toli: n. 1. A juicy piece of news. 2. The latest word or gossip. 3. The talk of the town, typically a salacious or risque tale of intrigue, corruption or foolishness. (Ga language, Ghana, West Africa)
I give you a playlist fit for Joseph Conrad and his inspired creation: Kurtz. Musical relief for the darkness and an entry in the Comfort Suite. The liner notes were written 15 years ago for the heart of darkness. Thankfully, these days the songs are mostly available for streaming (youtube, spotify).
Prince Of Darkness by Miles Davis
Our musical tour of this territory will start with Miles. This is Richard Perle's theme. Menacing and presented as noble. Righteous music. The album is called Miles Smiles, the second great quintet had found its groove and Miles reveled in it.
Congo by Amel Larrieux
My favorite vocalist went to Congo, she's a bravebird. I've always wanted a live performance of this song, hope springs eternal.
Down Here in Hell (With You) by Van Hunt
The acoustic version, the Narrated Autobiography starts with the immortal line
"My father was part-time painter and a pimp". Dysfunction was the original sin.
Dancing in the Dark by Bill Evans
Scott LaFaro, whose exploits were well documented in Sunday Night at the Village Vanguard and Waltz for Debby, had died tragically a few years earlier. Thus it was Gary Peacock who stepped in with ghostly bass runs as counterpoint to Bill Evans's luminous piano.
I Guess I'm Crazy by Mavis Staples
Long before Gnarls Barkley, Mavis was telling it like it was. Prince was urging her on at the mixing console
Dancing In The Dark by Bruce Springsteen
The Boss found uplift in Ronald Reagan's morning in America. Hey Iran/Contra was a ball. The seeds were sown of the great reckoning though. Would have been better off with John Wayne.
Somebody take this dark cloud away...
How could you leave me in the dark?
The remix, So Dark, which appeared on the Crystal Ball compilation is a reminder that his Royal Badness sometimes needs to leave well enough alone. But then we know that things fell apart
Dance Cadaverous by Wayne Shorter
We started with Prince of Darkness, a Wayne Shorter composition hence we'll end with another of his dark themes. I was initially thinking of Juju but that isn't quite foreboding enough. Dance Cadaverous it is then. Ominous and a little crazy, the man got lost in the jungle and is emerging slowly to face the interlocuter. The title of the album stands to reason: Speak No Evil.
It seems amazing that Newsweek has the cojones to print an article like this so soon after the administration made them their biatch for (correctly) reporting that an anonymous Pentagon source had seen in a report of allegations that the Koran had been flushed down the toilet.
The topic is Good Intentions Gone Bad, the farewell article by Rod Norlan, Newsweek's exiting Baghdad Bureau Chief which has received much skewering in the blogosphere for what it unwittingly reveals about a journalist's conception of his job (as with Judith Miller's Chalabi-exploited naiveté). The article is full of items that could have been Pullitzer material if pursued. Chris highlights this sentence in particular
The most shocking thing about Abu Ghraib was not the behavior of U.S. troops, but the incompetence of their leaders.
Chris rejoins
Actually, what is most shocking is that despite "plain as the nose on your face" knowledge that their leaders have proven to be so incompetent, is the fact that they somehow managed to get re-elected.
I'd add that even worse is that, as Brad Delong also noted - Now He Tells Us (Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Press Corps?), this same bureau chief was supremely supine in allowing the kind of reporting that his magazine did in the run up to the Iraq war and also ever since that that black hole began sucking up life from all those around it. Remembering your cojones only with the benefit of hindsight, once you've safely left the Green Zone and don't have to worry about getting cut off from access to highly misleading and stage-managed briefings with Pentagon and anonymous "Senior Coalition Provisional Authority officials", is mighty noble don't you think?
"Just the facts, Ma'am."
