Issue 2: The Music of Making It Happen

Jan. 18 2015 Issue 2 : The Music of Making It Happen

What's In Your Sling?

Art by Brett Gaffney

D'Angelo & The Vanguard

The Black Messiah

Bonita Lee Penn

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A Different Kind of Review

On December 15, 2014, D’Angelo’s new CD The Vanguard: Black Messiah, was released. It has been a combination of almost 20 years since his last releases (Brown Sugar, 1995; Voodoo, 2000). For several days this was the most streamed post on my friends Facebook and Twitter feeds. The elation and the raising of voices, was so joyous, one would have thought the world was about to experience the ‘second coming.’ Remember we are talking about D’Angelo, who was once dubbed by music critic Robert Christgua, as the “R&B Jesus.”

The world has been in an anticipated mode, waiting for D’Angelo. It has been decades since my Voodoo cassette tape snapped and its’ replacement CD scratched by repeated play on a less than quality car cd player as I cruised Pittsburgh’s pot-hole ridden roads and hills.

Voodoo was an impetuous of crawl down-reach for my thighs; lantern lit fucking; sweat in the middle of summer calling out his name. I was baptized between his guitar plucks. My soul submerged in the tease of electronic keyboards, patted into submissive with his lazy raw voice. His blend of Marvin Gaye and Donny Hathaway- cooled out artistry. One instrumentally and lyrically I will say is today’s Curtis Mayfield. I found myself musically whipped, but like my favorite lover, he disappeared on me. Left me whimpering his name into empty darkness. Yes, this is a different review.

With my last few dollars I download The Vanguard: Black Messiah I won’t lie, I am not feeling it 100%, more like 99.9%. Ravenously, the public has embraced his return. The universe has download the new CD, and it was as though he had never left. No apology necessary, no one cares about what happened between then and now, it’s all good, he’s back.

D'Angelo creates for the universe, it is not about him. He’s not the selfish artist. He presents a collective message of heartsickness and activism- to put it simply, the universal’s messiness exposed and loved. Its language tramples through restless communities. Black Messiah could be the What’s Going On of this generation (Lawd knows we need it). A combination of lyrics, jazz, spirituality, sweat swamp funk, I like to call it (due to the lack of my musical jargon). He speaks loudly of the unrest in our souls due to the stifling aura of politics, social and relationships. My favorite tracks:

1000 Deaths speaks of cowards and soldiers, guns and fear; the beats in front of the lyrics slap you like the brimstone and fire pastor of those hot night tent revivals. Wake up y’all been sleeping too long.

The Charade hollers out racism’s history. He walks the walk. (All we wanted was a change to talk/’stead we only got outlined in chalk/Feet have bled, a million miles we’ve walked/Revealing at the end of the day, the charade.) You listen back to “Devil’s Pie” (Ain’t no justice...just us. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.), at the end of day life is nothing more than a charade.

Sugah Daddy reminds me of ‘three-card monte’ slapped against cardboard boxes. Slap, slap, take that chance. Love is a chance/trick. (It's just the way she's so raw and uncut/ She needs a spankin' to shake her up/ And I just wish that I could open her up/ To this deeper place of love.” | Girl's got a worldly view/ Apparently she sees through you/ Her love was never meant to share for two/ She said I'll do it if you'll be my sugah daddy). Love ain’t always easy or fair.

Really Love kisses me softy while I night dream of finding love. The song’s play of romantic language, guitar psalms. (All night beside you I'd lay/ I love you deep when you come to my bed/ Doo doo wah, I'm in really love with you . . . When you touch me there/ When you make me tingle/ When our nectars mingle.” | I'm in really love with you, I'm in really love/ I'm not an easy man, to overstand, you feel me/ But girl your patient with me/ Doo wah, I'm in really love with you, I'm in really love with you).

Another Life, D’Angelo always leads us back to love, the fundamental of relationships and working it out. This tracks reminds me of Erika Badu’s “Next Lifetime.” (I wanna feel you breathe | Oh, in another life, I bet you wouldn't know that/ Oh, in another life, I bet you were my girl/ It's another reason for the season/ I don't wanna break your heart/ Oh, in another life, I bet you were my girl).

