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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	Artist	Song	Album	Label
	Henry Grimes & Rashied Ali	This Must Have Always Happened	Going to the Ritual	Porter
	Odean Pope	Scorpio Twins	Plant Life	Porter
	Wordwind Chorus (Q.R.Hand)	The Rap From Living On Dreams	We Are of the Saying	Wordwind Chorus
	Michael Bisio	Zephyr Revisited	Travel Music	michaelbisio.com
	Henry Threadgill Zooid	After Some Time	This Brings Us To (Volume 1)	Pi
	Al Young	Sundays In Democracies	Something About the Blues	Sourcebooks
========================== Airbreak ==========================
	Henry Threadgill Zooid	Lying Eyes	This Brings Us To (Volume 2)	Pi
	Farmers By Nature	Sir Snacktray Speaks	Out of This Worlds Distortions	AUM-Fidelity
	Wordwind Chorus (Reginald Lockett)	A Veteran Contemplates the Fate of His Immigrant Students	We Are of the Saying	Wordwind Chorus
	Darius Jones & Matthew Shipp	Bleed	Cosmic Lieder	AUM-Fidelity
	Darius Jones & Matthew Shipp	Ultima Thule	Cosmic Lieder	AUM-Fidelity
	Al Young	Conjugal Visits	Something About the Blues	Sourcebooks
========================== Airbreak ==========================
	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
========================== Airbreak ==========================
	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
========================== Airbreak ==========================
	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
========================== Airbreak ==========================
	Art Ensemble of Chicago	Everyday's a Perfect Day	[Sirius Calling]	Pi

Amiri Baraka reads Black Art

Amiri Baraka reads his poem Black Art with Sonny Murray on drums, Albert Ayler on tenor saxophone, Don Cherry on trumpet, Henry Grimes on bass, Louis Worrell on bass, for the album Sonny's Time Now. The first album lead by Sonny Murray, Sonny's Time Now was released on Baraka's Jihad records in 1967 (it's liner notes are republished in Black Music, now back in print). Decades later it was reissued by DIW in Japan in a limited edition. Black Art remains one of Baraka's most controversial poems, even at this late date. Composed and recorded with the fires of Black Nationalism fanned to a high flame, it remains innovative on a number of levels, technical and social. The demand that poems ought wrestle cops into alleys, fly planes, shoot guns, remake the world, are bullshit unless they are lemons piled on a step, &c. are but a few examples. The work also provides a snap shot of some of Baraka's thinking prior to his movement away from Black Nationalism and into Third World Marxism, or M-L-M. In terms of jazz poetry, or poetry and jazz combos on record, this would have to rank among the highest historical examples.