Great Spirits

Ledisi is new musical treat!

As celebrated the extraordinary singer Ledisi in our blog post two weeks ago, we thought it
only right to post a Ledisi cut as this week's Musical Treat....so by clicking on the Musical
Treat tab on this home page, you can check out Ledisi's "So Right", a rare track from her
limited edition second LP, which most folks have not had a chance to hear. This track
was included in a compilation I put together called "Soul Satisfaction."

Eccentric Soul

     A new generation is discovering soul music, which is a good thing. Along with country, the blues,
gospel and jazz, soul music is one of the bedrock genres of American music. But like so many art forms created by African-Americans and--in formative stages--largely supported by African-American audiences,some tricky dynamics come into play when soul music crossed into the mainstream and--most especially--when it is revived. Jazz and blues revivals have often tended to be spearheaded by White musicians, though there have been exceptions such as Wynton Marsalis in jazz and Robert Cray in blues.  But whether or not the revival has been spearheaded by White musicians, the audiences for the revived style have tended to be overwhelmingly White.  This has led to charges of "cultural banditry" on the one hand to simple lamentations that an art-form that originated as an expression of African-Americans isno longer dominantly supported by African-Americans, an ostensible loss of heritage and also a loss of profits!  It should be noted that this situation is not limited to African-Americans.  In Ireland, for instance,traditional Irish music had declined to a very small audience  until The Chieftains, Planxty and The Bothy Band revived it--and an explosion of interest outside Ireland caused Irish folk in Ireland to look at it again. Most ethnic groups tend to take their traditional music for granted.  But those other ethnic groups don't tend to have racism and a history of exploitation based on race in the mix. So it is different for African-American art forms.
        The current soul revival, happily is not exclusively driven by White musicians or audiences. The
so-called neo-soul scene is dominated by African-American artists and audiences. But "neo-soul" tends
to look to r & b and funk of the Seventies. There is a parallel revival of soul music of the Sixties, taking
its cue from Motown, Stax and even "uptown" soul.  The artists involved are not all White--folks such as
Ryan Shaw, Leela James, Tre & The Revelations and Karl Denson come to mind--but the audiences they play to end to be overwhelmingly White.  What does that matter, you ask? Well, the cultural dynamics are different and that can affect the music.
      Which brings us to the Eccentric Soul Revue, which has been touring; I caught the show at the Music Hall in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn last Friday night. The Revue, which his the brainchild ofthe folks at the Numero Group, a re-issue label that has specialized in obscure soul and r & b of The Sixties, is a nice idea. The concept is re-create the old soul revue format, whereby a band backs a
rotating line-up of singers, building up to a headliner, each artist doing two to six tunes, depending on his or her status. This edition of the Revue focused mainly on artists from the Twi-Night label of Chicago, and the Chicago scene generally. So you had such artists as the great Syl Johnson, who came out of the South as a blues musicians, then made R & B hits for Twi-night when he moved to Chicago and made some great records for the legendary Hi label out of Memphis, where he was often overshadowed by Al Green's tremendous run of hits; but it should be noted that it was Syl that had
the original hit version of Al Green's "Take Me To The River." Other artists on the bill included the sweet vocal group The Notations, who after their Twi-night stint made some modest-size hits for Curtis Mayfield's Cur-Tom label, the obscure Renaldo Domino, who never really broke out of the Chicago scene, for some reason a little-known female rapper out of Harlem--Missy Dee--who made one of the earliest female rap records, which was not a hit. They were all backed by the nearly all-White JC Brooks & The Uptown Sound, which was fronted by a young African-American singer JC Brooks.
        The first thing I noticed at The Music Hall was the crowd--it nearly filled the place with about
300 people, 95% White. It was hard to get a fix on who they were; about 10% looked like hard-core
R & B/soul lovers but the rest looked somewhat nondescript and I'd be surprised if most of them knew
the music of even one of the performers. So what were they all doing there on a Friday night in hip
Williamsburg? Somehow, somewhat, this Soul Revue concept had become a cool thing to see.
      As JC Brooks & The Uptown Sound kicked off the music, I noted that they had the  licks down.
Clearly they had listened to this music, probably loved it, and had worked hard at mastering it. They
clearly had a lot of respect for it. Too much respect, though. Every note was in place but it lacked
spontaneity, that free-flowing spirit that is the essence of soul--of virtually any great traditional music.
JC Brooks is an adequate but limited vocalist whose limitations showed when he dared to do "I've Been Loving You Too Long" in the style of Otis Redding. Missy Dee was a throw-away but Renaldo Domino was
entertaining, dress in a suit that he might have had since 1969. He was probably doing what he always
had done, but it came off as a recreation of something, solid enough, but uninspired. The crowd
cheered everything, indiscriminately. The Notations came on and laid down some nice, sweet harmony, ragged at times but with some genuine feeling. Only Syl Johnson, though was a little dangerous...
sponatneously dancing around, unbuttoning his shirt, leading the band, blowing a little harp and
overall delivering a set that was alive. His rendition of "Take Me To The River" was strong.
       So, all in all, a pleasant evening. For most of the audience, this show--and others like them--will be what they know of live soul music. These are the folks carrying it on. But The Uptown Sound, worthy and committed though they may be, just don't deliver the true power and excitement of a great
soul band. And that's a shame. Revivalists can do better...the all-White Dap-King, fronted by African-American singer Sharon Jones, lay down a much more visceral sound. Karl Denson's Tiny Universe
takes the essence and updates it--not content to revive it. And there are other bands around that
can deliver the goods. Hopefully the folks at The Music Hall will come out to see them too!

