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Big Time Bunko!

Posted in On Right Wing Pundits and Bloviators with tags Glenn Beck's Rally in Washington, Sarah Palin, Tea Party on August 30, 2010 by playthell

A self Aggrandizing Bunko artist

Glenn Beck Plays the Long Range Con

Although the rotund Rushbo is great at self-aggrandizement, he could take some lessons from the new kid on the block – Glenn Beck – a consummate con-man who has set new standards in the art of bullshitting the public. In a much hyped Washington rally with the nebulous objective of “Restoring America’s Honor”– held on the same date and venue of Dr. Martin Luther King’s great Speech at the historic March On Washington for Jobs and Freedom – this cubby little fellow with the squeaky voice, and shaky moral foundation, somehow managed to do the impossible: make vanity look like altruism in the eyes of his followers. It was a con from beginning to end.

The con began when he claimed not to have been aware of the fact that he called his rally on the same date as the historic “March on Washington” nearly a half century ago, or that the venue he chose for his shallow diatribe was the very same venue where Dr. King presented the oration that has been voted the greatest speech in American history by a panel of distinguished scholars. My granddaddy George had a saying that expresses my feelings exactly: “That Boy’s a liar and the truth ain’t in him!”

Beck piggybacked off and exploited our soldiers sacrifices in the cheesiest way: by pretending to honor them while basking in their reflected glory. That’s really playing to the cheap seats! Everyone who cares about this issue knows that if Beck were really concerned about the vets he would be supporting our First Lady Michel Obama’s admirable efforts on behalf of military families.

Although I am inclined to be contemptuous of this delusional far right confederacy of dunces – who routinely vote against their own interest, scoff at the public interests while protecting the privileges of the Plutocrats, and get their rocks off mis-quoting the Bible spouting nonsense as constitutional dogma – I ended up actually feeling sorry for many of them. They had journeyed to Washington earnestly seeking answers to the myriad crisis’ that plague their lives…but found only a pompous little poseur spouting hot air.

I have previously described the Tea Party crowd as a motley collection of sad sacks, misfits, deluded white supremacists, misanthropes, vulgar opportunist, religeous fanatics and lost souls looking for hope in all the wrong places – with an obsequious self-loathing Negro lickspittle here and there. Nothing that happened on Saturday changed that opinion. It goes without saying that Republican political opportunists are everywhere in the mix, stirring up the pot, trying to gain personal and party support. We’ll see how that work’s out for them.

Thus far it looks like the Grand Obstructionist Party has made a Faustian bargain with the Tea Party mob and the Devil has come to claim their souls. Just look at how the Tea Party – directed by the lunatic right’s idea of a militant feminist intellectual, Sarah Palin – are knocking off the Republican establishment’s candidates, right and further right, with straight up space cadets. The most spectacular example of this is the apparent upset in the Republican primary in Alaska.

As I write the Tea Party candidate, Joe Miller, is leading the sitting Republican Senator Lisa McCulsky by 1500 votes. And you have to listen to what Mr. Miller believes to understand how Alaskans would have to be even dumber than I think – and since they voted Sarah Palin Governor, given what I’ve written about her, you can imagine how dumb I think they are! – to vote for this guy to represent them in the Senate.

The curious thing about Mr. Miller is that in spite of his excellent education he still talks as crazy as Palin, and they both talk like fools. I will have more to say about Mr. Miller in a forthcoming commentary on the new radical constitutionalists in the south in the Republican Party. But one observation will suffice here: Based on Miller’s public comments about the nature of Federalism and the evolution of the US Constitution, he is either an ignoramus or a charlatan. Should he win this primary, and I hope to God he does, the Democrats stand a fabulous chance of winning a seat that has been held by the McCulsky family, who are yellow dog Republicans, for over thirty years!

Furthermore, I can envision no scenario where there will be enough morons in the state of Nevada to elect Sharon Engle, hence the Republicans will lose a Senate seat that the establishment’s candidate was predicted to win. Notwithstanding how backwards and racist many white folks are in Kentucky – a state that, for most of it’s history, either enslaved black people or subjected them to legal caste oppression, which treated our skin color as a crime – I still cannot believe they will elect a cluless political Neanderthal like Rand Paul.

Paul is the best example why people with a broad liberal, i.e. humanist, education are better suited to the leadership of society than narrow minded technocrats, no matter how clever they are. Although political science is a real discipline in the academy – and an important one too– the practice of politics and governing is a fine art! And art is the province of the humanities!

If anything was clarified by this rally, it is that Glenn Beck’s real agenda is to replace Oprah as the #1 television talk show in America and become the biggest mogul in the media! And he intends to use this disillusioned and untutored mob to achieve it. Looking like the little poot butt boy who never got the girl, who was smacked upside the head and had his lunch money taken by school yard bullies, Glennie Boy reminds me of a slimmer version the old character Jackie Gleason used to play: “The Poor Soul.” Except in this episode the poor soul is getting his revenge against all who refused to recognize his uniqueness. He’s having a horse laugh at all of our expense – and he’s laughing all the way to the bank!

Although he is shamefully untutored in subjects like sociology, foreign affairs, political science and history – things you need to know something about in order to advance grand speculations about the direction our complex post-industrial society should take. Listening to his “speech” I fairly quickly came to two conclusions: Beck is a megalomaniacal numbskull, a deluded frog who fancies himself a prince. And his followers are the sad silly mob I thought they were!

Taking some of the grand themes in American history, Beck rambled on ad-nauseum – confusing his metaphors, posturing false analogies, profaning sacred texts, boring us with hackneyed clichés, and trying his best to play us for fools. Since his audience was basically the same crowd that turned up at the Republican National Convention I have no doubt that his message – whatever it was – resonated with most of them.

I say this with some certainty because during the convention the reporters and producers at WBAI FM took to the streets with our tape recorders and interviewed them en masse. We decided to just ask the pertinent questions and allow them to express themselves freely. No editorial excoriating them, regardless of how scurrilous, could equal the indictment they gave of themselves.

It is fair, I think, to conclude that this may well have been the dumbest group of people ever assembled any where in the world to choose a candidate who would govern a great nation. Hence although Beck went over like a lead balloon with me, I could tell from the ecstatic stares and spacey smiles on their pasty faces that he was uplifting the spirits of many in this cluless mob.

Glennie was getting off on it too. Buoyed by the good vibes emanating from the crowd, he actually started to believe he had skills as an orator – based on some of the things he said before the rally; perhaps he thought he was channeling Dr. King! Such is the feeling of omnipotence that the roar of the crowd can inspire in little men with deep seated feelings of impotence and self loathing.

This is what Whoopi Exposed about his character when he made the mistake of going on The View, after having lied about something or the other. Whoopi looked Glennie straight in the eyes and called him a “Lying sack of spit!” and Glennie bitched up on the spot! He looked like he wanted to jump up and run because Whoopi acted like if he said the wrong thing she just might break her foot off in his posterior.

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Although I tend to stay away from pop-psychology, since there are others who are much better qualified to venture speculations about human character and personality. But the thoughtful observer, who understands something about how personalities are molded, need not have studied Dr. Freud to recognize that this is a little man who is having his big moment. It is enough to have read Wilhelm Reich’s “Listen Little Man” and “The Mass Psychology of Fascism” in order to have a good idea what was going on here.

However I strongly suspect that Beck cares not a fig for the goals of the Tea party buffoons or the Republican Party hucksters. And he has said as much; he has occasionally reminded people that he is an “entertainer” and his principal concern is the success of his show – Rush has said the same thing. Although he has employed racist innuendo and slander to advance his agenda – which is the means by which the Republicans mobilized white resentment into a political movement that converted the south from solidly Democratic to solidly Republican – I don’t think Beck gives anymore of a good goddam about race than he does about politics.