And MSNBC, which falls under that same tainted Nothing Bad to report Corporate (NBC) umbrella, is a far more malignant culprit than Newsweek in its flag-waving Pollyanna posturing. It outdoes even Cheery Neverland News (CNN) at the Fox News imitation. I actually respect Fox News because, like all Rupert Murdoch productions, it is simply an articulation of the man's parochial concerns and personality. The Sun in England taps directly into Murdoch's id but Fox News gets quite close to the heart of the matter. The things that matter to him are well known and who can blame anyone for assuming that what they like is what others would like. In much the same way, many Americans assume that what is liked or is good for America must be liked by, or good for, the rest of the world, but that's just an overblown sense of self at work. Besides media à la Murdoch is fun, sexy and exciting with enough sports to satisfy me on a weekend afternoon.
As far how the November vote went, well that's just the way of politics. One needed a savvy opposition figure who would be willing to play as dirty as the incumbent (who controled most of government) and to court all the country instead of preaching to the choir.
The cognitive dissonance of the moment, of the Greek chorus of "The insurgency is wilting! Vctory is right around the corner! We don't torture prisoners!" set against my dread at hearing what horror the BBC World Service will reveal as I wake in the morning, cries out for a sustained response and for someone to speak up incisively and engage the country because the current government has no policy clothes and is plainly what Pentagon planners would call a target rich environment - despite a fawning media.
Joseph Biden's call to Close Down Guantanamo Bay is a step in the right direction, but the critique needs to go beyond foreign policy and needs to address the real domestic and economic train wreck that even leaves that bagman we call Greenspan puzzled (Greenspan Says Low Rates Tempt Investors to Risk More). The socially regressive policies are more difficult to report but they also are interesting to consider and motivate many an interest group. Political journalists can take a look at the Downing Streetmemo and ask ingenuous questions about dates, people and places.
If that fails, we should remember that Al Capone was ultimately busted for tax evasion (incidentally that fellow-traveler in deviousness called Augusto Pinochet will finally be facing the music for tax fraud if he doesn't again fake illness whenever Riggs Bank or Allende are mentioned). No one expects politians to be choir boys but Dick Cheney and co make Bill Clinton look like the freshest Kuumbabe in town. Looking at the petty corruption from Tom Delay (with him you don't have to even squint) to Bill Frist, to the mismanagement of Iraq's oil revenues, or the way contracts (Haliburton et al.) are being awarded by the CPA in the abortive Iraqi reconstruction effort etc. (your tax dollars at work) should be an easy thing for a patient hack seeking to make a name for themselves. There are so many areas to look at and far more "there" there to grapple with than say something obscure as the Oil for Food program. 2 years of the War in Iraq, 18 months of the CPA or 3 years of the Department of Homeland Security has brought to light in the public domain a larger paper trail than Deep Throat ever handed to Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. Will US journalists ask the questions?
The folks at Amnesty International are practically begging for a one-way ticket to Gitmo. After the human rights group issued a report late last month calling the U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, "the gulag of our times," top officials raced to condemn Amnesty.
President Bush: "It's absurd. It's an absurd allegation."
Vice President Cheney: "I don't take them seriously. . . . Frankly, I was offended by it."
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld: "Reprehensible . . . cannot be excused."
Funny -- these officials had a different view of Amnesty when it was criticizing other countries.
Rumsfeld repeatedly cited Amnesty when he was making the case against Saddam Hussein, urging "a careful reading of Amnesty International" and saying that according to "Amnesty International's description of what they know has gone on, it's not a happy picture."
The White House often cited Amnesty to make the case for war in Iraq, using the group's allegations that Iraq executed dozens of women accused of prostitution, decapitated victims and displayed their heads, tortured political opponents and raped detainees' relatives, gouged out eyes, and used electric shocks.
In any case, the only reason that stereotypical American voter cares about Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo or Bagram is that there is a nagging sense that it will cause blowback. Deep down, the American psyche was bloodied and wounded by the temerity of those Bin Laden cultists to attack as they did and a little frontier justice and dead-or-alive treatment is well within the cultural zeitgeist, as evidenced by those recent paens to flagellent revenge Man on Fire and The Passion of The Christ, to name just a few movies (the South Park - Passion of the Jew was better I felt).
