	Darius Jones Interviewed By Justin Desmangles	Darius Jones Interviewed By Justin Desmangles
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	Dinah Washington	Cold, Cold Heart	Alabama	Oxford American

William Parker and Freedom Today

Show description for Sunday 11/6/2011 @ 3:00 PM - 6:00 PM

This afternoon, poet, philosopher, bassist, composer, William Parker returns to the program in the 5 o'clock hour. A preeminent figure in the development of the new music, Mr. Parker is a towering presence in international art & culture. His most recent release, on his own Centering Records, Crumbling In the Shadows Is Fraulein Miller's Stale Cake, is an extraordinary collection of solo bass performances. We will be listening in on many of his most recent projects, including those with David S. Ware, Planetary Unknown, and Craig Taborn, Out of This World's Distortions.

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	Artist	Song	Album	Label
	William Parker	Pointed Acceptance	Crumbling In the Shadows Is Fraulein Miller's Stale Cake	Centering Records
	William Parker & Hamid Drake	Anaya Dancing	Summer Snow	AUM-Fidelity
	William Parker & Hamid Drake	Konte	Summer Snow	AUM-Fidelity
	Farmers By Nature	Out Of This World's Distortions Grow Aspens and Other Beautiful Things	Out of This World's Distortions	AUM-Fidelity
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	David S. Ware / Cooper-Moore / William Parker / Muhammad Ali	Duality is One	Planetary Unknown	AUM-Fidelity
	David S. Ware / Cooper-Moore / William Parker / Muhammad Ali	Divination	Planetary Unknown	AUM-Fidelity
	William Parker	Velocity	Crumbling In the Shadows Is Fraulein Miller's Stale Cake	Centering Records
	William Parker	If There's A Hell Below	I Plan To Stay A Believer: The Inside Songs Of Curtis Mayfield	AUM-Fidelity
	William Parker Organ Quartet	The Struggle	Uncle Joe's Spirit House	Centering Records
========================== Airbreak ==========================
	William Parker & Hamid Drake	Sky	Summer Snow	AUM-Fidelity
	William Parker & Hamid Drake	Earth	Summer Snow	AUM-Fidelity
	Interview With William Parker By Justin Desmangles	Interview With William Parker By Justin Desmangles	Interview With William Parker By Justin Desmangles	Interview With William Parker By Justin Desmangles
========================== Airbreak ==========================
	William Parker	Green Mountains for Bill Dixon	Crumbling In the Shadows Is Fraulein Miller's Stale Cake	Centering Records

Will Alexander & Deep Time

Show description for Sunday 10/30/2011 @ 3:00 PM - 6:00 PM

Our guest this afternoon, in the 5 o'clock hour, poet Will Alexander. His most recent book, Compression & Purity, is new from City Lights. Also featured this week, new music from alto saxophonist and composer Darius Jones. His new disc, featuring Adam Lane on bass, and Jason Nazary on drums, is Big Gurl (Smell My Dream). We will also be listening in on the extraordinary 3 disc collection from William Parker Crumbling In the Shadows Is Fraulein Miller's Stale Cake.

Few poets writing today can compare with L.A.-based surrealist Will Alexander in terms of the intensity of his imagination or his radically experimental approach to language as material object. Through the use of automatic writing, Alexander practices a surrealism of the word, creating densely textured layers of signification from its sounded and written forms. Compression & Purity, volume five of our Spotlight poetry series, is Alexander's seventh full-length collection. Known for his visionary epics influenced by poets like Césaire, Artaud and Lamantia, Alexander here returns to shorter forms to address his ecological, cosmological and historical concerns. Highlights include monologues from the perspective of "The Blood Penguin" and "The Pope at Avignon," a song by the "Water on New Mars," and an homage to Cesar Vallejo, "Combustion & Leakage." In true surrealist fashion, the book also includes both an autobiographical lyric essay, "My Interior Vita," describing the evolution of Alexander's artistic consciousness through jazz and surrealism, and his disavowal of the autobiographical process, "On Anti-Biography." An imaginative tour de force, Compression & Purity confirms Alexander's reputation among surrealism's foremost contemporary practitioners.