That’s why he declared that the rally was not about politics and expressly forbade political signs. And there were no establishment Republicans on the bill. This also explains how Beck could allow Martin Luther King’s niece to speak without a vetted script. And she shocked many of the rednecks in the crowd with her no holds barred denunciation of racism in America. The enthusiastic applause that greeted her introduction quickly subsided when she began to speak on an issue the Republican right is built upon denying. As a speaker she was mediocre alas, and her overall message was muddled without a clear direction.

Her attempt to reiterate Dr. King’s famous refrain:”I have a dream” was embarrassing. I could not escape the feeling that she is not very bright and that her main reason for appearing at this sad rally was self-promotion. After all, her cousins are certainly cashing in on the King Legacy, and her father, A.D. King, walked with his famous brother Martin….until he turned up dead in a swimming pool, with nasty rumors swirling around that he had gotten drunk, fallen in, and drowned.

But in the matter of self promotion she was typical of all who spoke at this media contrived talkfest. However she is a rank amateur compared to the grand Meisterss of shameless self-promotion, Silly Sarah, whose great contribution to American political discourse thus far is to make ignorance fashionable. The whole event, with very little teweaking, was described perfectly by Shakespeare in Act 5, scene 5, 19–28 of MacBeth: They were but walking shadows, poor players, That struts and frets their hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. It was a tale told by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

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Playthell Benjamin

Harlem, New York

August 30, 2010

Are Media Provocateurs Inciting Violence?

Posted in On Right Wing Pundits and Bloviators, Playthell on politics with tags Ahmad Sharif, anti-muslin stabbing, Glenn Beck, Ground Zero Mosque, Michael Enright on August 28, 2010 by playthell

Glenn Beck: Just your Friendly Demogogue!

Some Reflections On the Ahmad Sharif Affair

The attack on Ahmad Sharif, a Muslim American cab driver working Manhattan, by Michael Enright, a big blond boyish looking white college student wielding a knife, should come as no surprise. Given all the anti-Muslim hysteria generated by right-wing media provocateurs, and the boisterous protests against the building of an Islamic cultural center in downtown Manhattan, this was predictable. I’m waiting with baited breath for one of these enraged fanatics to take a shot at President Obama any day now.

The constant haranguing of frustrated Americans – who are mostly white, male, and imbued with a deep sense of entitlement by virtue of their race and gender – with hysterical propaganda about how everybody is out to get them, will inevitably drive some to violence. Republican politicians who echo the extreme views of these media fear mongers must share equal responsibility for the crimes they inspire.

Nearly a year ago I posted a commentary titled: “Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck Incite Mayhem and Murder.” What occasioned that piece was my alarm over the rising number of dramatically violent incidents that were perpetrated by men who gave reasons for their actions that echoed the themes of daily rants by Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, and their fellow verbal arsonists on the right. The three cases I cited back then were Richard Popolowski, Steven Von Bruhn and Scott P. Roeder.

Popolowski ambushed and murdered three Pittsburg Policemen who were answering a routine domestic disturbance call placed by his mother. Von Bruhn murdered an Afro-American guard at the National Holocaust Museum, and Scott Roeder murdered gynecologist Benjamin Tiller – whom that pompous windbag Bill O’Reily labeled “Tiller the Baby Killer” because he performed abortions. And old crazy Billy Boy even gave out the Dr.’s address on the air. Although he can never be sure of the role he played in causing the Doctor’s death O’Reiley, arrogant megalomaniac that he is, remains unrepentant.

What all of these crazed killers have in common is that they had been obsessing over issues that are the daily fare of the radio arsonists. Popolowski thought Obama was going to take his guns away so the government could oppress white men; Von Bruhn – a white supremacist and eugenicist – is convinced that non-white aliens are taking over the USA, and whites must take their country back by force of arms. Scott Roeder thinks abortion is mass murder and felt compelled to stop it by murdering medical doctors who treat women seeking legal abortions. The violent attack on Mr. Sharif by Michael Enright follows this same pattern of obsessive irrational behavior. Their obsessions are the same issues the right-wing media provocateurs harp on everyday. Hence I think the Attack on Ahmad Sharif is a harbinger of things to come…so long as Limbaugh, Beck and company remain in business.

Sharif says they were carrying on a civil conversation when Enright suddenly shouted the Muslim salutation “Ai Salaam Alinkum” and began stabbing him. Unless the greedy amoral corporations who profit from the ignorance and bigotry spewed by murderous windbags over the airwaves put the national interest above corporate profits, or those opposed to their destructive business find a way to effectively strike at their bottom line, this murderous monologue will go on.

Ahmad Sharif

After His encounter with A Christian Avenger

Until they are restrained either by their bosses or the forces of the marketplace, the verbal arsonists in right-wing media will continue to incite murder and mayhem. Alia Lateef, speaking on behalf of the Taxi Drivers in New York, has no doubt that the attack was incited by the constant anti-Muslim diatribes in the media. That’s why I intend to join my fellow citizens who are standing up for the rights on Muslims to build their Mosque wherever they wish. In my view the issue is clear: To make any attempt to deny them this right is religious bigotry! Any attempt to curtail or mediate that right – which is absolute under the US constitution – is unacceptable and illegal if it involves any act of government.

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Let me be clear where I am coming from on this question. I am not, as many mistakenly believe, pro-Islam. Rather I agree with Franz Fanon, the black Psychiatrist from Martinique in the French Antilles who became the leading theoretician of the Algerian Revolution against France. When the leadership of the FLN was debating about what a liberated Algeria would be like, the Islamicist wanted to establish Sharia law, but Fanon protested, arguing that establishing an Islamic theocracy would be “a return to primitive medievalism!” However I think that Christian fundamentalist control of the US government would also be a return to primitive Medievalism too.

I believe the molders of the US constitution got things just right! The government shall have no role in promoting specific religious beliefs, and freedom of religion also means freedom from religion. I am now, and have been for over half a century, an avowed atheist. I refused to indoctrinate my children with any kind of religious dogma, and specifically warned by daughters against acceptance of religious philosophies that would deny them full equality on all planes of existence with their male counterparts. So when it comes to religious fundamentalist of any stripe, I say a pox on all your houses! But it is not my business what others choose to believe, and it’s certainly not the government’s business.

Thus there is no alternative for those who love our Constitutional liberties but to support the Muslim’s right to build their mosque wherever they choose – even if it is directly on the site of “Ground Zero,” let alone five blocks away! I take this position in spite of the fact that my first wife was a casualty of the 9/11 attack, and several friends also died there. This is because I don’t equate all Muslims with Al Qaeda any more than I would equate all Christians with Timothy McVey and the “Christian Identity movement. ” Furthermore, if most Americans were not so abysmally ignorant about the rest of the world, they would know that fourth fifths of the world’s Muslims are not Arabs, and don’t live in the Middle East! I am therefore compelled to oppose those who oppose the building of the Mosque downtown because I cannot stand idly by while ignorant and bigoted rabble turn my beloved city into a racial and ethnic battleground. You see, I am a New Yorker who loves this city as much as anyone alive.

I have often said publicly: “I would rather be a fire hydrant in New York City, and be pissed on by dogs all day long, than a king in a castle anywhere else!” I witnessed the plane crash into the second tower, and experienced the terror of that moment; if I’m not mad about the Mosque’s location then I am unmoved by the vitriolic rhetoric of those out in the boonies. I am suspicious of those talking heads in the media who have neither the best interests of this city, or the nation for that matter, at heart. These bogus bloviators, who are stirring up all the trouble, only care about increasing their ratings so they can maintain their multi-million dollar salaries and princely lifestyles. And they have told us so publicly!

Thus it is safe to conclude that the people who will journey to our nation’s capitol this weekend to attend Glenn Beck’s rally, will be disproportionably composed of emotional cripples and abysmal ignoramuses. It would behoove all of us to pay close attention to what happens there. It is an obscene burlesque on the great March on Washington in 1963, which was a march against racism, war, poverty and avarice – all the things that Beck and his Tea Party cronies promote.

