inner city blues (make me wanna holler)

this one goes out to everyone occupying spaces and places and voicing their desire for a fair shot at life.

i had a dream about an exchange programme where little palestinian kiddos would go live with isreali families for the summer and israeli kiddos spent summer with palestinian families. within a few generations we'd start to see a peaceful shift between the two. idealistic utopian dream? perhaps.

what about the 1% and the 99% of the occupy movements? suit: take a single mother's spot for a couple of months... take on her jobs. take care of her kids, her sick mother and pay her bills. woman, put on a power tie, get used to that smartphone, and spend those big bucks responsibly. spend your evenings alone in an empty apartment or constantly entertaining clients and making sure your grass is as green as envy. let's see how you both feel in a month. i know, i know. far flung dream?

the reality is, to our fearful egos, poverty and joblessness are a hop and skip away from homelessness and homelessness is a stone's throw from death. there is no way we will give up what we got to see how other people feel. because we're afraid we'll die!

so what can we do? in any power struggle, you self-preserve when you stop feeding the machine. choose the mom and pop shops. stop buying oil one day each week. then two days, then three. how about giving up blackberries and iphones? home phones for a while? do we need so much electricity? and water? if the average african uses 10 litres of water a day, surely we north americans can do with less than 400. every day there are lineups at starbucks, at the apple store. shopping malls are full in the middle of the day. the supermarket even has self checkout. how about visiting a proper market vegetable stand? you know, the one with the owners working the cash?

sure we can cause an economic collapse. isn't that the goal?
it' about time, because this misery ain't new. right, marvin?

marvin gaye - inner city blues (makes me wanna holler):


maybe what we didn't do in the 70s was make our revolution a bit more fun. perhaps revolve with a little rump shake?

sly & robbie - inner city blues (makes me wanna holler):

and then:

• nostalgia 77 feat. alice russell - seven nation army (grant phabao mix)
• stevie wonder - free
• ted taylor - houston town
• finley quaye - even after all

as... another star

one day that will stay with me forever is stevie wonder opening the 30th anniversary montreal jazz festival.

after settling into our hotel, my friends and i arrived at mainstage around 3pm to nab some prime concert real estate. it was soundcheck and could hardly believe our ears as we approached the scene. stevie was rehearsing 'overjoyed' and 'higher ground'. then he greeted us with a robotic distortion: 'mont-re-al, ca-na-da' - everyone went wild.

our cell phone were no use so it was good to see folks interacting with each other rather than their crackberries and iphones. we met some really fun and interesting people and i even ran into an old uni friend. people started packing in. it got very hot, to the point we started removing our layers of clothing. hours went by talking, drinking, some people were smoking, my charming friend ky giving out his self-styled wonderlove t-shirts as we all groved to the dj pumping soul and r&b classics. more familiar faces. we enjoyed the company, the heat, the groove. everyone got into it. it was a good day.

when the rains came a multicoloured patchwork of umbrellas went up and our little group started dancing and singing, echoes rippling through the crowds nearby as we attracted attention and bemused smiles, nods and more singers... stevie was running late but we were having fun, the massive crowd doing the wave and singing 'my cherie amour' la-la-laaa-la-la-la's. we weren't gonna let a little wetness stop us.

when stevie finally came on stage, the clouds held their breath. the rain trickled off and stopped. the umbrellas came down and stevie declared that tonight we would to ignore the rumours and scandalous money-making media hype and dedicate the evening to celebrating the life and music of michael jackson. amen to that. then the band broke into "i can't help it", co-written by stevie and quincy jones for mj's 'off the wall' record. the 100,000+ crowd went nuts.

in fact, throughout the set, the pa system played mj tunes between performance pieces. and the entire place - including stevie and band - would just dance to them. a true and proper way to celebrate mj's music... not cover it, not sing over top of it, but to listen, to feel and to enjoy it. simply magical. mj's spirit was there with us that night, enjoying the moment with us too.

one highlight was when stevie decided they would "do it right" and play some jazz at the jazz fest! which included some miles davis and john coltrane - all done with the confidence of a team of musicians so tight and so good, to not only play soul and funk - alongside stevie - one minute, but then cover jazz masters with him the next.

another highlight - aisha morris - stevie's lovely daughter and one of his four back-up singers, who covered nat king cole's 'gonna laugh you right out of my life'. it the first time i heard the song and she gave me shivers.