Ledisi Goes Through Changes!

    Sometimes I make the mistake of assuming everybody--at least anyone who is alert-- knows about a certain artist, simply because the artist has achieved a certain level of attention. Frequently I find that I am wrong. A lot of times it depends on what channels you tune into, since things are so divided up these days. If you don't tune into certain channels, you won't know about certain artists. The days when you could turn into a radio station and hear The Beatles, Marvin Gaye, Johnny Cash, Ray Charles, The Beach Boys and The Singing Nun are a distant memory. The public square is fragmented...or maybe it is not fragmented but no one is in the public square because everyone is off in their own little cafe.

     I'm thinking about Ledisi, the New Orleans-born, Oakland, California-gestated, East Coast-launched vocalist extraordinaire--one of the most powerful spirit-driven voices to emerge during the past decade. I first encountered her about ten years ago when browsin through the San Fransisco Weekly. I noticed her unique name, Ledisi (pronounced "LED-ah-see"), which in Yoruba means roughly "to bring forth," a striking photo and a blurb about her self-released debut album, SOUL SINGER. Maybe it was mere curiosity or perhaps some type of intuition but I was impelled to track down the CD (copies of it now go for $50 on the internet). And I was blown away. The music had soul, funk, jazz & blues, delivered totally naturally by a bottom-heavy, funky band with Sundra Manning on keys and Nelson Braxton on bass....all held together by Ledisi's high-energy vocals. I learned later that Chaka Khan was an influence and I could see the connection; not that Ledisi sounds like Chaka but her free-wheeling, soaring intensity is Chaka-esque. I was particularly struck by the sassy "Get Outta My Kitchen" and "Papa Loved To Love Me", a harrowing song about sexual abuse. So when I heard she was playing a summer concert in a park in Staten Island, I took the ferry over there and stood with a crowd of less than 100 people who were electrified by Ledisi and her band. Music simply pours out of Ledisi; she's what you call a pure singer. Like a lot of New Orleans musicians, she moves easily from funk to jazz to blues to rock; ain't no dividing lines in the music down in Nawlins.

     I started catching her whenever she played New York or Philly. Every show was different except for one common element--at some point the spirit would just come down on Ledisi and she let it come thorugh her and out again insome wild, unmediated rush.

     She put out a second CD, a more jazz-oriented work called FEELING ORANGE BUT SOMETIMES BLUE that was satisfying in another direction. So it was one of those stories--how could talent this big not be signed? Part of it was Ledisi didn't fit into a convenient slot, of course. And she wasn't a likely candidate to be molded into some producer's scheme. I heard she was on the verge of quitting the business at one point.