The fact that swarthy types are being roughed up is of little matter: you can't fight Al Qaeda without breaking a few bones. Even when you tell them that that Afghan taxi driver was innocent, that he was a witness to the bombing and not a suicide bomber, and that getting beaten to death is a rather steep price to pay for objecting to being one of The UsualSuspects picked up even if said beating is at the hands of clean-cut, wholesome, flagbearing, GI types with crew-cuts that you can bring home to mom.
Showing that the current government policies, in almost every sphere, are not only wrong-headed but counter-productive with daily evidence of blowback in body bags, unphotographed caskets and deficits is only in start.
Talking in plain English about these things is the correct tactic. And the talk should not be in the weasely and vapid pseudo-senatorial lobbyist-lackey lingo. The most shocking aspect of that attention-grabber demagogue, George Galloway's dismantling of Norm Coleman's Senate Committee was that while his rhetoric was rather sober even if quotable, it seemed light years from what any American politician could come up with. From Issue A to Z it should be a matter of repeatedly saying,
The policy is wrong.
It's not working. Indeed it's alienating people and worsening things.
This is how we would change it.
Repeat ad infinitum.
The Democrats' choice of which issues to take stands on is quite puzzling although Harry Reid is getting better. They don't even seem to get to the "It's not working plank let alone proceed fluently to the "How we would change things" aspect. The concept of a strong Whip, of getting strong ground-level organization, of articulating deep policies and positions - an agenda in short, of having a party with a cohort of thinking heads ready to repeat the party's line at every opportunity is missing. In other words what is needed is the equivalent of the work that John Smith did for the Labour Party in 1990s England before his untimely death, work that paved the way for the emergence of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown (and there were 50 others who could have assumed their roles). When Labour took the reins of power from the analagously sclerotic John Major's Thatcherite Conservatives (John Major is at the Carlyle Group along with George Bush Snr), they hit the ground running with a comprehensive program and manifesto that they can still point to today and which has won them 2 consecutive elections (even despite the UK electorate's evident distaste for Blair's embrace of Bush's apocalyptic "Because we could" Empire-building Persian folly and the consequent costs in blood, taxes and peace of mind they are bearing). And the Assyrian conquest looms.
In any case, as I've written before, how Americans chose to mismanage their patrimony is of rather minor concern to me, although housing purchases loom, it's the collateral damage that worries me.
At the risk of repeating myself, and being my father's son, I believe in the joy of repetition, let me harken again to the Ga proverb my father is so fond of recounting
An elephant which is lean is still bigger than a cow.
A chastened US will still dictate to much of the rest of the world
A lightly grazed GOP elephant could very well be bigger than a rising donkey some might say.
I was discussing with my Afro-French cousins this past weekend the way the French bloodied Chirac with a resounding non in the past few weeks. Their typically Gallic response was "Les Français sont con". Later on we read the Observer and found a quote echoing the same sentiment:
Danielle Larre is tending her tomato plants when I drop by. I ask her whether she will be voting oui or non. 'I'm going to vote yes. Now that the train is on its way, we can't simply jump off. I started reading the constitution, but I decided I had more interesting things to read. It's ridiculous to have a referendum because nobody understands it.'
Danielle's husband is a member of the chasse (the hunt), many of whom oppose the constitution because they fear it would remove their right to trample through people's gardens hunting wild boar. 'My husband, mum, son and sister will all vote yes,' she says firmly. 'We're all voting yes for different reasons. My mum will vote yes because she likes Chirac. Me, I don't like Chirac at all.' Danielle shrugs: 'Les Français, ils sont un peu con. Ils sont jamais contents.' Roughly translated: 'They're awkward sods, the French. They're never happy.'
