Samuel Charters, 85

Samuel Charters, Foundational Scholar of the Blues, Dies at 85
by Larry Rohter, The New York Times, March 18, 2015

Carolina Chocolate Drops' Rhiannon Giddens prepares solo tour

A Solo Spotlight for a Powerful Voice
by Jon Pareles, The New York Times, January 23, 2015

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.

BAM welcomes roots musicians Carolina Chocolate Drops and Twyla Tharp

The Carolina Chocolate Drops
L to r: Hubby Jenkins, Rhiannon Giddens,
Rowan Corbett and Malcolm Parson
(photo by Michael Wilson)

The Carolina Chocolate Drops (reviewed by me here in March 2012) brought their acclaimed, rollicking rhythms to the BAM Gilman Opera House for one special evening including the world premiere of a duet choreographed by Twyla Tharp. In the spirited couplings and variations of Cornbread Duet, a contemporary ballet set to several of the Black fiddle-and-banjo band's songs, Tiler Peck and Robert Fairchild of New York City Ballet infused fluid, lighter-than-air, speedy technique with accents of jazz, square dance, social dance and joyful sass. Embedded in the lavish, two-hour-plus program, this segment aptly reflected not only the historic cultural blend (the Black and Celtic lineage of the 19th to early 20th Century American South) that the Drops honor in their music but also the qualities that give American performance widespread, enduring appeal and influence. The ballet stars were dressed by Norma Kamali in bold, horizontal layers of black and white, and while I'd like to believe none of us need the possible subliminal message in those adjoined colors, there it is.

Tiler Peck
(photo courtesy of the artist)

Robert Fairchild
(photo courtesy of the artist)

From Tharp's Cornbread Duet
(photo by Rahav Segev)

By now, I'd imagine, smart Tharp fans would also be hip to the Drops. But if any turned up last night just for Tharp and the NYCB principals, never having encountered the band, they were probably won over by Rhiannon Giddens' ebullient personality and valiant singing and the band's rousing performance. Welcome to what the rest of us have been loving for some time now, Grammy-winners for their 2010 Nonesuch debut, Genuine Negro Jig.

Certainly, the Drops warmly welcome you, too, with a set list ranging across revival church music, some soul-seeking Odetta blues, Joe Thompson fiddle tunes, Hank Williams's "Please Don't Let Me Love You"--this last delivered with Giddens's near-yodeling voice bending notes before kicking everything into high, trotting speed. Fan faves like "Country Girl" (written by Giddens and her sister) and the countrified version of Blu Cantrell's "Hit 'Em Up Style" were given fresh, full-on performances. The only problem was that Giddens got to slip off her shoes and stomp and twirl, while the audience had to sit still watching from the theater's "Line 'Em Up Sardine Style" rows.

As Giddens noted, with typical generosity, two former members of the band have split off into solo careers--the charismatic Don Flemons, a founding member, and cellist Leyla McCalla, who appeared with the band on tour and on their Grammy-nominated Leaving Eden (2012). Flemons and McCalla are out there doing their thing and spreading the goodness, and if you miss them, you can support their new moves by checking up on Flemons here and McCalla here.

In the meantime, keep an eye out for Giddens's own solo album, which she's working on for the band's label, Nonesuch Records.

For more Spring events at BAM, click here.

Where the blues brings joy: Dorrance and Reagon at the Schomburg

Tap maverick Michelle Dorrance
in The Blues Project, a collaboration
with singer-composer Toshi Reagon (rear, right),
curator of the Schomburg's Women's Jazz Festival

The Women's Jazz Festival, now in its 21st annual presentation by the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, got off to an exciting start with the New York premiere of The Blues Project in the sold-out Langston Hughes Auditorium. Given its world premiere last summer at the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, the production is the marriage of two top-notch artistic entities--Dorrance Dance, the tap ensemble led by Bessie-winning choreographer Michelle Dorrance, and Toshi Reagon's marvelous band, BIGLovely. And if that's not enough, how about Derick K. Grant and Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards adding their choreography and star-power?

Dorrance Dance in action
Up front: Elizabeth Burke (l) and Nicholas Van Young
Far left: Derick K. Grant
Center: Christopher Broughton
(photo: Bob Gore)

L-r: Claudia Rahardjanoto, Michelle Dorrance,
Demi Remick, Elizabeth Burke
and Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards
(photo: Bob Gore)

The Blues Project opens with the steady BOOM-THUMP, BOOM-THUMP of Allison Miller's drumming. Dancers--dressed as if for a summery country romp--first creep out from the wings then quickly unpack Dorrance's signature moves: loose-limbed, broad, pelting, the entire body activated and engaged in addressing space. They charge and skim and gobble the stage in just a few happy bites. It's a distinctly American, idealistically American look and feel--indomitable, optimistic, on the upswing and culturally integrated--and one that Reagon's BIGLovely supports throughout the hour-long show with its own buoyant eclecticism, from blues to bluegrass, from swing and rockabilly to hard rock. The tightly edited hour--each cleanly-arranged number following close upon its predecessor--never strains a viewer's interest.

Some dancemakers go astray in their effort to prove that tap is respectably choreographic, not just improvisatory. Dorrance, though, demonstrates that she can more than handle the challenge of fielding a big, purposeful group in space and making an ensemble look intricately sharp and never, never ever cornball. No matter what era of dance or music she drops into, she and her talented and disciplined dancers come up with a vitalizing response, as do Reagon and her musicians. I might wish for fewer ensemble moments in The Blues Project--that's just me, folks--but the thrilling solos eventually balance things out, and then some.