and throughout the 2 1/2 hour concert, stevie might have had the most fun of us all. he played the harmonica, piano, he sang and danced and talked to us. a gifted musician and vocalist and a true lover of life, he cracked some jokes, asking the francophones in the crowd "voulez-vous coucher avec moi?"... stumbling at the beginning of a song, admitting in his good-natured laugh that forgot the words, then inviting the audience to sing middle eastern sounding vocal scales to a new track he's laying down... tough! the crowd had fun with it. and we danced and danced and danced and he gave us what we wanted to hear... (almost)!

as the show came to a close, light showers rained down over the crowd. they felt so good. a montage of mj tunes played out as all the musicians, backup singers and stevie himself came to the front of the stage. and everyone danced.

and then stevie said something that will always stay with me. he said: "if you have a big heart, love somebody. and if you have a really big heart, love everybody".

and with that, 15 minutes of glorious fireworks lit up the sky.

so for you my dears, here he is, jazzing it up and performing "higher ground" at the sound check we happened upon earlier that day:


taken from the compilation at the close of the century, available at steviewonder.net.

related:
nina simone - sinnerman

power in darkness

typing fast, before pulling the plugs.

today, we observe "earth hour", a campaign spurred by the world wildlife fund, where people flip the light switches off to support power conservation.

makes me nostalgic about when the americas' northeast power grid outed in the height of summer 2003, forcing thousands of people to do stuff they would otherwise not:

empty their fridges and ice boxes to cook

go meet and talk to their neighbours

rely on the kindness of strangers

perform random acts of sweetness

know what it feels like for billions of people around the world every day of their lives.

one hour, though? shame. and lights out in my opinion is just a start...

i wonder if they knew in 1977 when the trammps put this out what a state the world would be in 30 years' time? anyhow before i pull the plugs here it is.

the trammps - the night the lights went out:


thanks to david, the (undercover black man). get this at amazon.

related:
go go golem

go go golem

les edits du golem

"he came to protect you. he's growing every day. he's made out of mud and letters. he uses scissors to edit obscure tracks. no one, except his master, could destroy him... the time has come for the world to experience the power of the golem."

...word for word what it says on the record album. no lie. deep, in the dark french vinyl grooves past these riddles on the album cover are some solid edits fashioned by romain bno, ready to be discovered... 'pyramide' for example is a light and airy take on the 1985 arabic 'disco/balearic' track by multitalented libyan ahmed fakroun... and then comes the heavy, the big sound... 'klout' features golem's golden scissors on 'sunshine baby', a 1979 track by a south african all-girl band called clout, this time sans voix. worth a good booty shake!

les edits du golem - pyramide:

les edits du golem - klout:

...check out the clout's original 'sunshine baby', complete with vocals:


big thanks to jez (innersounds) and neil (music like dirt).

get les edits du golem at vinyl france.

related to this....

• lights out
  
• yamasuki singers, black blood - aieoa
  
• bill cosby and quincy jones - hicky burr
  
• arabo-cuban improvisation

6.0 yamasuki singers - aieoa, black blood - aie a mwana, bananarama - aie a mwana

after a little departure from posting music... i've returned with something special. i'm happy to see my folks back from uganda safe and nicely toasted, and to celebrate i'm posting something that was conceived in the '70s, made its way to the african continent and traveled north and west, but kept it's original soul...

the japanese yamasuki singers first issued the track "aieaoa" on their wacky album "le monde fabuleux des yamasuki":


the track then took an african twist when it was reissued by a '70s band from zaire. we used to dance around to this as kids. if i played it for my mom she'd go wild. [edit! they were actually belgian - which explains how the track got play in europe... read on]
black blood - aie a mwana:


three models heard the black blood cover in a paris nightclub and went home to london to record the song on their debut album.
bananarama - aie a mwana:


thanks to wfmu.org

and totally unrelated...

• bill cosby and quincy jones - hicky burr, sargeant pepper's lonely hearts club band
  
• go go golem

4.0 bill cosby and quincy jones - hicky burr, sargeant pepper's lonely hearts club band

what's better than jello pudding or an episode of fat albert? bill cosby singing hicky burr and sergeant pepper's lonely hearts club band… the second album cover slays me.

bill cosby and quincy jones - hicky-burr:


bill cosby - sargeant pepper's lonely hearts club band:


and totally unrelated...

• yamasuki singers, black blood - aieoa