Getatchew Mekurya, 81

Getatchew Mekurya, Ethiopian Jazz Saxophonist, Dies at 81
by Nate Chinen, The New York Times, April 11, 2016

Cassandra Wilson: There's enough room at the table.

Cassandra Wilson (c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Wilson, Goddess of jazz without boundaries,
headlined last night at Lincoln Center Out of Doors
in an Americanafest show
presented in association with Americana Music Association.

This year marks the 20th anniversary
of Wilson's landmark Blue Light ‘til Dawn
and the 50th anniversary of John Coltrane's A Love Supreme.

Preparing the stage for Cassandra Wilson's band
(c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

A perfect evening at Lincoln Center's Damrosch Park Bandshell,
opened by the celebratory sacred steel of The Campbell Brothers
 who bring Pentecostal fervor and hard-charging, often deliriious funk
to shimmering pedal and lap steel guitars.

These instruments, most closely associated with Hawaiian music,
are also part of the Black gospel tradition of churches
such as Nashville's House of God (Keith Dominion),
where the talented Campbells got their start.

Top photo: Pedal steel guitarist Chuck Campbell
Below, left: Darick Campbell
Center: Phillip Campbell; Right: Carl Campbell
(c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

The Campbells first beckoned us into healing waters ("Wade in the Water")
and encouraged us, if at all possible, to do the right thing ("Hell, no! Heaven, yes!").
But if their personal motives are deeply religious, their interpretations
of Miles Davis, Sam Cooke and especially Coltrane--
spinning and swinging "A Love Supreme" into "A Sacred Steel Love Supreme"--
come with an infinite and irresistible supply of hot sauce.
They have become my favorite party band.

Phillip Campbell and Carl Campbell
(c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Cassandra Wilson
(c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Wilson's got Spirit on the mainline, too,
taking a moment between tunes to pass this message without explanation:
"Spirit told me to tell you, 'There's enough room at the table.'"
Later in the set, she called Papa Legba and his fellow African Powers,
easily slip-sliding her chant into yet another coded message:
"I know I'll be in that number/when I study war no more."

Cassandra Wilson
(c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Like the Campbells, this diva unites heaven and earth,
showing us the crow, "black and ragged," "flying tree to tree"
and dipping low in search of "every shiny thing" (Joni Mitchell's "Black Crow").
She's a blues mama with a voice like warm "Tupelo Honey" (thank you, Van Morrison)
taking her sweet time all through Robert Johnson's "Hell Hound on My Trail."

Cassandra Wilson
(c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

In the pretty ballad "Tell Me You'll Wait for Me,"
her voice becomes slow-drifting smoke but not at all dry.
In "Come On In My Kitchen," it cuts loose,
rich and bursting with juice.

Cassandra Wilson
(c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Cassandra Wilson
(c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Despite the desperate feel of "Children of the Night,"
Wilson and her band turn the lilting Thom Bell/Linda Creed song
into a lush celebration--no doubt in anyone's mind
that the lonely soul walking the shadows late at night
often finds "someone who is just like me/looking for some company"
and makes an amazing time of it.

Cassandra Wilson
(c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Cassandra Wilson
(c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Cassandra Wilson
(c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

And you can have an amazing time, too. Click here for the video from Lincoln Center Out of Door's livestream.

Lincoln Center Out of Doors 2014 concludes tomorrow. For information on remaining LCOOD/AmericanaFest events--including tonight's show with Roseanne Cash--click here.

What is rock and roll? Asked and answered at Lincoln Center Out of Doors

Two fantabulous singers: Nona Hendryx (above)
and Corey Glover (below)
All photos (c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Clearly, that's a question best suited to a multiple choice quiz where the correct answer is "All of the above." And, most of all, it is Black. Race music--from blues to gospel and beyond--is the mother source of rock and roll. Or, to put it another way, as writer Carl Hancock Rux did, rock "is one big family with a whole lotta children running around, and some of them don't know who their daddy is."

To Toshi Reagon (music director of Deep Roots of Rock and Roll), the Black Rock Coalition and all of the artists involved in yesterday afternoon's sensational Lincoln Center Out of Doors show, I will quote Rux quoting gospel singer Sallie Martin (1895-1988) in his narration: "Sing what you need to sing. Just keep singing it 'til it takes you where you need to go."

We all want to go there with you!

Here are a few of my photos from the day. Click for more.

Above: Toshi Reagon
Below: Nona Hendryx
among numerous musical artists performing at Lincoln Center Out of Doors
in Deep Roots of Rock and Roll
All photos (c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Above: a dance by Adaku Utah
Below: Narrator Carl Hancock Rux
taking us deep into Black American music history
All photos (c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Lincoln Center Out of Doors continues through August 10. Click here for schedule of these free events.

Brazil's passinho dancers in US debut at LC Out of Doors

A Batalha do Passinho dancers
Below: Batalha host Zuzuka Poderosa
(c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

When New York's summer weather cooperates, as it certainly did last evening, Lincoln Center Out of Doors can be a great way to soak up and savor the positive energy of arts from nearly everywhere in our world. Last night's show brought an organized group of performers of passinho, the Rio de Janeiro party dance, in their US debut together with Rennie Harris Puremovement, the celebrated Philly troupe that revolutionized a sophisticated blending of hip-hop moves with more conventional dance theater techniques and aesthetics.

Three luminaries of New York's urban and contemporary dance scene
served as the passinho battle's judges.
Left to right: Rokafella, Akim Funk Buddha and Doug Elkins
(c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

A Batalha do Passinho dancers (c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa
The showcase was created in 2011 by co-artistic director Julio Ludemir
after this Rio favela dance trend went viral on YouTube.