"This new & rich gathering of Will Alexander's works – always in progress – marks him again as the true successor among us to the likes of Surreal & deeply explorative figures like Breton & Césaire. No other poet writing in America today does it the way that Alexander does – a range of words & images that startle & create new pathways for language & the mind-in-freedom (“alchemical, mesmeric, totalic,” as he names them in these pages). Compression & Purity, so aptly titled, is the work of a true American & world master – & a joy to have & read." —Jerome Rothenberg

“Even at its most confounding, most silent level, this work will unavoidably enter and leave you by a genetic thread of conscious mind woven beyond your 'domestic horizon,; your ‘provincial description' to a vibrating ‘celebration of un-brokeneness.’ This song, in the genealogical terms of cognitive evolution, sings us backwards ‘or forwards’ into a state where we are undifferentiated from the cosmos and can speak, as Will Alexander does, in the full range at once of carbon from dust to diamond.” —Ed Roberson

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	Artist	Song	Album	Label
	Darius Jones Trio	E-Gaz	Big Gurl (Smell My Dream)	AUM - Fidelity
	Darius Jones Trio	Michelle Loves Willie	Big Gurl (Smell My Dream)	AUM - Fidelity
	Darius Jones Trio	A Train	Big Gurl (Smell My Dream)	AUM - Fidelity
	William Parker	Green Mountains (for Bill Dixon)	Crumbling In the Shadows Is Fraulein Miller's Stale Cake.	Centering Records
	William Parker	Philadelphia Clay	Crumbling In the Shadows Is Fraulein Miller's Stale Cake.	Centering Records
========================== Airbreak ==========================
	Henry Threadgill Zooid	Lying Eyes	This Brings Us To, Vol. 2	Pi Recordings
	Henry Grimes & Rashied Ali	Larger Astronomical Time	Spirits Aloft	Porter Records
	Odean Pope featuring Marshall Allen	The Track	Universal Sounds	Porter Records
	Roscoe Mitchell & Muhal Richard Abrams	Romu	Spectrum	Mutable
========================== Airbreak ==========================
	Alice Coltrane	Leo	Translinear Light	Impulse
	John Coltrane	India	The Complete 1961 Village Vanguard Recordings	Impulse
========================== Airbreak ==========================
	Wasimxzama Khan Naseri	Kavali	Music In The World Of Islam: Human Voice / Lutes	Topic
	Dunya Yunis	Abu Zeluf	Music In The World Of Islam: Human Voice / Lutes	Topic
	Gadabursi Somali of Ogaden	Leader/Chorus Song (excerpt)	Music In The World Of Islam: Human Voice / Lutes	Topic
========================== Airbreak ==========================
	Interview With Will Alexander By Justin Desmangles	Interview With Will Alexander By Justin Desmangles	Interview With Will Alexander By Justin Desmangles	Interview With Will Alexander By Justin Desmangles
========================== Airbreak ==========================
	John Coltrane	Chasing The Trane	The Complete 1961 Village Vanguard Recordings

Does the Secret Mind Whisper? Nov. 11, 2011

• Friday NOV 11

"Does the Secret Mind Whisper?"
Will Alexander, Maria Damon and Justin Desmangles
a symposium on Bob Kaufman, Black surrealism, and cultural poetics
7:30 pm @ Meridian Gallery, 535 Powell Street,



Co-sponsored with Before Columbus Foundation

“…the ‘secret mind’ represents the convergence of multiple cultural trajectories. It is the political unconscious of the US, which registers all the ‘secret, terrible hurts’ (Kaufman, “Bagel Shop Jazz”) visited upon people who belong to an ‘America not on any map’ (Will Alexander), the disenfranchised who may ruminate silently on these social, spiritual and bodily injuries but who may speak of them openly only at their peril.”

—Maria Damon, Jacket2, “Poetry in 1960, A Symposium”

"Does the Secret Mind Whisper?" was the gnomic open question posed by poet Bob Kaufman in an early City Lights broadside by that title. In collaboration with the Before Columbus Foundation, the Poetry Center hosts an evening symposium under that rubric, in order to take up the nature of Kaufman's legacy and practice, and its extensions into the 21st Century. Featured guests include poet-scholars Will Alexander and Maria Damon, in conversation with Bay Area writer, radio host/dj and cultural worker Justin Desmangles.