Jean shows me a computer program he has, analysing the vocabulary of the constitution. The word 'bank' appears 176 times; 'market' 78 times; competition 174 times; and social progress three times. The word fraternity does not appear. 'Services public' appears only once; the preferred term now is services economiques d'interêt general. 'It's not just a choice of words. Services public means something very specific in France. We don't want to lose that distinction,' he says.
In other words, the French chose to vote down an inconsequential constitutional treaty but may still very well vote Chirac and his cronies back into power at the next presidential elections. In much the same way, if no US politician steps up soon to the proverbial plate, the same thing might happen and worse in the 2008 elections. If that comes to pass it will be every man for himself because the Global Goodwill Quotient ® will be maxed out like the US national savings rate is being minimized. Have you bought any euros lately, Chris?
Soul singers seem to dig Oakland. Something about the city's vibe resonates with them. Their appreciation is always reciprocated and audiences move rapidly from laidback contemplation to active engagement. Somehow I managed to catch Amel Larrieux and her five piece band last Sunday night in performance at Yoshi's in Oakland. Thus I can share a few notes on a comfort suite...
An electric bass guitar begins warbling, sounding something like an ethereal sitar by the time Amel walks on stage. She hums and launches into a warm acoustic rendition of Morning, the title track of her most focused album. Right out of the gate her voice grabs you as if to say "Pay attention. Get ready for some soul music". She doesn't intend to leave anything on the stage.
Trouble, is done Latin style with, as is typical in her live performances, an impromptu ending in which she starts scatting with abandon. "Louis Armstrong", she later explains, "All those years trying to be like you". She adds, "Lena Horne too". Well she's a singer's singer, it stands to reason that she has impeccable taste.
Giving Something Up is a bassy funk groove overlaid with increasingly abstract vocal stylings as it progresses, the arrangement is a mixture of jazz, soul and hip hop. Then almost improbably she breaks into Amazing Grace - a song that has never been done in this mode, urgent futuristic blues. How, the listener wonders, can a song contains such multitudes, rendered so seamlessly?
All I Got is an effortless follow up, a march reflecting on our condition. The refrain is all about the set upon (when she sings the passing lyric "slapped down a racist fool", those darker than blue in the Oakland audience respond knowingly). It's about standing strong and living without expecting any big bailout or "helping hand" as she sings: "this is all I got" indeed. As she riffs on the economic climate, "we're thoroughly spent... our credit's jacked up", there is complete empathy with the five piece band. They follow her on that the long walk with those worn shoes.
She gives a stately take on Magic and the zingers are fired rapidly: "still paying for your education when you're sixty six". Again the chorus is revelatory: "stress level's high and the morale's low". It's a blues for our time done with minimalist instrumentation. She ends with a turn as a choir director enlisting the audience in three part harmony. This kind of crowd participation is fun: we all need to "tap into that magic" to overcome our subprime present. Indeed that has been the theme of the whole concert, acknowledging what is going on in the world and finding humour to deal with it. Amel is an unpretentious artist, she makes everyone feel at home. It doesn't hurt that she's very easy to look at, the word chic describes her clothes and the long hair is doing all the right things.
A cheer of recognition greets the start of For Real, the ballad being one of the perennial fan favourites. With deft piano playing in the background, she floats into the upper registers displaying her Minnie Riperton credentials. After welcoming a a few bars from a guest soprano in the audience, she takes over. Her vocal control is breathtaking. Game, set and match, I'd say. To top it off she provides three or four different takes of the song - live remixes on stage. I'm always interested in the way singers manage to keep their trademark songs alive; somehow Amel always comes up with new arrangements subscribing to the jazz improvisation aesthetic. The jazz inclination will keep her in good stead with her audience.
We Can Be New is a warm poem, a melodious ballad very beautifully sung and ends with a reggae tinge. It must be the band's trademark to provide full glimpses of her range and musical comfort zone.