This vulgar side show, hosted by an amoral clown who incites homicides for fun, featuring Sarah Palin as keynote speaker – a racist vulgar opportunist who has the values of a barbarian and the intellect of a Neanderthal –is both an insult to the memory of Doctor King and the great work he did. And it is a dangerous diversion for the poor deluded white folks who sincerely believe that this scurrilous buffoon is offering wise counsel that will show them the way out of their misery. Not so.

Instead they will be provided and opportunity to engage in a collective venting of rage – not unlike the giant Nazi rallies at Nuremburg Germany in the 1930’s. In those rallies the major issues were also rooted in economic dislocation and a growing feeling that the “true Germans” were having their country taken over by alien elements of their own population. And as any historian of the period will verify, protestant fundamentalism and Catholic complicity played a major role in the rise of Fascism that led to the Holocaust. There are many who throw the Nazi analogy around falsely, but I’m dropping some real science here. Check it out!!! In any case I will have more to say on this subject in a forthcoming commentary.

Alas, Beck’s rally may prove cathartic for the moment, but no solutions to the problems of struggling white folks who despair that they may ever realize their American dreams will be provided by this shameless charlatan, verbose ignoramus and friendly fascist. For when it is all said and done, they will still be in the same boat: the Darwinian struggle for bread that is the lot of the working class of all colors in an increasingly post industrial cybernetic American economy that no longer needs them.

Who knows, if we use the past as a guide to understanding the present and predicting the future, this mass outpouring of white grievances – the great majority of which are imagined in the fevered mind of Beck and his ilk – could well push more clueless white saps into violent attacks on Muslims and people of color. That’s what usually happens when white Americans descend into a state of racist rage popularly known as “white backlash. There is a rush to convince us that the attack on Sharif was an aberration, the demented act of one deranged individual and we need not worry about a recurrence…We’ll see.

The White Christian Avenger

Just Another Poor Sap Pushed Over the Edge?

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Playthell Benjamin

Harlem, New York

August 2010

Makeda Voletta At Club Camarada!

Posted in Cultural Matters, Photo-Essays with tags Camarada Club, El Barrio Salsa, Makeda's Mambo, Salsa in Spanish Harlem on August 25, 2010 by playthell

Dancing The Mambo In Spanish Harlem!

A Note On Cultural Fusion

There is much talk about the phenomenon of multi culturalism in the United States today, and those who oppose it view it as an ominous threat to the national identity of the nation. Some of this fear is based on a long standing misperception of what the USA actually is…and is not. You can see it most clearly in the signs and slogans of the so-called “Tea Party” movement,” an incoherent social formation composed of an untutored mob fueled by rage, racism and ignorance of the political realities contrived and stoked by professional Republican lobbyists who call themselves “Freedom Works,” and financed by reactionary corporate plutocrats.

Their most impressive effort at “Taking our country back” thus far is the Arizona anti-immigration law and the “Birthers,” those racist imbeciles who are trying to convince the American people that Barack Obama’s presidency is illegitimate, because he was not born in the US. For these crackpots it is a recurrent nightmare every time they see Barack carrying out his constitutional duties as the Chief Executive of our government, and Commander-In-Chief of America’s mighty armed forces. However, they are anachronisms, because cultural fusion and diversity is a reality in America today. Nowhere is this truer than in America’s greatest City – New York. Makeda Voletta, a native New Yorker, is an example of this cultural trend, for she is a true Multi-cultural American.

Although her family is African and native American, she was raised in the crucible of African American culture with no acknowledgement of her native American heritage. This she would later discover as a result of conducting research into her family history after she began dancing with Hispanic companies and the Latino’s – who are far more connected to their indio roots – began too inquire about her native American kinships; of which she was cluless but they were sure existed. Makeda’s intellectual foray into her murky family past has enlightened us all about our American heritage, and made her ever more curious about the diverse strains of humanity that make up the American people.

Growing up in New York Makeda heard the Afro-Latin music of the Spanish Caribbean, especially it’s most dynamic and influential sound – The Afro-Cuban Son Montuno. That’s because Makeda is my daughter, and I have been playing conga drums for very near half a century. Which means that I have been playing all of her life, over twenty years before she was born in fact. I am crazy about the Son Montuno style, and the Latin/Jazz -New York Salsa styles that it inspired; I introduced Makeda to this music at an early age.

From the outset I identified the music – which is now universally called Salsa – as “Afro-Cuban music.” This is because when I first heard it performed it was by the black Cuban students attending Florida A&M University, which had a world famous music program, having produced the likes of “Cannonball” and Nat Adderley. It was clear that the Son was as much an Afro-Cuban invention as Jazz is the creation of African Americans – this is why when Mario Bauza and Dizzy Gellespie put their heads together they created Cu-Bop – Dizzy introduced the conga drums into jazz by hiring Chano Pozo – which is the true father of all “Latin-Jazz.” I loved the piano and the bass rhythms and I dug the singing – although I had not a clue what the lyrics meant; it was just music, like scat singing, and it was all good – but I was indifferent to the drums.

Dizzy and James Moody

With Pioneering Afro-Cuban congero Chano Pozo

That’s because I was a rudimental trap drummer and was also studing the drum set, so the Conga drums seemed like crude Tom Toms to me, and I did’t quite know what to make of the Timbales. But I liked the music a lot. I began playing a few years later when I was living in Philadelphia and fell in love with a beautiful Puerto Rican Lady who was a dancer, and she introduced me to the conga and bade me play it. I couldn’t even get a sound out of the skin at first. A few days later she took me to see the Great Afro-Cuban virtuoso Mongo Santamaria…and my life has never been the same. I became good friends with Mongo, and a life long devotee of the art of the conga – as a performer and avid fan.

kadiejah!

The Dancer Who made Me a Congero

That was in 1962. By 1966 I was good enough to subsitute for the great Mongo Santa Maria with his magnificent Orchestra. The gig was at Pep’s Show Bar, a famous Philadelphia Jazz Club in the Mid twentieth century, and I got to play with the band because Mongo was having his hands treated. Since I know that the many variations my life has taken – Political activist, History Professor, Boxing Promoter, Journalist, journalism Professor, Congero, Band Leader – are hard for many readers to believe if they don’t know me; I have provided a picture of that performance below. And one can see my recent performances on Conga by checking me out on You Tube.

The band in this picture is one of the greatest Latin Jazz Orchestras ever! If you look to my far right( the readers left) you will see great Hubert Laws – the greatest flautist of the twentieth century. Hubert was more versitile on woodwinds and reeds than Wynton Marsalis is on the trumpets and cornet – and that’s saying a hell of a lot, considering the fact that Wynton is the greatest trumpet virtuoso on record! Hubert also played the tenor saxophone in the band and he was as soulful as his gifted brother Ronnie Laws. The guy standing right next to me, to Hubert’s left, is Bobby Capers; the younger brother of the great pianist and Professor Of Music, Valarie Capers.

Which means that, like the Laws family – Bobby also came from a musically gifted clan. Valarie’s genuis as an instrumentalist is all the more impressive because she is blind. Marty Scheller is on trumpet and he was also the band’s principal arranger and Music Director. Rogers Grant, who was also Afro-American, was the pianist; the great Dominican showman and virtuoso Timbalero Carmello Garcia rocked the Timbales as he executed dramatic dance steps, and the Mexican bassist Victor Venego held down the bottom as the pulse of the band.