What I hear when I listen, is red light special chaotic rhythms, along with his gift of uniqueness, in the arrangement of voice and instruments. He collaborates with Questlove, Q-Tip, Pino Palladino (bassist), James Gadson (drummer) and Kendra Foster (who also co-wrote eight songs). They all bring it on:

I know some things have changed since the last
I've seen you, some good, some for the bad
All and all I can't complain that's what I've been through, baby
But seeing you reminds me of the precious times we had. (One Mo’ Gin)

That "While On The Road" Music

The Trees

Adam Sullivan &

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Hope Johnson

“The Trees” album begins at 4:30am. What I mean is, it seems the intro (like the sun) rises over some mountain and with each song afterward, a beaming light trickles down revealing some new imagistic story.

My favorite story-song on this album is undoubtedly “Bird’s Nest”, where Sullivan uses the metaphor of a small bird falling from its nest, symbolizing the literal feeling of falling out of a love relationship. The way in which Sullivan sings this song could be compared to a haunting subconscious voice indicating subtle guilt; or perhaps even a quiet voice that simply says, you forgot me, but I’m still here. The word-music of “I fell out of your nest”, the instrumental music played behind it, and literal action of the bird mimics each other, the pitches of both music and meaning first falling upward and then down scale.

Sullivan seems to use this mimicking combination between lyrics, melody, and meaning throughout his album, which intensifies the overall emotion of each song. More upbeat, “My Favourite Cap” is a song I have come to love singing. I should warn you though, if you are particularly excited about a new love interest, I’d be careful. “My Favourite Cap” could have you bursting into song on a random train or whispering lyrics at a family dinner table. The refrain “…until you’re here, until you’re here, with me…stay with me” coupled with bright key strokes and an enthusiastic tempo are in a word, joyful.

My motivational choice on “The Trees” album would be “Wait for the Sun”. This song is a shorter piece offering in refrain, “…the light will shine in the end”. Appearing later in the album, it’s as if Adam Sullivan and The Trees knew this song would provide a much needed pick-me-up-and-keep-me-going. Your destination is only a town away.

In the end, “The Trees” album is relatable and poetic simultaneously and that is what differentiates this album, this band, from many other upcoming artists. Sullivan is able to balance the literal and metaphorical in his songs.

As a poet, I’d say he is one of those poets who just so happens to write music – but wait! There is such a thing as the Lyrical Poem, and perhaps all musicians are poets and all poets are musicians, in a way.

I’m still interested in that bird. I feel like I’ve been that fallen lovebird; I’ve seen the sun rise over the mountain; I’ve walked by the abandoned blue cap; I’ve reached my destination. Have you? If you haven’t, get the album!

The first time I met Adam Sullivan, he was performing in a piano and cello duet at a small Café called Vivaldi in New York’s Lower East Side. I remember his piano music being some smooth mellow art that, interestingly enough, reminded me of driving at 4:30am in the wilderness of Kentucky – peaceful, capturing.

I’m a morning person and, if you’re paying close attention in the morning at 4:30 while driving in Kentucky, you’ll suddenly notice the sun rising over the mountains and every trickle of light revealing a new home, new church, coal-town, new story, maybe even a surprising musical note.

I just so happen to also probably be the pickiest of album choosers on such journeys. In Kentucky, I need to be awake. I choose upbeat music I can sing to, dance to, and if I’m having a bad day, uplift me. In West Virginia, I choose calming music to relax the swerves and abandoned exits that tend to make me anxious. In Virginia, I just need motivation. Most likely, if it’s a short trip, Virginia is somewhere close to my destination.

If I am on a train in the wilderness of New York City, I need it all! And when I say Adam Sullivan’s second album with phenomenal band, “The Trees” has it all, I mean it. I’d buy it! I’d take it!

Purchase Adam Sullivan & The Trees

It's Music

It’s music that he says transforms the world he lives in and helps him soar. I’m sure if he still had his boom box today he’d carry it like he did when I was a little girl. He’d play it out in the city for homeless men to sing along, to create music that strengthens them. Music can tap a man on the shoulder, I’ve seen it, and make him look at a situation differently. The lyrics, the song, the music: upbeat, low tempo, smooth, fast or slow—it reconciles and re-sifts. It reckons the world Dad lives in, helping him to find new versions of life. It takes him out of his circumstance and reminds him that life isn’t so bad, could be worse, will get better. Dad can’t live without his music. For a long while, I couldn’t conceptualize why this was. Then, I thought: it’s like me living without writing, living without a way to express myself, a way to release tension and fear.