She debuts a new song, Have You?, a lover's lament peppered with humourous lyrics "I've mixed denim with whites, have you?". By this stage we are all spellbound. The elements of her appeal are simple: sympathetic piano, the light accents of her backup singer (Amira) and a singer at her peak. Amel is in full effect.
Then I almost died of joy: she sang Gills and Tails - my favourite song, the very definition of virtuosity. The vocal performance is wonderful; what the professionals would call her cry is a thing to behold. It's emotional, it's cerebral, it's quietly devastating. It's everything I like in soul music.
Wild is the Wind from her album of standards, shrewdly titled Lovely Standards, is done as a homage to Nina Simone. It's just her and the piano player; she has got the audience clinging to her every note. As the song starts to wind down she brings in the rest of the band and they add a dance groove - whoa, she can do house music, what can't she do? - the groove then morphs into Dear to me. House music man, just for the heck of it. She took a jazz standard, did it with flair and, just to show how fearless she is, she gives you some house. I give up, I'm joining the street team, Amel.
As if she read my mind, she then covers Prince's Pop Life, it's a party pure and simple - she reminisces about the Purple Rain to Parade Revolution era of His Royal Badness (she notes that she even digs Tambourine! claiming by this revelation membership in that purple secret society) and talks about the rush she got performing Take Me With You with Kamal the Abstract a couple of weeks ago.
She closes with two crowd favourites: Get up, the monster club hit from Bravebird and Tell Me (from her Groove Theory beginnings). We're all dancing and singing along. It's a celebration. There's a community feeling. We'll be holding our head high in the weeks to come, smiling on Manic Mondays and Black Tuesdays, lifted above the fray, fortified by some soul music, a soundtrack to our struggles, "this great Mountain of When". This is her thing, this is what she does best: two ninety minute sets, three nights in a row in an intimate jazz venue. Every show sold out, the audience in the palm of her hand, the soul singer performs. Amel Larrieux has done it again.
We the people, having survived for so long on so little, and done so much for so long, are now qualified to do anything... for nothing.
I found the above musing in an old notebook of writings circa 1992. Spring cleaning, even if delayed until summer, does turn up the occasional nugget. It put me in mind of wist, hence some further musings on indigo moods.
The stories they have to tell, the perspectives they could share. I want to have a conversation with them, simply sit with them in the middle of the day - in the brief moment before they get back to the important things on their plate. We the people indeed.
It also brought to mind the women who were dyeing cloths in those courtyards in Bamako, Abderrahmane Sissako's film that is, while the World Bank and international institutions were being put on mock trial in the foreground. The women and their work were meant to be the background and yet, from my standpoint, their stories and experiences were the foreground.
Wist is perhaps the attitude that best suits these unsettled times, we are all holding our breath and tightening our belts, bracing ourselves for who knows what.
There is a danger however: when wist devolves into nostalgia it becomes reactionary. Too much wist and you start dwelling on those good old days that never really were. Your thinking will get woolly and, without moderation, you are liable to be bamboozled into who knows what and then be left picking up the pieces, singing the inflation calypso as the chickens come home to roost. You really don't want your entire society to start behaving like actors in B-movies. The director may not cut the scene.
Hold on to wist I say. Wist is clear-eyed and lyrical. Wist is wary, wist is weary, yet while being realistic, wist embraces the here and now, the tense present and a better tomorrow. At heart then, wist is an optimistic sentiment.
The dictionaries present the word wist as obsolete and would direct us to its adjectival compere, wistful. Of the latter I prefer the meditative, pensive and forlorn senses, but of the former, it is that still small voice of wist that attracts me, that quiet and attentive outlook.
In my book, wist is stoic and, at its best, eschews melancholy. When wistful, one is pragmatic yet hopeful. The British and the French know a lot about wist as their empires have seen better days. Others however are still seeking the black gold of the sun. Would they take a moment to be wistful? Wist is about humility, about acknowledging the small steps towards the wonders that are still to come.