Thus Makeda grew up in a household where Afro-Cuban music was played as often as Rhythm&Blues or Jazz. As a trained dancer – she began the formal study of classical ballet at the world renowned Dance Theater Of Harlem at Five years old and studied for nearly ten years – she naturally noticed all dance oriented music. Acutely aware of the brazen racism against black ballerina’s, I introduced Makeda to modern black dance; taking her to see “Cityscapes, ” a modern black ballet performed by the Garth Fagan Dance company with music by Wynton Marsalis and his Orchestra. That opened up her mind to possibilities outside of classical ballet; and as she was always a big fan of Afro-American vernacular dance, it didn’t take long before she began to be infected by the bewitching rhythms of the conga, timbales and clave!

Makeda, like her father before her, soon fell under the spell of this magical Afro-Latin sound…and the pictures below document the result of the kind of cross-cultural fusion that can happen when we approach each other’s culture with respect, and are willing to do the necissary study that will allow an outsider to participate fully in the experience – to speak the cultural language without accent. The Mambo, aka Salsa, is a dynamic, elegant, romantic, passionate mating ritual that allows women to be sexy with class, and men to be macho and graceful at the same time – like a bullfighter without the danger.

Here, the worse fate a male can encounter is to prove uninteresting to your partner, since the man controls the dance. It is the last living dance tradition in America where men and women truly dance together as partners, and Latin clubs are surely the last dance venue where you can actually dance to a live band on the stand! Viva La Musica!!

Note: This dance, when properly executed, is improvisational; with the steps choreographed in the moment. The stiffs on “Dancing With The Stars,” who pass off those awkward, mechanical, esthetic atrocities, as the Mambo – often without even using authentic music – should take note. For in their cultural arrogance they are profaning a grand dance tradition. This is the real deal…this is how it’s done by it’s authors, and only they can set the standard of authenticity and excellence. On this night, in club Camarada, a Puerto Rican night club in Spanish Harlem, Miguel and Makeda tore the dance floor up! If you listen carefully to the video clip at the end of this photo-essay, you can hear the salutations of approval from the crowd. I just happend to have my camera and started taking pictures. The whole thing happened on the spur of the moment…and they were magic moments. (For maximum viewing effect of this essay, expand your screen to 150%.

Playing Mongo’s Congas

In My Master’s Chair!

On The Clave!

Twirling On A Dime!

Creating Geometric Complexities

In And Around the Beat!

Moving In Sync

Like Swiss Clockworks

An Afro-Latin Pas de Deux!

Workin It!

Matching Each Other Step For Step!

Without Skipping A Beat!

Miguel Is Masterful!

Directing The Dance Of Magic!

Dancing With Dad On His 67^th Birthday!

Makeda’s First Tutor In The Art Of Mambo

Below are three video links: The first is of the Chappotin Allstars, an Afro-Cuban cojunto performing A Descarga.

The second video is of Makeda and Miguel dancing

The third is of Myself dancing with a partner on the 4th of July.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KT9CHjchGII

Double click to see the Chappotin Allstars

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aT_kceLb_PI

Double click to see Miguel and Makeda Dance

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJsZe6smYbs

Double Click and Watch Poppi Dance the Mambo!

El Chocolate Dances to Zon Del Barrio

Live in Central Park July 4, 1010

Old School Mambo Moves!

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Playthell Benjamin

Harlem, New York

August 24, 2010

* Photographs and Text by: Playthell Benjamin

*Except for the picture of Dizzy and Chano and the picture he appears in.

An Open Letter to Dr. Laura

Posted in On Right Wing Pundits and Bloviators, Playthell on politics with tags Abe Foxman, anti-Defamation League, Dr. Laura, Playthell's commentary on Dr. Laura, Rabbi Shmuley, racist radio on August 21, 2010 by playthell

The Dr. Laura I Remember

Hi Dr. Laura

You may not remember me, but I remember well the night we met. Let me refresh your memory. It was at a book party for the prolific and erudite Rabbi Shmuley Boetec about six years ago. It was a posh affair on Fifth Avenue where you and I were guest speakers. I was not familiar with your work beyond the fact that you were considered a prominent and well respected relationship expert. In fact, that was the raison d’ etre for the discussion, as Rabbi Shmuley was also a celebrated relationship expert, having written the wildly popular Book: “Kosher Sex.” I admired your spunk and intellect that night, as you boldly pointed out that you disagreed with some of the learned Rabbi’s relationship advice because he was a male chauvinist!

You might remember that I was the last of an impressive array of speakers, all of whom had been given strict time limits; I was the last to speak precisely because Rabbi Shmuley wanted me to speak with no limits. This was because Schmuley and I were co-hosting a radio show on WWRL AM in New York at the time, he had heard my take on class, ethnicity and race in the US and he wanted the audience to hear my analysis of Afro-American / Jewish relations in historical perspective.

We had known each other less than a week, but after our first encounter on air he began to read up on me. He discovered a feature story I had written in Emerge magazine, “Blacks and Jews: Our Tattered Alliance,” which had attracted a lot of attention in news paper reviews around the country and resulted in my being invited to present a lecture on the topic at Harvard – a recording of which I shall soon place online. Shmuley, who has a great admiration for Dr. Martin Luther King – whom he has repeatedly said “has done more to bring the teachings of the ancient Hebrew prophets to life than any Rabbi I know” – thought my views on the subject of blacks and Jews in America would bring some much needed clarity to the muddled thinking on this subject.

Considering the uniqueness of the event – the audience was packed with blacks and Jews of varying class and educational backgrounds, religious and secular – I’m sure you must remember it despite your whirlwind schedule. Hence you may recall the tremendous ovation my presentation received. For no one greeted my message more enthusiastically than you, as you embraced me warmly and showered me with accolades. I had no doubt that your expression of fraternity was genuine, as you gave me your private phone number and invited me to call and chat sometimes.

Rabbi Shmuley

spreading a message of racial Harmony in the US

That’s why I was shocked and surprised when I heard of the racial imbroglio that you now find yourself in. I confess that I have not followed your career closely, but when I found myself being stalked by a deranged female fan of my radio show, you were the first person I considered calling for advice as to how to handle the situation. Especially as she was using the internet to launch anonymous attacks and I had read where you had been the victim of several such attacks. But I had written your number in a phone book and never transferred it to my computer file and when I looked it up the ink had faded on a couple of the digits and I couldn’t make out the entire number; I started to call your show but thought the better of it. But judging from the way you “helped” the young black female caller that touched off the present firestorm, perhaps I made the right decision.

However it was then that I learned how big you had become. According to the information I am reading now you are the biggest female radio show host in the nation – and the only radio host of either gender who has your own You Tube channel. Now it has all suddenly come crashing down…what happened? How could it all end with a single phone call? I guess you must be wondering the same thing. After taking a close look at the incident that precipitated your demise I would attribute your dramatic fall from grace to two fundamental factors: A lifetime of white Privilege and the arrogance it produces in dealing with nonwhites, and the hubris that results from feelings of omnipotence when one is constantly sought out by others for their superior wisdom in dealing with the trials and tribulations that life presents to us all.

Unless I am to assume that you had dropped a tab of acid, or ingested some other mind altering drug, when you were browbeating the black female caller from Colorado who sought your advice in dealing with friends and family of her white husband that constantly accosted her with racially offensive remarks, then the explanation for your behavior must either be the reasons suggested above, or you are indeed a cold blooded racist!

Since I grew up in the apartheid South in the hey day of white supremacy I think I know an avowed racist cracker when I see one, and you just don’t strike me as that. But when ignorance, arrogance, and a sense of white entitlement are combined with hubris the result may well be a distinction without a difference. How dare you assume that you know best when Afro-Americans should be offended by the use of the word Nigger? Who appointed you the arbiter of our sensibilities?

Failing to heed the adage, “When you are already in a hole stop digging,” you attempted to justify your racist drivel by accusing the young black woman – who went by the nomme de Plume “Jade’ – of being “too sensitive.” Then you offered the silly half baked explanation that because black comedians say “Nigger” it should be cool for whites to say it: “”I don’t get it. If anybody without enough melanin says it, it’s a horrible thing,” you screeched. And you accused her of “NAACPing me,” what the hell was that all about? I cannot imagine a response that more perfectly combines ignorance, arrogance and white chauvinism. Since you are a Jew let me put this in terms that you will surely be able to understand. Unless you really are as silly and shallow as you appear to be in this instance.