I can recite music from so many songs because when I was younger Dad introduced me to a collection of singers and songwriters from The Mighty Dells to Smokey Robinson. We danced to Marvin Gay, Whitney Houston and Gladys Knight. Dad and I back then, and still today, talk music. Our conversations, reference points and list of “greatest hits” are long and drawn out. Dad describes music as “a motivator.” I have several things that motivate me. When I give it thought, music is one of those things. Words are another. Words stick. Words empower and challenge one to think differently, especially if we take words with the weight they transport, allowing the positive ones to weigh more.

My high school teacher was a mentor my senior year. Not only did she give me a chance to prove to her that I was capable of joining her Advanced Placement English class, she opened her classroom door on a sunny day in September of 1999 to hear my story. I asked her how I go about signing up for her class. She stood in the doorway seemingly perplexed. It was an odd circumstance. I stood there with my knapsack lodged to my back. I remember my hands shaking and sweating and wondering if she was going turn me away. I wanted much more for myself. I wanted to try a new route, to see what it would be like to surround myself with kids who enjoyed reading and weren’t throwing spit balls during third period. Something in me desired more and knew I deserved the opportunity to try to advance myself from the limitations of a special education background.

In the hallway on that autumn day, Ms. Preer challenged me to bring her in some writing samples. She said she’d take a look at them and consider signing me into the class. I worked for days to put together my best work. When I returned, she accepted me and thereafter nurtured me as a writer beginning the journey later in life. I worked very closely with Ms. Preer during my last year of high school, staying after school to gain her advice and working on assignments as a writer for the student-run Voice Magazine she started at English High. Ms. Preer influenced my life with her words. She took the time to write them out for me in a handwritten note in May of 1999. I remember the phrase from the stanza: cast a glow, carries a light. Ms. Preer was describing me, a once suicidal girl provided promise to excel.

These days, I try to think of “whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable,” as scripture inspires. I consider the time she invested in editing my work. Memoires of Ms. Preer are solid, noble. I think of all she did for me. I think of her accepting me and something else struck: I consider her lasting words. She told me to “take what he has to offer.” Ms. Preer was referring to my father during the time he was in jail—sending me more letters than I had space to contain. All of his letters were written by hand in a left-handed, sometimes illegible cursive, others were drawings and photos and notes telling me how much he loved and missed me. Ms. Preer saw Dad’s love for me spilling over onto each line he took the time to write. She told me to give him a chance and take what he has to offer. I still think of those words that have been like seeds planted. They are blooming today. Those positive words still live, as I am doing just what Ms. Preer suggested.

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Sasha Link

An Exerpt of: Next Stop: Reconciliation A father-daughter Memoir on love, recovery and re-connectivity

Painting The Graphic Score

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Hope Johnson

"The way I manipulate paint and touch the guitar is me and anything I paint or write is me. The only channel we do have is through ourselves, and it is through ourselves that we can love and express. We can’t do any of that if it is not through the body."

Naturally, when we’re concentrating on ideas, we think we’re forgetting the body; we think the body is the submerged part of the iceberg; we look only at the world of ideas, which is visible. But, there would be no ideas, if there were no body.

– Francois Bayle

Award winning artist and composer, Michael Hafftka handed me an essay containing the above quote, along with several visual representations of music. I’d never seen written music in the form of visual art. Perplexed by the idea, I read the above quote silently questioning what exactly the body of music was and if visual art could be defined as or hold the term “music”.

4 Aspects by Michael Hafftka

Traditionally, music is taught as an art form, however art (visual art specifically) is not considered music, likely because it is not performed. Attempting to wrap my head around the concept that art could be performed, I conjured my own history as a young musician and poet. I began by collecting images of music: lines, notes, rhythm, flats, sharps, rests, even the slight flicked-wrist of a conductor who chooses his hand over a staff.