Opening the two-hour show, the Brazilians burst on the stage with a rawness and sense of adventure and fun that would be hard to top. Rapidfire twisting of their feet made their bent legs look like massive, lethal grinders. The daunting contortions of flexing and bone breaking, the smooth illusions of moonwalking, b-boying acrobatics, Cossack folkdance and even voguing all flow through passinho, offered in a spirit of good-natured competitiveness. The batalha (battle) format of the Brazilian presentation, facilitated by the merry host, Zuzuka Poderosa, gave the Lincoln Center audience an active investment in the proceedings as we watched closely to make distinctions between the competitors' styles and specialties.

Marcelly Miss Passista,
champion of the Lincoln Center batalha
(c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

The Brazilian dancers trained our eyes for a kind of reckless derring-do that seem combed out of the silky, glamorously sexy Puremovement with Harris's oddly safe, placid approach to arranging dancers across a stage--line them up, slide the frontal lines side to side. It's funny to come away feeling that I would have preferred to see Puremovement "where they belong now"--in formal, and well-managed, indoor staging. Put a frame around them.

The interesting encounter and dialogue of troupes that could have been did not pan out. Maybe next time both crews could be tossed together in a residency to experiment and cook up something surprising.

New York knows and loves Rennie Harris's endless seductions, the way his dancers' bodies bounce like rubber against air as if it were a hard surface; the way they float inside and around the edges of music's rhythms, each body addressing multiple, discrete segments of time in individual ways even when everyone's working the same moves. Puremovement demonstrates the basic silliness of trying to make dance where everyone looks exactly like everyone else, where visual homogeneity is privileged. Everything offered up is going to be a little different, according to who gives it, and that's a fine, instructive thing.

*****

There's much more to come from the Lincoln Center Out of Doors festival, running through through August 10--all programs absolutely free. Click here for a schedule of events including tomorrow's 1pm Family Day dance class with dancers from A Batalha do Passinho!

Lincoln Center Out of Doors
Damrosch Park Bandshell, Lincoln Center
West 62nd Street between Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues, Manhattan
(map/directions)

UKanDanz...the night away

UKanDanz, based in Lyon, France, made its US debut at Lincoln Center Out of Doors last evening before a sparse but increasingly impressed audience. Earlier rain, and the threat of thunderstorms, had kept initial attendance down. But the deepening night sky stayed dry, great music kept coming from this French/Ethiopian quintet and two other bands over the next few hours, and more people arrived to partake and enjoy.

It took me a couple of songs to warm to UKanDanz, with its raucous collision of high-pitched, passionate Ethiopian melisma and hard-charging rock. But vocalist Asnaqé Guèbrèyès served as a magnetic center to keep all the components from flying off in different directions. After awhile, it just worked.

Oumar Konate (photo by Darial Sneed)

Due to the ongoing conflict in her country, Mali's esteemed vocalist Khaira Arby could not join her band in New York, but guitarist-singer Oumar Konate took up the leadership role, bringing the funk and the rock with a majestic glide. These guys--especially Konate--really rock out in the classic style on their beautiful guitars and do so without losing the slightest degree of crystal clear precision.

I stayed for only half of the last set--Yemen Blues, fronted by an electrifying Israeli-Yemenite vocalist, Ravid Kahalani--but I was glad to hear that much.

Ravid Kahalani (photo by Darial Sneed)

These musicians play trombone, trumpet, flute, viola, cello, violin, oud, gimbri, percussion and keyboards. I hear blues, funk, North and West African rhythms and Latin jazz influences threaded through the fabric, a big, colorful, sophisticated sound, powerful enough to rattle your chest. Kahalani's sexy exuberance carries the Life Force; in fact, his first utterance, upon taking the stage, was to cry "Adonai!!!" Audience members flocked to empty spaces near the stage to sway and dance in complete enchantment. All in all, a sensational night at Lincoln Center.

Here's a taste of Yemen Blues from a 2010 trailer:

Get a schedule of remaining Lincoln Center Out of Doors Festival events here.

Latin American sounds at Lincoln Center Out of Doors

Sergio Dias (Photo: Darial Sneed)

Guest blogger Darial Sneed offers her photographs and reflections on a great show at Lincoln Center's Damrosch Park Bandshell:

After Thursday’s rain cancellation, Lincoln Center Out of Doors Festival returned Friday with a South-of-the-Border-themed program.

Brazilian guitarist and composer Sergio Dias, in traditional attire, opened with a rousing guitar and vocal rendition of Brazilian songs. Dias is best known as a founding member of popular rock band Os Mutantes. The crowd enjoyed the rare treat of Dias’ first solo performance since 2006.

Wil-Dog El Gavachillo (photo: Darial Sneed)

Wil-Dog El Gavachillo with Banda Viento de Oro pulsated with punk rock beat and rhythms. The charismatic bassist Wil-Dog Abers--of Los Angeles-based Latin band Ozomatli--donned a hat and with pumping fists assumed his alter ego “El Gavachillo”. He was backed by the Mexican-inspired brass band, Banda Viento de Oro, making its first New York appearance.

Colombia's Los Irreales de Ondatrópica (photo: Darial Sneed)

Nidia Góngora of Los Irreales de Ondatrópica (photo: Darial Sneed)

Eagerly anticipated was the new Colombian group Los Irreales de Ondatrópica, fresh from its debut at the London Olympics. The 12-member group, which just completed a new CD at the fabled Discos Fuentes studios, includes Colombia music legends and rising stars. Performing traditional Cumbia updated with electronics and hip-hop drums, the band’s energetic, undulating pulse brought many in the audience to their feet, swaying and dancing enthusiastically. Vocalist Nidia Góngora was captivating as she playfully flirted with male band members and the audience.

It was a foot-stomping evening of Latin-based music under clear, crisp skies.

--Darial Sneed