Have you ever heard Jewish comics perform in the Borscht Belt resorts of the Catskills? Well I have. When I was in the boxing business I had occasion to spend time in the training camps of the great pugilists Michael Spinks and Timmy Witherspoon, who trained at The Concord and Kutchers. The way the deal worked was that the fighters were to make themselves as visible as possible while training there, which included having dinner in the main dining room, which is also where the floor shows were staged. The shows always included a comedian, that’s why these Borscht Belt resorts became the training ground for so many great Jewish comedians.

Minnie Tonka: Jewish Burlesque Commediene

Would Jews find this routine funny if performed by a black woman?

What struck me most emphatically about the performances of these comedians was that Jews were often the butt of their jokes. Just like black comedians working the chittlin circuit – although the comics of the past had a better sense of the racial realities and far too much self respect to yell “Nigger!” in public. Yet when the language of the Jewish comics is appropriated by outsiders it was considered anti-Semitic. Just like when whites appropriate the language of those black comedians Afro-Americans consider it racist! Furthermore the anti-Jewish epithet ‘Kike” is a term German Jews created to describe Jews from Eastern Europe.

But does that give others the right to use this term with impunity? When put in these terms it is clear that your logic does not hold and your argument falls apart! Furthermore, no group on earth is more sensitive to ethnic insults that American Jews! You all even have an organization with a vast research capability that monitors not only what is said about Jews in the media – broadcast and print – but also scours academic and literary texts for arguments considered injurious not only to American Jewish interests, but that of the far away state of Israel as well.

It’s called the Anti-Defamation League, and the black community has no watch dog guarding our interests that even begins to approach the power of Abe Foxman, who has destroyed quite a few careers of people for transgressions far less odious than yours! If you don’t know about this, then you should Google the late great investigative journalist Robert I. Freedman and read his work on the ADL. So why didn’t you tell Jade “Don’t do an Abe Foxman on me?” You accuse black people of applying a “double standard” because we tolerate remarks from black comedians that we find offensive when others use them against us – although there is a clear difference in intent if your are laughing with me or laughing at me – yet Jews are just as guilty of this. Double standards indeed!

Abe The Grand Inquisitor!

Why you did not recognize this is anybody’s guess; only you know for sure whether the motive was ignorance or arrogance. I strongly suspect it was a bit of both – as opposed to the plain old racism of which you stand accused. In other words, like most white media talking heads, you just didn’t have a clue what the fuck you were talking about! According to the information I have been able to acquire about your academic training you hold a Doctorate in physiology from Columbia University. Although that is an impressive achievement, it in no way qualifies you to pontificate authoritatively on matters that require knowledge of sociology, psychology and history. Which means that you were in over your head to begin with in attempting to answer the question the caller put to you; hence a little humility would have been in order rather than the haughty arrogance you displayed.

Perhaps people who call radio show hosts to seek advice on matters about which the host has no demonstrated competence – either in terms of academic credentials, demonstrated excellence in performance, or a written paper trail – deserve whatever they get. But then, arrogant radio show hosts who offend entire sections of the population with racial or ethnic insults that encourage injurious behavior against the offended group deserve what they get too. And the spectacle of a millionaire bloviator – who has amassed a fortune broadcasting opinions she is unqualified to offer over 250 radio stations nation wide crying about her First Amendment Rights being violated when listeners complain – is ludicrous!

It is a rare occasion when true wisdom flows from the mouth of Howard Stern, but he is certainly right regarding your ridiculous whining about having your first Amendment Rights violated. It remains to be seen if he is also right in his prediction that you are faking the funk when you say that you are going to retire from radio, and you may be sure that I shall watch your career moves with interests. And I shall henceforth offer critical comments on your bloviations when the situation demands it.

But let us dwell a bit on the First amendment issue, because it is a dramatic illustration of the point I wish to make about your ignorance regarding history. It also demonstrates my long standing contention that white commentators don’t necessarily have to know what they are talking about to be provided a platform to pontificate to the multitudes on critical issues. The First Amendment was designed to prevent the government from suppressing unpopular speech, mainly speech critical of government itself.

It was conceived by men who knew all to well the tyranny that results from unchecked power because they had witnessed it under the monarchies of Europe. This is the same impulse that led the architects of the Constitution to prohibit the government from establishing a state religion; for they had also witnessed the power of the Church of England. What the first Amendment does not do, nor was it ever intended to do, is protect people like you from being muzzled either by your boss – in this case the station owners who broadcast your shows – or the machinations of the marketplace.

Therefore if parties who are offended by your caustic pontifications decide to boycott your sponsors unless they dump you, that’s not a violation of your First Amendment Rights! And you discredit yourself as a serious commentator on important societal issues every time you say so. Furthermore, it marks you as a hypocrite since the organized Jewish community is the best in the country at playing this game and I have never heard you utter a peep about it.

Of course – like Rush and Sean and Glenn – you appeal mostly to mindless sycophants, the kind of people the late great Dean of American letters and insightful judge of human foible and folly H. L. Mencken called “Boobus Americanus.” Thus it is no surprise that you have received thousands of e-mails supporting you in your mindless folly. But there is one e-mail that you must publicly disavow – and the sooner the better for the sake of your reputation – and that’s the one from Silly Sarah Palin, the verbose Alaskan barbarian. The reasons why you must reject her offer of sisterly support is first because you are on record calling her a ignoramous and an unfit mother after John McCain choose her as his presidential running mate – thus you will look like a shameless charlatan if you don’t – and second because she is a transparent racist who is apparently willing to incite a race war in America if it serves her interests: political and personal.

Palin’s Role Model

A Real Vicious Bitch!

Sarah is, by her own admission. “a pit bull in lipstick;” which is synonymous with an evil dangerous bitch! And you cannot lie down with dogs without getting up with fleas. How you handle your newly minted relationship with Sarah Palin – who is not only a transparent racist but is as shallow as a dry creek bed – will tell us even more about who you really are than anything you have said or done thus far. As the Zen Master said to his devotee: “We’ll see.”

Ps: You say that you want to debate these questions: Really?

Well I’m available 24/7, call me ASAP and let’s get it on!

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As always, Playthell George Benjamin

Harlem, New York

August 21, 2010

1 Comment »

Sunday Night At Dizzy’s Club

Posted in Cultural Matters, Music Reviews with tags Betty Carter, Cyrus Chestnut, Dizzy's Club, Eric Reed, playthell's commentary, The Culture on August 18, 2010 by playthell

Eric Reed

Cyrus Chestnut

Night of The Cookers!

For music lovers New York is a fabulous feast of magnificent variety. On a very hot Sunday night during the heat wave in June I had a thirst for some good music and dropped in at Dizzy’s Club, a fabulous night spot located in Jazz At Lincoln Center, having no idea who was performing. But I was sure whoever was playing they would be cooking. Dizzy’s is quite possibly the most beautiful nightclub in the world – with its glass wall behind the bandstand looking down on the fanstasic fountains in Columbus Circle at 59^th and Broadway, then out over Central Park to fabulous Fifth Avenue.

When the lights are low it provides a spectacular back drop for the magic vibes the musicians conjure up onstage. For Dizzy’s is quite possibly the greatest Jazz club in the world in regard to the artists who are featured there – considering that it is the premiere performance venue in the Mecca of Jazz. On this night the headliners happened to be the great young pianists Cyrus Chestnut and Eric Reed, accompanied by virtuoso players on bass and drums that provided a powerful and seamless rhythmic cushion.