The art of "making music" is the mathematical perfection of sound; the artistic variation of waves tickling our eardrums. It typically involves a conductor, someone who interprets and controls interpretation of sound over lines. Sometimes, the conductor is music on the page, represented by a certain meter or cleft. "Sound" however, is scientifically chaotic. It is a variation of waves, clashing.

What if there were no conductor and music were written in colorful strokes or faces on canvass? What if musicians were asked to interpret visual art instead of written music?

The Body by Michael Hafftka

Sometime in the mid-1950’s musicians began experimenting with an ancient technique called Graphic Score, where music was written in the form of visual art. Inspired by radical change and movements during the 1950's and 60's, musicians slowly nudged the concept into contemporary music fueled by the idea of breaking away from tradition in search of true individual interpretation of art.

Similarly, poets and prose artists were stripping traditional rhyme, meter, form, and content. Poets Steven Berg and Robert Mazey termed this “stripping” of tradition, particularly in poetry, as “Naked” in 1969. I believe the term “Naked” could also apply to Graphic Score, which is stripped of tradional music notation, revealing only human interpretation, color, and emotion.

Francois Bayle, an African-born musician (Madagascar), is one of many famous Graphic Score composers who achieved “Nakedness” from traditional musical form in his work. Some of his most prized graphic pieces are in the form of Electronic Music or Musique concrete, a technique he began developing in the 1950’s.

His music is a clash of electrical current read through several instruments. His music reminds me of that played in science fiction series such as the Twilight Zone. I am still searching for links between Bayle and The Twilight Zone Series music.

Bayle’s use of Microtonality, or the splitting of notes into multiple cords, provides inspiration for Hafftka’s music. Hafftka uses a fretless guitar in order to achieve a similar microtonal sound, much like sounds heard in African, Middle Eastern, and American Blues genres.

Other composers who have had significant influence on Hafftka’s work include, Cornelius Cardew and Henry Partch. Hafftka states that Cardew specifically, “uses an incredible pallet of sounds” and challenges his awareness of “using ANY audio sources in [his] compositions”. Another composer, Derek Bailey, influenced Hafftka to “see the artist as an instrument”.

In regards to his own work, Hafftka states, “the way I manipulate paint and touch the guitar is me and anything I paint or write is me. The only channel we do have is through ourselves, and it is through ourselves that we can love and express. We can’t do any of that if it is not through the body.”

Listening to musician/composer, Francois Bayle, Cornelius Cardew, Henry Partch, and Michael Hafftka, the various interpretations of visual art remind me of various interpretations of poetry; poetry being a traditional mediator between visual art and musical art. Both poetry and music seem to be moving even further away from tradition and into free narrative; some place below the visible piece of the iceberg.

Blues Microtonality

Visit Michael Hafftka's Website

Learn More About The Feeding Goats Band

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“This is the scent of dead skin on a linoleum floor/ This is the scent of quarantine wings

in a hospital/ It's not so pleasant and it's not so conventional/ It sure as hell ain't normal

but we deal, we deal” – “Camisado” by Panic! at the Disco

We know how to deal with the flowers, the balloons,

the assorted cards that all say the same thing, Get Well

Soon, Feel Better, We Love You, We Love You, We’re Tired.

We know how to deal with the nurses, the doctors,

their charts and chicken-scratch, the pretty pills

they prescribe without looking at you, really looking.

We know how to deal with your memory and its flight

out the hospital window—an atrophy of ten years,

you yelling, your daughter, you can just kiss my white ass.

We know how to deal with your do not resuscitate order.

We arrange the funeral, the gatherings around the food. We

cry when it’s appropriate, and when it’s not, and we sleep.

We do not know what to do with the next morning,

the leftover meals piled in the refrigerator, your empty

rocking chair. We do not know how to deal with the chair.

M. Brett Gaffney

Dealing

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By Chance

Karen Paul Holmes

If our grandfather hadn’t escaped

from Russia to Australia

nor sired our mother

if our father hadn’t emigrated

from Macedonia to Michigan

nor joined the Navy

if his ship hadn’t docked in ’43

in her harbor, Down Under

if they hadn’t danced together at the Sailors’ Party

where they discussed classical music

where our mother uttered, Give me a kiss

in Russian

not suspecting he’d understand

if he hadn’t understood

nor complied

if he hadn’t happened across her in Newcastle

after losing her number

if he hadn’t survived

the Pacific Theater

if they hadn’t endured

those three war years apart

if her father hadn’t allowed her

to move to America

if she hadn’t had the five of us

though she lost two babies

there’d be no woodwind quintet to play Mozart

for their 50th anniversary

all of us with his eyes, her mouth.