      At last, a break--Verve Records signed her somewhere aroudn 2005 I believe. So we waited for the album...and waited...and waited. THe word was that there were conflicts between the label and Ledisi over the direction of the music (no surprise there!). Finally, in 2007, the album, LOST AND FOUND, emerged. In many ways it was a plished and contained version of Ledisi but even a polished, contained version of Ledisi was head and shoulders above much of the competition. There was no breakout hit on the album and the word was that Verve was readyto walk away. But funny thing, the album just kept selling, nothing spectacular, but steady, week in, week out. All of a sudden it was six-figure seller and Led (as her friends call her) was getting open slots with Prince. Sales eventually passed the 200,000 mark. In short, Ledisi has defied the usual music-biz odds.

     I saw her a few months back fronting The Count Basie Orchestra at The Blue Note in NYC. The show presented yet another dimnesion of her talent, a more controlled, jazz mode. But at one point she told the audience, "don't be scared....I'm going to give you a little bit of Ledisi now!" And Led proceeded to open things up a bit.

     So now we have GOIN' THROUGH CHANGES, the new Ledisi album, out just over two months. Boasting several different producers--Raphael Saadiq, Jam & Lewis, Chucky Thompson, Rex Rideout among them--GOIN' THROUGH CHANGES presents more facets of Ledisi than her Verve debut. No less than four songs have the word "changes" in the title, one of the most surprising being a rocking cover of  Buddy Miles' "Them Changes," which Led says, surprisingly enough, she hadn't heard previously. The songs are not all blockbuster but the first single, "Love Never Changes" and "Higher Than This", with a hypnotic chorus, are stand-outs. Once again, no break-out hit and yet it is selling nicely in a tough record-selling climate. In an era dominated by tracks, Ledisi is a true album artist. And that is very refreshing because very often a great artist is more than the sum of his or her tracks. If you have a chance to catch Ledisi live, grab it; until then, GOIN' THROUGH CHANGES is an enjoyable introduction.

    

Great Spirits At Hip-Hop Symposium--Nov. 14

    Randall Grass will be appearing on the opening panel at a symposium on hip-hop titled
"From The Hood to The Burbs--An Examination of Hip Hop From The Inner City To Suburbia",
sponsored by the Cherry Hill African-American Civic Association and the African-American
Culture Clubs of Cherry Hill High Schools East and West. The even is on Saturday November
14th from 11:00AM until 3:00PM at Cherry Hill High School West in Cherry Hill, New Jersey.

Afrobeat after Fela

    Since Fela Anikulapo-Kuti is now on Broadway, via the musical Fela!, it is worth reflecting on the state of Afrobeat some twelve years after the great man's passing from this earthly realm to that of the ancestors. For those who don't know, Fela pretty much invented the musical genre of Afroeat (fellow Nigerian O.J. "Orlando Julius" Ekemode had a hand in it as did Fela's drummer Tony Allen), a hypnotic blend of funk, jazz and African elements topped by incendiary social and political commentary, most often dliveredin pidgin English. During Fela's lifetime, other artists (Sunny Ade, Sonny Okosun etc) incorporated elements of Afrobeat in their music and some attempted their own version of it, but in most cases the results seemed like lesser versions of Fela.
    After Fela's passing, there was an Afrobeat void, filled, at first, mainly by Tony Allen and Fela's oldest son Femi, who  had played in his father's band for many years before starting his own band a few years prior to his father's death.  But soon, in Ngieria, Europe and American, various musicians stepped forward with their own versions of Afrobeat, incorporating fresh elements of jazz, Latin music, electronica, soul and more. In Nigeria, you had folks such as Duro Ikujenyo; n the UK there was Dele Sosimi and in the U.S. there was Brooklyn-based collective Antibalas. Indeed, when Dele Sosimi came to New York, Antibalas backed him with such effortless precision that it was the most satisfying live Afrobeat I'd seen since seeing Fela in Nigeria in the Seventies. So it is fitting--indeed crucial to the play's success--that Antibalas provides the music for the just-opened theatrical production which brings Fela to Broadway. Ironically it is a New York City Afrobeat band providing authenticity to a Broadway
about Fela--he who carries death in a pouch--Anikulapo-Kuti.