Inside Dizzy’s

This is an unusual instrumental combination; generally a trio features one piano. Given the dominance of the piano in the jazz ensemble – whether it is a trio, quintet, septet, or big band it is not easy for pianists to collaborate in this fashion. Jazz music being what it is – a free flowing musical conversation among master musicians conducted within certain agreed upon boundaries demarcated by chord changes and rhythmic configurations – successful performance requires a high level of collegiality. This means that the performers must really listen to what each other are doing and respond intelligently in ways that coalesce rather than clash, thus enhancing the overall sound of the band in a coherent aesthetic statement.

To accomplish this the musicians must approach their task with a highly developed sense of democracy and a reverence for invention and personal freedom; which makes Jazz the most representative of American fine art forms. In the smaller ensembles like quartets a high degree of instrumental virtuosity is assumed – since each player is expected to make a solo statement sometimes during the performance. But that is just the starting point. To excel at this endeavor the instrumentalists must have a fertile imagination, blues sensibility, good taste, a finely developed sense of nuance and proportion, and know how to tell a story with their solos. But even so, as Mr. Ellington warned: “It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing!

The great Jazz players have mastered all of these elements, and their performances can achieve a kind of sonic alchemy; that’s why listening to this quartet was akin to a continuous eargasm. They were swinging so hard they rocked the house and wiped the audience out with musical statements that reached such intensity they became ecstatic. It was the kind of performance that combined technical virtuosity with deep emotional content. The band worked with the precision of a 24 jeweled Swiss watch. To the untutored listener, unfamiliar with the ways Jazzmen construct their music, it would be impossible to believe that they were not playing from a score

The way that Eric and Cyrus played off each other is possible only among master musicians with the kind of profound mutual respect that allows a deep spiritual communication. It is only then that competition and cooperation is possible in a performance where each is trying to push the other to achieve their greatest potential. Listening to these pianists and watching the way they complimented each other when speaking to the audience about the music, it was clear that we were witnessing a mutual admiration society. That’s why their performance reached such a high level of artistry.

I was reminded of a story the great alto saxophonist Jackie McLean told me about Bird and pianist Bud Powell – two of the greatest artist in the Jazz pantheon who’s playing has influenced everyone who practices the art form with any competence and respect for tradition. Bud and Bird were shooting pool one day and Bird bested bud in the game. Bird began talking smack, telling Bud: “you can’t beat me doing nothing.” But when Bud said: “I guess that includes playing music too,” Bird quickly replied: “No man that’s different, playing music is something else. It takes the contribution of everybody in the band to make great music.”

Willie Jones III

This is the kind of thinking that underlay the musical rapport between the members of the quartet – especially Eric and Cyrus. Sometimes they would play together, and other times they would play separately as a trio with the drums and bass. At other times they played solo, as in Cyrus Chestnuts’ trio rendition of Billy Strayhorn’s beautiful ballad, ” A Flower Is A Lonesome Thing,” a composition that combines joy and pathos in ways that suggest a sound portrait of the brilliant composers’ tragic life, and Eric Reed’s solo tribute to the peerless piano master Hank Jones, who lately danced to join the luminous souls who have moved to what the poet William Cullen Bryant calls “that mysterious realm where each shall take his place in the silent halls of death.”

Eric selected “Standing In The Need Of Prayer,” a gospel tune, to perform in Hank’s memory. Recalling a conversation with the elegant piano virtuoso Eric, who is a knowledgeable and eloquent spokesman for the art of Jazz, pointed out that Hank told him: “A little gospel never hurts.” For Eric this was like returning the rabbit to the briar patch, because he began his career as a musical performer playing in the church. This was no prissy Episcopalian affair but a rousing Pentecostal church, where the congregation passionately heeds the biblical injunction to “make a joyful noise unto the lord!”

In Eric’s performance we were once again reminded of the spiritual roots of jazz, after all gospel music is just the flip side of the blues, and many of Jazz’s brightest stars developed their skills playing in church. One of the routine miracles in Jazz is the way the musicians can take a simple tune and develop it into a magnificent musical presentation with their erudite improvisations – which were called variations on a theme in Mozart’s time. That’s what Eric accomplished in grand fashion, as he built increasingly complex statements that combined poignant emotions and technical brilliance with a fecund imagination to invoke the spirit, if not the presence, of the divine – converting the nightclub into a temple celebrating sacred art and obliterating the age old distinction between “God “ and “the Devil’s” music. And when he played his last note the audience erupted in tumultuous salutation.

Cyrus Chestnut also brought the house down in his performance of Strayhorn’s haunting ballad. He has a laid back style that makes the most difficult musical passages seem effortless. And such splendid taste it sounds as if he has mulled over each phrase for days; yet he is inventing the music right before our eyes, composing at the speed of thought. Over the course of the evening we were treated to the entire vocabulary of piano playing in western music.

The pianists moved effortlessly from Bach to the blues, with citations from Professor Thomas A. Dorsey – the blues pianist who invented modern gospel music when he quit his gig as Ma Rainey’s pianists and began writing songs for the great Mahalia Jackson. At some of the hottest points of their performance, when the music was swinging hard, Cyrus and Eric would exchange passages from the compositions of European classical music masters without missing a beat. They are extensions of the great virtuosos of the tradition such as: Art Tatum, Teddy Wilson, Bud Powell, Oscar Peterson, Ahmad Jamal, Hank Jones, Ramsey Louis, Jacki Byard, Herbie Hancock, et al.

Aside from the technical brilliance and musical erudition of the pianists, this kind of improvisational freedom was made possible by the tightly constructed, relentless swinging of the bassist and drummer Willie Jones III. Quite naturally I, like any serious jazz fan, especially those who have been around the New York Jazz scene for a while, thought the drummer was related to the great Brooklyn percussionist Willie Jones. I figured him for a grandson. Hence I was more than a little surprised to discover when I talked to him after the show that they were not kinsmen. However his hard swing and superb taste sounded as if it might have been seasoned by several generations of grooming. His playing was both dynamic and subtle, something many seasoned drummers – like Danny Richmond for instance – find nearly impossible to achieve.

Derzon Douglas

I was especially impressed with the young bassist, Dezron Douglas, because I had recently had the rare privilege and exquisite pleasure of listening to three of the best bassist in the business: Stanley Clarke, Esperanza Spaulding and Carlos del Pino. So I was not inclined to be easily impressed. However when it comes to a big warm sound and solid swing Dezron Douglass was excellent. He and Willie constructed a firm rhythmic foundation, on which Cyrus and Eric erected their improvisations like epic tone poems; spitting off streams of bullet like notes in brilliant timeless Jazz statements.

I get a special exhilaration whenever I hear Eric and Cyrus play because I saw them early on in their careers. I first heard Cyrus at Betty Carter’s jazz festival for young artists held at the BAM Majestic Theater in Brooklyn. In fact, I wrote about him in a essay for the Sunday Times Of London – it was published in their arts magazine, The Culture, under the title “School For Cats.” At these events the late Mistress Of Swing scoured the country in search of the most talented young jazz virtuosi and provided them an opportunity to sharpen their skills by performing together under the watchful eyes and instruction of seasoned pros.

Over a decade has passed since then and Cyrus has fulfilled the promise I saw in him back in the day. Much of his growth and development occurred during his tenure as the pianist in Ms. Carter’s band. Although quite young Eric Reed was an accomplished pro when I first heard him; as he was the pianist with the world renowned Jazz At Lincoln Center Orchestra, under the direction of Maestro Marsalis, he has gotten better.

I have heard a lot of young pianists lately who have excellent technical skills, but they strike me the way many of the young Classical pianists affected the great piano virtuosos Arthur Rubenstein and Vladimir Horowitz: They can’t tell the difference between technical exhibitionism and making music! To our good fortune, Eric Reed and Cyrus Chestnut has decided making beautiful music is paramount, and their prodigious technique is employed to achieving that end. Bravo!