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Jesus Lives In My Underwear Drawer

Leslie Rzeznik

Our Lady of Czestochowa slept in secret under a wool afghan on the top shelf of my parents' closet for almost 30 years, her brown face scarred like Spring troughs cut into the Earth. Pod Twoją obronę uciekamy się (Under Your Protection).

My mother reminds me she hung above the sculpted couch in my grandmother's living room. I don't remember, but I later find a black and white photo of Mr. Skinner at Easter and notice her — the Black Madonna — swimming small and lost on the stark white wall.

I've been trying to find a home for my parents' crucifix. My mother tells me it'd been a wedding gift from her parents. I have no one to tell this to who will remember — this knowedge will die with me — and that makes me unbearably sad. This crucifix is a clever thing. The birch face slides off and the goldtone Jesus in his dying ecstasy props up in a groove at the head of the cross-box to watch over the faithful and dying. Bits of wax cling to the hollows at the ends of each short arm. A booklet instructing the sacrament of the sick and last rites is curled under an empty bottle labeled "Holy Water".

Two partially burned candles — carefully re-inserted into their Cell-O package — nestle into a small fold of linen that's frayed and dingy at its starched edges.

Every time I unpack a box, it seems I find a rosary. I haven't been Catholic for over 25 years. I discover a mass of rosaries tangled with sepulchres and metal saints in a box of leftover mass cards from my grandmother's funeral some thirty years prior. I spook myself later when I stumble past the box in the dark, the rosary beads and crosses glowing green. When my colleague is diagnosed with cancer, I gift one as a good luck talisman. I find out later that it's likely radioactive.

My best friend exclaims “Jesus Lives — in my underwear drawer!” At almost three feet long, he's not exactly modest. A memento from our shuttered school, he looked a lot more manageable on the classroom wall. My friend touches her fingertips to the pierced feet and brings them to her lips in blessing. From under this crucifix, she produces yet another goldtone Jesus. She asks if I might make something of this MoMa repro reliquary. I tell her yes, yes I could. Her father cries when he sees his long-dead sister's souvenir on a beaded chain draped around his daughter's neck.

I ask my friend to come to the hospital that is trying to kill my mother. I refuse to leave when visiting hours are over. It's been a week and I smell almost as bad as my mother does. She asks me to lay in bed with her to warm her. She has never done this. I try to say the rosary, but I never learned all of the fancy words you say in between the Hail Marys and the Our Fathers. I never was an adequate Catholic. When my friend arrives, I am relieved to give rosary duty over to her and I leave to wander the halls, let my tears out.

My brothers leave me as my mother lay — finally — dying. Her pacemaker shut down the day before, yet the monitor's held a steady sinus rhythm — until Patsy's car pulls into the parking lot seven stories below. Twenty minutes after Patsy takes her hand, my mother's heart stops. Later when I tell Patsy that her cousin had been waiting for her to say goodbye, how could I know Patsy would pray every night for two years for my mother's forgiveness for killing her?

Our Lady of Czestochowa, the Black Madonna, the Blessed Virgin with twin scars has been re-homed, stripped of her nicotine stains, and dressed in a new goldtone frame. My friend gives her due reverence — surrounds her with votive candles, loves her and prays to her daily. This makes me unspeakably happy.

Every Dream Starts With A Vision...

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Hope Johnson

DONNIE

Neo-Soul On My Mind

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Born in Lexington, Kentucky during the mid ’70s, Donnie was raised in Atlanta, Georgia, and came from a very religious family (both of his parents were ministers). Singing for a choir at an early age, Donnie soon expanded his musical horizons, as he became influenced equally by such gospel artists as Walter Hawkins and Mahalia Jackson plus such soul/R n’ B masters as Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, and Aretha Franklin. By the early 21st century, Donnie was signed to the Giant Step label, and issuing such singles and EP’s as Holiday, Masterplan, Do You Know?, Excerpts from the Colored Section, and Our New National Anthem. The singer’s anticipated full-length debut, the Colored Section, was released in November 2002 and eventually picked up for release by Motown. The Daily News, an even more ambitious album, followed for Soul Thought in 2007.