BOB KAUFMAN (1925–1986) was a key participant in the 1950s San Francisco poetry renaissance and the Beat movement. Author of three renowned poetry broadsides, Abomunist Manfesto, Second April, and Does the Secret Mind Whisper?, published in the late 1950s by City Lights Books, his poetry in print remained elusive until two collections came out in the mid-1960s. The landmark Solitudes Crowded With Loneliness (1965), published by New Directions, has remained in print for better than four decades. Golden Sardine (1967) became a signature City Lights Pocket Poets volume alongside the works of renowned contemporaries Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. During Kaufman's last decade, editor Raymond Foye assembled the volume of fugitive works, Ancient Rain: Poems 1956–1978 (New Directions, 1981). The posthumous collection, Cranial Guitar: Selected Poems, appeared in 1996 (Coffee House Press). Following Kaufman's death in 1986, a two-hour feature program, Bob Kaufman, Poet, was produced by David Henderson for KPFA-FM and aired nationally through the Pacifica network. Regarded in France as "the American Rimbaud," Bob Kaufman has been celebrated internationally for his particular mode of Surrealism, permeated by a profound affinity for the outcasts of American society, the poor and punished. The late saxophonist and jazz song composer Steve Lacy called Kaufman "the greatest jazz poet, and the beatest of the Beats."

WILL ALEXANDER (see bio above) has previously published the essay "Bob Kaufman: The Footnotes Exploded" in Conjunctions 29: Tributes.

MARIA DAMON (see bio above) his written on Bob Kaufman, extensively in her early book The Dark End of the Street: Margins in American Vanguard Poetry (University of Minnesota) and more recently online at Jacket2.

JUSTIN DESMANGLES hosts the radio program New Day Jazz, currently at KDVS-90.3 FM, and available online, a heady blend of music and cultural commentary, focused on the African-American cultural continuum. Frequent guests offer a largesse of inquiring and informed commentary, via conversations with, e.g., scholars William W. Cook and James Tatum on African American Writers and Classical Tradition; A. James Arnold and Clayton Eshlemen on their collaborative translation of Aimé Césaire's Solar Throat Slashed; Robin D.G. Kelley on his stellar biography Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original; and jazz pianist Matthew Shipp on the legacy of Bud Powell. Chair of the Before Columbus Foundation, which hosts the annual American Book Award, Justin Desmangles has organized numerous public programs, at San Francisco Public Library and Yoshi's jazz club in San Francisco's Fillmore neighborhood, among other venues.

In a series of public programs on the life and legacy of Bob Kaufman under the title "Does the Secret Mind Whisper?" he recently brought together AACM co-founder Roscoe Mitchell with Kaufman's poetry in performances of original compositions. An upcoming November 14 Benefit for the Before Columbus Foundation at Yoshi's San Francisco will reunite Roscoe Mitchell and Amiri Baraka in duo performance, and feature the new Ishmael Reed Band.

African American Writers & Classical Tradition, Winner of the American Book Award 2011

African American Writers & Classical Tradition is the most exciting work of of literary criticism to emerge in decades. Indeed, it lays the groundwork for an entirely new field of study. Rarely can it be said that the reading of literary criticism is a joyful process, yet with this book, William W. Cook and James Tatum (pictured above, right to left), have produced just that. Written with great humor, at times tremendous passion, the reader is swept into the excitement of surprise and new discovery, following the adventure unearthed in the vast resources of classical Latin and ancient Greek literature employed by African American poets, novelists, and political thinkers. Once familiar, canonized figures, such as Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. DuBois, and Ralph Ellison, are illuminated in fresh, often startling ways. Neglected masters, Melvin B. Tolson, and George S. Schulyer, are revived, given new life, and shown to have vital relevance to today’s times, cutting to the very core of the most contentious and controversial issues in America. Relatively obscure artists, such as Fran Ross, author of Oreo, are given their proper place alongside the aforementioned giants, and the greatness of poet Rita Dove is affirmed in the brilliant concluding chapter. There is a tremendous sense of momentum in the pages of this book, a momentum propelled by the lifelong friendship of its authors, Cook & Tatum. Their shared wisdom, wit, and delight in the task of bringing this complex and subtle story to us, one so uniquely American, is felt throughout the work. African American Writers & Classical Tradition, presents a new, and much needed, image of American literature, indeed, of American history. One that is vivid, compelling, and crackling with the electricity of folklore and mythology rooted to ancient sources, in both Africa and Europe, giving light to the present moment, our times.