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* To see Eric reed in Performance click this link:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Hvrjhw2Lv4

* To See Cyrus Chestnutt Click this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1A-4sDnGJIs

Playthell Benjamin

Harlem, New York

June 28, 2010

The Death Of Sister Soul

Posted in Cultural Matters, Music Reviews on August 16, 2010 by playthell

Adding Her Voice to The Celebration Of New Orleans

Reveries of Abbey Lincoln

From the first time I ever heard of Abbey Lincoln she was associated with the struggle for the freedom and dignity of black folks. Since I was a boy I had been a fanatic for her husband Max Roach’s drumming. Growing up in a community where mastering a musical instrument was considered a heroic deed, and playing the drums was a manifestation of manly prowess only slightly less masculine than playing football – which was a civic religion in Florida – Max Roach was both a manly role model and artistic icon, a God like presence with mythical powers.

The Beautiful Abbey Lincoln

When Max married Abbey she instantly became something of a Goddess in my mind. And since I had already rejected the God people around me worshipped, I was free to pick and choose my own Gods: So why not them? I had never heard of Abbey before she married Max, but they quickly became the first couple of the Black Arts Movement. Teasing brown and strikingly beautiful, she was well spoken, a talented singer and actress, and carried herself like an African warrior Queen prepared to do battle in defense of her own freedom and dignity, and by word and deed that of her people.

Although her fame would have been restricted by white racism – a white girl with her attributes would have blown up as big as ice cream – she still could have found commercial success. But Abbey was committed to higher goals, like the liberation and elevation of her oppressed people; once you experience that freedom high nothing can compare with it. Many years later Abbey was still unrepentant about her decision. In a 1992 Essence magazine interview she told Jill Nelson: “People make you over, they give you other songs to sing, you wear the clothes they choose, they find you a personality they think will sell. It’s all about prostitution, when you come down to it.”

The Magnificent Max Roach

Abbey was one of the first black female stars, following the great folk singer and freedom fighter Odetta, to wear her hair “au natural.” Unlike Odetta however, Abbey had the look that could have made her a famous glamour girl ala Lena Horne and Dorothy Dandridge. It is enough to see her in that red dress in the 1956 movie “The Girl Can’t Help It” starring Jane Mansfield, to know that this is no exaggeration. This dress had been previously worn by Marylyn Monroe in “Gentlemen Prefer Blonds,” but I prefer Abbey – honey brown and gorgeous with more curves than a country road in the hills of Jamaica.

However, unlike Lena and Dorothy, who allowed their images and career paths to be molded by white producers and public relations experts, Abbey chose a different role for herself and rejected the superficiality of pop fame in favor of becoming a serious artist in the complex Afro-American art music called Jazz. This was a risky business compared to the instant stardom and the spoils that come with it if one achieves success in pop music or the movies.

Abbey As Glamour Girl

When Abbey joined Max and the Braithwaite brothers, Kwame and Elombe, in creating the “African Jazz Art Society” in Harlem during 1958 it was the beginning of the “Black Arts Movement.” She caught the zeitgeist and moved with the spirit of the times. The result was one of the most interesting collaborations in twentieth century American music.

Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln cultural warriors

The apotheosis of that collaboration was the “Freedom Suite,” which was recorded as “We Insist: Freedom Now!” in 1960. It was a prophetic work of art that presaged the militant struggles that would mark the decade and scared a lot of the white cultural critics to death. With music by Max Roach, who had a degree in composition from the Manhattan School of Music, and lyrics by the great Chicago song poet and musical dramatist Oscar Brown Jr. the album was electrifying. Listening to it now, I hear echoes of the era, a sound portrait of one of the most dynamic periods in American history.

It is no exaggeration to say that the events of the 1960’s reshaped the way millions of Americans view their country. Everything from the way we treat the environment to gender relations, and even the definition of gender itself, were called into question as a result of the Afro-American assault on the racial caste system and the cultural redefinition inspired by that movement. The freedom suite gave artistic expression to that ferment.

On compositions like “Driva Man,” “Tears for Johannesburg” and “Triptych: Prayer / Protest / Peace” the power of Abbey’s soulful contralto voice gives life to Max’s music, and power to Oscar’s poignant lyrics. The dramatic timbres and dark indigo colors of her voice embody all the pathos of the experience the compositions describe in words and music. Given her talents as an actress Abbey was the ideal artist for this project, which often required her to assume the dramatis personae suggested by the lyrics she sang. Triptych, which is just Max on drums and Abbey’s vocalese, is blood curdling: no one can listen to it and not be moved.

The testimony of the New Orleans writer and college teacher Kalamu ya Salaam’s description of his response upon first hearing it when Max and Abbey came to New Orleans and performed at Dillard University – a black school – mirrors what many of us felt:

“I just stood next to the stage, holding my camera in my hand but not raising it to shoot. I was mesmerized. Abbey Lincoln was riveting. I was stunned. I literally just stood there. I’m sure my mouth was hanging agape.” He goes on to explain: “Abbey and Max made me believe in time travel, believe in the power of a secular Holy Ghost, a terrible Shiva-force that destroyed you to renew you. I was afraid for her—and for myself also. It seemed as though she might hurt herself. It seemed as if I should do something helpful and not just be a stationary stump while she was going through this. This was not just jazz. This was a religious experience. A new way to live.”

***********

Max and Abbey split up after a decade of marriage and an even longer period of collaboration. Max never worked with a singer on a regular basis again and Abbey went her on way, but she has been clear about the role Max played in the artistic path she took. In a 1970 interview with Gallery 41, Abbey recalled: “I was in New York, miserable because I was working supper clubs but I wasn’t expressing myself. I was really unhappy with my life. I saw Max again and he told me I didn’t have to do things like that. He made me an honest woman on the stage. I have been performing in that tradition since. I feel that I’m a serious performer now whereas then I wanted to be but I didn’t know how.”

Abbey would appear in two memorable movies: “Nothing But A Man” with Ivan Dixon and “For the Love Of Ivy” with Sidney Portier. Although these films did not lead to a rash of roles for Abbey – which is par for the course where black actresses are concerned – these performances do display her versatility as an actress. In the former film she is a proper daughter of the middle class, and in the latter she is a working class woman, and she is quite convincing in both roles. She also became an essayist and apowerful lyricist.

Born in Chicago in 1930, during the Great Depression, Abbey Lincoln, whose given name at birth was Anna Marie Wooldridge, was raised in rural Michigan as the tenth of twelve children. She was a woman who reinvented herself several times before she finally became Aminata Moseka. In an interview with Lara Pellegrinelli she explained her fantastic journey from Anna Marie to Aminata:

“I’m Aminata Moseka. I got a bunch of names. Anna Marie Wooldridge was the name I was born with. Then I took Gaby because the people at the Moulin Rouge in Los Angeles wanted me to have a French name. They didn’t know I already had one. I didn’t either. Anna Marie is as French as it gets. And Wooldridge is English. They gave me Gaby and kept Wooldridge so I had a German and an English name. It’s America! [laughs] And then Bob Russell named me Abbey Lincoln, because we used to sit and talk about life. He understood how I felt about my people because he felt the same way about his. He said to me, “Well, since Abraham Lincoln didn’t free the slaves, maybe you could handle it.” Named me Abbey Lincoln and I laughed, but that’s the name that I took. Abbey for Westminster Abbey he told me, and Lincoln for Abraham Lincoln. He was aware of his self and of his people—socially aware. He’s the first socially aware person that I met. Bob Russell. Roach is socially aware. Duke Ellington, all of the great ones.”