(Sling) – [Hi Donnie!] Congratulations on your success with The Colored Section. When did you know you would become a singer/songwriter? What was it about neo-soul that sparked you; put you into motion as an artist?

Donnie - Honestly, I knew I was going to do this when I was in Green Acres, when I was in St. Martin’s Village, really. I always knew I would sing, but I didn’t know I would be a songwriter when I was a kid. I knew when I grew older and really started listening to gospel at the House of God, on Georgetown Street. I was really into the Clark sisters, and that’s where I learned how to write. I was into American music, period. I was not into gospel at first, then my parents got back into church and so I got back into church too. So, when I got back into R&B and secular music, I would do inspirational music because I come from gospel and I just, put that into everything. That is what inspired me about neo-soul; the fact that it had substance to it. It had encouragement. It was political, you know? It was inspirational, spiritual. What more could you ask for? If you are looking for an alternative, other than gospel, it’s neo-soul.

(Sling) - As I listened to The Colored Section, all I could think about was how neo-soul has come to be a genre that teaches, persuades, and reveals truths to its listeners. Are you conscious of this while you are writing or, does it just happen?

Donnie - Sometimes, it just happens. We are in the age of hip-hop. Folks are rhyming off the top of their heads like it’s nothing. I’m from the hip-hop generation, so words come to me easier and the rhyme comes even faster than generations before us, but I do sit and think about this while writing. It’s not only the words; it’s also the melody going along with it. The melody may come first and then the words, or they may come simultaneously, or the words may come before the melody.

(Sling) - Have you discovered certain things while writing that have changed or influenced your life?

Donnie - Well, when I go back and think about what I have recorded and written. I realize haven’t released these feelings yet. I look back sometimes and say, why wasn’t I listening to that when I was going through these things right here? I wrote it years ago but, you know? You have to catch up to some things; your flesh has to catch up to your spirit. Sometimes we are so far ahead of ourselves, because we are spirits really, and we are having a human experience. We have to catch up. So, yes, I do look back and see things that have brought me out of certain situations. I think that is what you are asking.

(Sling) - Yes, exactly.

Donnie – So, things in my songs have brought me out of certain situations. Just before you called, I was looking back at just different experiences I was having about things that I had written. It gives you a chance to expound, do a remix or if I am writing in the next hour it gives me a chance to expound on what I was talking about before because what I am doing now is so much more.

(Sling) - One of my favorite songs on your album, The Colored Section, is Cloud 9. What event or thought influenced you to write that particular song? How does Cloud 9 represent you as a black artist?

Donnie - Well, I mean then, I was in an age of wearing an afro. The cultured community in Atlanta is basically the west end. India Arie comes out of a place called the Ying Yang, a club that she was flowered in. I was flowered in the same club; the same family. I just saw so many natural hairstyles on these people who were around each other all of the time. They had dreads and short hair or long, all kinds of styles. I read Dr. Malachi York’s book The Ancient Mystical Order of Melchizedek and because I come from the House of God, I was studying, asking myself what is this? What are we here for? I studied this term in the book called 9-Ether. It is the term for the hair of the negroid family; our family, and it curls. It allows energy to flow to our brains even faster because it is curly, and when energy hits the tips, imagine it hitting and going through curves.

(Sling) - Wow, I have to get that book.

Donnie - Yes. When energy is hitting us, it’s like bam! That is why we are so creative. It goes along with everything we are. So, Cloud 9 is what I got, instead of being on Cloud 9.

(Sling) - Your next album, The American Mythology, is coming out soon, when will it debut?

Donnie - This spring. I want it to debut March 21st 2013, the first day of spring. So, it can be like bam! With this new album I kept thinking, we’ve got to do something different. When it explodes, it has to be something beautiful; make people think, maybe I don’t want to throw this cup out of the window, maybe I want to recycle. The Age of Aquarius is here.

Purchase The Colored Section

*Biography written by Greg Prato

*Re-print from Pluck! Journal of Affrilachian Art & Culture 2012