We Kiss In A Shadow

Happy Birthday to Sonny Rollins, pictured above, born Sept. 7th

Show description for Sunday 9/11/2011 @ 3:00 PM - 6:00 PM

"Always bear in mind that people are not fighting for ideas, for the things in anyone's head. They are fighting to win material benefits, to live better and in peace, to see their lives go forward, to guarantee the future of their children." - Amilcar Cabral, (September 12, 1924 – January 20, 1973)

". . . the hottest places in hell are reserved for those, who in a period of moral crisis, maintain their neutrality. There comes a time when silence is betrayal." Martin Luther King, Jr., April 4, 1967, "Why I Oppose the War In Vietnam"

Photograph, at right, by Seydou Keïta

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	Artist	Song	Album	Label
	Bill Evans Trio	Witchcraft	Portrait In Jazz	Riverside
	George Russell	Nardis	Ezz-thetics	Riverside
	Eric Dolphy	17 West	Out There	New Jazz
	Sarah Vaughn	I'm Glad There Is You	Sarah Vaughn	Emarcy
	Sarah Vaughn	Summertime	Afterhours	Columbia
	Billie Holiday	Summertime	The Quintessential	Columbia
	Billie Holiday	A Sailboat in the Moonlight	The Quintessential	Columbia
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	Sonny Rollins	There Is No Greater Love	Way Out West	Contemporary
	Sonny Rollins	A Night In Tunisia	More From The Vanguard	Blue Note
	Thelonious Monk Trio	Bye-Ya	Thelonious Monk Trio	Prestige
	Thelonious Monk	Work	Thelonious Monk & Sonny Rollins	Prestige
	Hank Mobley	52nd Street Theme	Mobley's Message	Prestige
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	Hank Mobley	Message From The Border	Mobley's Second Message	Prestige
	Ella Fitzgerald	Bewitched	Rodgers & Hart Songbook	Verve
	Ella Fitzgerald	Love Is Here To Stay	Gershwin Songbook	Verve
	Ella Fitzgerald	I Didn't Know About You	Ellington Songbook	Verve
	Eric Dolphy & Booker Little	Miss Ann	Far Cry	New Jazz
	Ron Carter	Rally	Where?	New Jazz
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	Ted Joans (read by Justin Desmangles)	Passed On Blues: Homage to a Poet	Teducation	Coffee House
	Eric Dolphy & Booker Little	Status Seeking	Status	Prestige
	Mal Waldron	Don't Explain	Mal 2	Prestige
	Mal Waldron	Dee's Dilemma	Mal 1	Prestige
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	Sonny Rollins	Strode Rode	Saxophone Colossus	Prestige
	Thelonious Monk	Brilliant Corners	Brilliant Corners	Riverside
	Sonny Rollins	We Kiss In A Shadow	East Broadway Rundown	Impulse
========================== Airbreak ==========================
	Ornette Coleman	The Garden Of Souls	New York Is Now!	Blue Note
	Ornette Coleman	We Now Interrupt For A Commerical

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

Friday, August 12, 2011

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)

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

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	Henry Grimes & Rashied Ali	This Must Have Always Happened	Going to the Ritual	Porter
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	Michael Bisio	Zephyr Revisited	Travel Music	michaelbisio.com
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	Michael Bisio	Livin' Large	Travel Music	michaelbisio.com
	Henry Threadgill Zooid	To Undertake My Corners Open	This Brings Us To (Volume 1)	Pi
	David S. Ware	Duality Is One	Planetary Unknown	AUM-Fidelity
	Farmers By Nature	Out Of This World's Distortions Grow Aspens and Other Beautiful Things	Out of This World's Distortions	AUM-Fidelity
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	Henry Threadgill Zooid	It Never Moved	This Brings Us To (Volume 2)	Pi
	Wordwind Chorus (Reginald Lockett)	The Movement	We Are of the Saying	Wordwind Chorus
	Odean Pope featuring Marshall Allen	Custody of the American Spirit	Universal Sounds	Porter
	Henry Threadgill Zooid	Extremely Sweet William	This Brings Us To (Volume 2)	Pi
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	Corey Wilkes & Abstrakt Pulse	Levitation	Cries From Tha Ghetto	Pi
	Marc Ribot	Spirits	Spiritual Unity	Pi
	Ran Blake & Jeanne Lee	Newswatch	You Stepped Out of a Cloud	Owl
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	Art Ensemble of Chicago	Everyday's a Perfect Day	[Sirius Calling]	Pi

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.

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