It goes without saying that she too is one of the great ones. The marvelous saga of her life is evidence of it. It is not often that we witness a performer walk away from the glamorous life of fame and fortune to stand on principle and devote her life to the service of others out of sheer love of their people. Aminata Moseka was a great lady and cultural warrior who used her art as a weapon for the oppressed. The last two times I saw her perform was at the funeral of Betty Carter, where she gave a soul stirring rendition of “Land of the Midnight Sun” and she healed the spirits of the refugees from the destruction of Katrina in the great celebration / fund raiser for the Crescent City at Jazz at Lincoln Center. I shall always remember her voice as a healing vibration – a salve for wounded spirits. There are not nearly enough of such generous people in this world; if there were the world would be a better place. We shall miss her; for we shall not soon find her equal…if ever.

Aminata Moseka

A Cultural Warrior to the End!

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* to see Max and abbey In Perfromance click this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTGUkQQkttg

* To See Abbey in Nothing but a Man Click this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-r1HknUies

Playthell Benjamin

Harlem, New York

August 16, 2010

* Cover Photo by: Frank Stewart

La Homenaje Santos Lolita Lebron!

Posted in Cultural Matters, Playthell on politics on August 10, 2010 by playthell

Pastor Lydia Rivera Welcomes The Supplicants

The memorial mass for Lolita Lebron held at the elegant little church – which was originally built by Germans – called “La Resurrection,” was both a celebration of the life and struggles of this great Puerto Rican patriot as well as the Afro-Latin Caribbean people and culture from which she sprang and was the abiding love of her life. And before it was over the ceremony evolved into a celebration of the beauty and strenght of Puerto Rican women collectively. There were many testimonials to Lolita’s life and its meaning offered up in praise poems and compelling prose, in Spanish and English. One of the myriad virtues of this celebration is that the speakers had mastered the idiomatic nuances of the language they spoke; an art for the orator and a pleasure for the listener. Thus the elegant sanctuary was filled to the rafters with eloquent and moving oratory.

Part of the service was in Spanish – which was rightfully given pride of place – and part was in English. Although I understood little of what was said by those who spoke entirely in Spanish, the sheer sonic beauty of this lyrical mellifluous language was a joy to hear. Without understanding much of the vocabulary I could nevertheless understand the basic tenor of the message by studying the body language and intonations of the speaker’s voice. Not to mention the tales the eyes tell. The Pastor is a wise Latina in so many ways, but one her most moving and thoughtful gifts to this memorial was the marvelous music she assembled for the service.

“Music gives resonance to memory” wrote the great Afro-American Novelist and essayist Ralph Waldo Ellison; and so it was on this occasion. This is because music, especially the best popular music, is a sound portrait of the soul of a people. It is the literature of the masses; it is both a refuge from the troubles of the world and a means of rejuvenating the spirit through joy. It is the soundtrack of our lives. I don’t know for sure that Lolita was a music lover, but being a Latina and a daughter of the working class I’d bet my bottom daughter she loved to dance.

When I think of Lolita it is not always about firing a pistol in the House chambers; often I fantasize dancing the Mambo with her at the Palladium. For during the 1950’s, when she was toiling in the garmet center in downtown Manhattan and living in The Bronx, New York City was engulfed in a Mambo craze, and the Palladium at 52and Street was the Mecca. In those days Machito and his Afro-Cuban’s was the premier dance band, but there were Puerto Ricans in the group. One of the longtime singers with the band – who has just completed a book on her experiences traveling with the orchestra and singing with the great Gracella – was at the memorial, and she reminded me that we had met at Gracella’s home on her 90^th birthday.

I was fortunate to attend this fascinating congregation of Latin musicians at the invitation of the legendary Puerto Rican broadcaster Malin Falu, and notice the longtime friendship and joyous camaraderie amon the Cuban and Puerto Rican musicians. The relationships between Cuban and Puerto Rican musicians – which became essential once the seminal Puerto-Rican bandleader Rafael Cortijo orchestrated La Bomba and substituted conga drums for the barrales – reflects the much deeper political relationships between the two Spanish speaking Caribbean island nations. This relationship was expressed on the highest level of solidarity when several thousand Puerto Rican revolutionaries volunteered to fight in Cuba during their war of national liberation against Spain in the 19^th century. And it was reiteratied in Che Guevara’s impassioned tribute to “El Maestro” Albizu Compos, President of the Puerto Rican Independence Party and Lolita’s comrade and mentor.

Like the African cultures from whence the drums in Afro- Caribbean music derived, dance in Afro-Latin Creole cultures is often a part of religious ritual rather than the sinful thing Protestant fundamentalists preach against and often seek to ban. All of the music at the memorial mass, which was recorded by great Puerto Rican artists, is dance music. Anybody who thinks dance music cannot achieve the spiritual gravitas to accompany religious ritual should stop and listen to “Mi Bandera” by Richie Ray &Bobby Cruz. In this celebration of Puerto Rico you can hear the perfect blend of a robust rhythmic statement that commands the body to dance, combined with a triumphant spirituality that inspires the spirit to flight. Hence I felt an otherworldly sensation as I listened to this music while my body sat still and my spirit danced.

And the fact that the opening selection, “Olas DE Yemaya” by Tiempo Libre, is a celebration of Yemaja: the Yoruba Goddess of the water, mother of the other dieties and patron deity of women. This is the Goddess that sustained African women through the long ordeal of slavery throughout the American diaspora. Yemaja would eventually syncretize with catholic saints manifesting similar virtues and become an object of veneration for women of all races in Latin America. It is this cultural Mondongo that produced the unique character of the Puerto-Rican people and their marvelous music. And obviously the wise Latina who put this together understood all of this. No wonder Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor, a Puerto Rican woman from the Bronx, sang their praises to the consternation of ignorant racist and Anglo- Saxon cultural chauvinists like Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama.

Employing the structured improvisation of the music and dance, the ceremony was free flowing and offered opportunities for personal participation and self expression from the audience. As the floor was opened up for anyone to offer their thoughts on Dona Lolita we heard a variety of moving testimony that revealed aspects of her character that were unknown to the general public, and even admirers, this writer included. One of the most interesting things I learned was that Lolita was very religious; as a speaker told us how she attended the ceremonies for the elevation of a Puerto Rican Archbishop at the Vatican. She carried with her a parcel of soil from Puerto Rico and asked the Pope to bless it. There were many magic moments – such as when a Hostos college Professor who had known Dona Lolita spoke with great poignancy and passion about the great lady, and the Poet “La Bruja” evoked her spirit in a moving recitation that rocked the house of the Lord. The revolutionary vibes became so powerful that I was first moved to silent tears then compelled to testify.

The high point of this moving ceremony however was unquestionably the sermon preached by Pastor Lydia Rivera. A woman of intellect and vision, her love of country and admiration for its patriots inspired and informed her magnificent sermon. As one who was trained as an orator by my Aunt Rosa – an English teacher who sponsored an oratorical team – and heard my Uncle George, a learned and eloquent preacher of the Gospels who was a Presiding Elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, preach on many occasions, I know a great sermon when I hear one.

Reverend Rivera fashioned a sermon, which she delivered in elegant Spanish and flawless English, which gave Lolita the imprimatur of the church. And we were made to understand that her love and sacrifices for the liberation and human dignity of the Puerto Rican people was the amazing grace of a saint…not the actions of a criminal! As she spoke in the rolling cadences of sacred incantations designed to call forth the spirit of God so we could feel the presence of the divine, I reflected on the Afro-American novelist, essayist and folklorist Zora Neal Hurston’s observation: “A preacher must be a poet to survive in a Negro pulpit.”

And I knew that this preacher, with her fire and eloquence, who wielded words like a sword to slay the enemies of the people and a salve to heal their spirits, would not only survive but thrive in a pulpit that is the incubator for the greatest orators in the world. In her revolutionary spirit and love of her culture and country, Reverend Rivera is a true daughter of Dona Lolita. When I left that little community church in the South Bronx – where the common people she served and her comrades in struggle gathered to pay their last respects to Lolita – I knew that this was my tribe too, my familia. And my soul was fortified for the fight ahead. The struggle continues. Que viva Puerto Rico Libre!