Grant's solo is a model of workmanship of the feet akin to fine brushstrokes in the painting of a master, strokes that make you lean forward to look and gasp. His technique is breathtaking. Sumbry-Edwards brings authority and, yet continuous surprise, concentrating hard as if dance is a most solemn duty, and that's because it is. She renders herself transparent so that history flows through her. Her solo is--I'll just say it this way--populated. Reagon's spiritual, soulful "There and Back Again" (2010) lays out the mesh that Dorrance's solo will embroider in her deep-listening, thoughtful way, one of the most inspired and inspiring pieces I've ever seen her dance. This youthful dancer and choreographer truly represents tap's historic and enduring through line and signals its potential.

Dorrance Dance: Megan Bartula, Christopher Broughton, Elizabeth Burke, Michelle Dorrance, Eboni Edwards, Derick K. Grant, Claudia Rahardjanoto, Demi Remick, Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards, Caleb Teicher, Byron Tittle, Nicholas Van Young, Ali Dietz

BIGLovely: Toshi Reagon (vocals, acoustic guitar), Adam Widoff (electric guitar), Ganessa James (electric bass), Juliette Jones (violin), Allison Miller (drums and percussion)

For information on upcoming Women's Jazz Festival events, now through March 31 at the Schomburg, click here. Hurry! Tickets go fast!

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
515 Malcolm X Blvd, Manhattan

(map/directions)

BRIC House welcomes musician Leyla McCalla tomorrow night

The Stoop Series: Leyla McCalla

Tuesday, February 11, 7pm

Stoop at BRIC House

Admission: FREE

Multi-instrumentalist Leyla McCalla (Carolina Chocolate Drops), celebrates her new album release featuring music reflecting her Haitian roots and eclectic life experiences. Dialogue with Régine M. Roumain of Brooklyn’s Haiti Cultural Exchange follows the performance.

Information

BRIC House
647 Fulton Street (Enter on Rockwell Place), Brooklyn
(map/directions)

Globalfest producers announce multicultural music lineup

Zimbabwean to Headline Globalfest 2013
by James C. McKinley Jr., The New York Times, November 13, 2012

Those roots-working Carolina Chocolate Drops

If I live to be 100, I'll never forget the show I saw last night at Schimmel Center for the Arts (Pace University). And if I do live to be 100, it will be, in part, thanks to the joy I get from the Grammy-winning Black roots music group Carolina Chocolate Drops.

On tour to promote their brand new CD for Nonesuch, Leaving Eden, the Drops offered up two hours of astonishing talent, skill, charisma and generosity. If you've only heard them on recording, you really need to get in the same room with them.

Late last month, the Drops lost their mentor, Joe Thompson, a master of the old-time Black string band tradition of the Carolinas, who died at the age of 93. Co-founder Rhiannon Giddens acknowledged the loss, but it became clear that the Drops have one guiding philosophy: Get on with it. The exuberance of their concert performance was all the tribute Thompson would ever need.

Besides Giddens (fiddles, minstrel banjo, kazoo and vocals), the other remaining Drops veteran is co-founder Dom Flemons (banjo, guitar, bones, jug, harmonica and vocals). Former bandmate Justin Robinson departed for other projects. But there are some newcomers: Leyla McCalla, a wonderful cellist, and Hubby Jenkins (guitar, banjo, mandolin, bones and vocals). Everybody's go-to human beatbox guy Adam Matta also appears on the new CD and joined the Drops for a few numbers last evening.

Flemons and colleagues have focused on a pre-blues melange of sounds from southern Black string band traditions that easily find welcome with today's fans of folk, country and Celtic music. They're also lighting out for blues territory now, too--a place that will be particularly fertile for Giddens. "West End Blues"--an homage to North Carolina blues guitarist/singer Etta Baker, who influenced the likes of Bob Dylan and Taj Mahal--showcased not only the rich fluidity of Giddens' opera-trained soprano but its expressive, affecting power. I think her finger-popping "Country Girl" on Leaving Eden, is going to do for the Drops what her sassy rendition of Blu Cantrell's revenge tune, "Hit 'Em Up Style," did for their Grammy-winning Genuine Negro Jig. Much as I hope the beautiful, self-assured Giddens will be Carolina Chocolate Dropping well into her distinguished 90s, I think some smart movie folks should write her a few acting projects worthy of her talents.

Here she is, in 2010, singing a Scottish song...

...and dueting with her sister, Lalenja Giddens Harrington...

...and leading her original bandmates--Flemons with banjo; Robinson doing beatbox at the mic--at Mass MoCa in 2010:

But then, all the Drops are radiant. You easily see that Flemons, in particular, lives to entertain. This man will find every last way to do it--crack the jokes, flip the guitar, break into dance. He loves performing and is impossible to resist. ("If you give to us, we can give it back," he said, needlessly, to the already-smitten, willing audience. "We can make this happen.") But it's also clear that Flemons' consummate facility with instruments and his eagerness to please get their drive from rigorous research and grounding in tradition. Jenkins, who hails from Brooklyn, is also a find--as fast and flashy-of-hand as any Drop, as personable and bearing a voice of substance and authority.

So, ladies...and gentlemen, if the Drops are headed your way--Hello, New England! You're next!--don't hesitate. Get a ticket. In the meantime, hit 'em up for the new CD.

Carolina Chocolate Drops Web site

Leaving Eden on Nonesuch Records

Carolina Chocolate Drops Facebook page