Wist presents an opportunity for resolve, it is a brief respite in that moment as you gather yourself up for the next task, the next struggle. Wist is a flight to quality, a premium bond for these subprime times. Wist is soul insurance that actually pays you back when you file your later claims.
I'll prognosticate here. Those in the developing world are actually at an advantage in these wistful times. Of necessity, we are aficionados of wist, world-weariness has long been our lot. A lifetime of almost always expecting the blows coming your way will leave you better equipped to deal with this harsh world. The school of hard knocks is our neighbourhood and our response is communal not unilateral. Sissoko would say "we are all responsible". One shouldn't strike out on one's own just because one can, rather we find strength in community. Burning Spear would add: social living is the best.
Musically, the quality of wist is a step up from the blues however the blues tend to get more love since they are more dramatic and keenly felt - wist is merely transitional. In compiling a wistful playlist for this note, I initially thought to songs about holding on. To "hold on" is indeed the most resolute response to wist and I have many songs on that theme (Lisa Stansfield, Dennis Brown, Ann Nesby, Dwele and others can school you for a good hour about holding on). Shuffle serendipity struck however and instead I found my wistfulness encapsulated in the following songs.
Sam Cooke - A Change is Gonna Come This song is perhaps the definition of soul music - the point at which the genre coalesced and departed from gospel and the blues. It is fitting that wist was the first vein in which Sam Cooke made out his soulful sound. There is both a spiritual and a bluesy feel to the song. Watching Talk to Me last night, that wonderful film about the life of Petey Greene, that ex-convict turned radio disc jockey, it was no surprise that A change is gonna come was the song that he played to sooth the soul on the airwaves in Washington D.C. that night after Martin Luther King Jnr. was assassinated. It speaks about optimism even in the face of setbacks. The vocal performance is one that few can equal although many have tried. A few sublime minutes of yearning and longing.
Duke Ellington - Mood Indigo The Indigos album is one of my favourites in the Ellington catalog, featuring wistful tunes throughout. The only vocal track on the album is of course Autumn Leaves that paragon of remembrance (see also the autumn soundtrack). Prelude to a Kiss is all about the lyricism of Johnny Hodges, as is the old faithful, Solitude. The song I'll highlight however is the title track, Mood Indigo. An economy of emotion, it features a perfect trumpet solo full of whimsy and reflection by Shorty Baker. That wondrous portion when the rest of the band join in is ecstatic. An earlier performance is on youtube with Jimmy Hamilton Willie Cook (see corrections) doing the deed on trumpet and with a more prominent piano solo by Ellington. Indigos are not quite the blues and the Duke's band prove that indigo is the colour of wist. You can listen to the mp3 for the next week: Duke Ellington - Mood Indigo
D'Angelo - The Line The crown prince of soul put it on the line seven years ago. The elements of the song are simple: Questlove's steady drums, James Poyser and D'Angelo's keyboards and Rhodes, a little boom bap from the bassist and above all the vocals. I hear Sam Cooke, I hear Al Green, I hear Prince, Curtis, Donnie, Marvin and more. It is a tour of the sounds of his favourite vocalists wrapped in his own stylings. It's the moment of truth, the stakes are high ("Will I fall off or will it be banging?"), he steels himself: "all I got to do is hold on". He'll stick to his guns, resolute to the challenge ahead.
James Carter - The Intimacy of My Woman's Beautiful Eyes Perhaps the hungriest of the young lions of jazz, James Carter can also be the most tender when he want to. The musical scion of Coleman Hawkins and Ben Webster, he isn't afraid to engage in matters of the heart, albeit with a wink and a certain swagger. Hence this song is a study in contrasts: the wistful tone of the music set against the premise of the overwrought title. After a fairly subdued opening solo, the piano takes over and the bassist prods him along and what a piano solo. When Carter's saxophone returns wailing, or rather growling, the notes are urgent, longing and attentive — wistful in short. One hopes his woman forgave his missteps, the music is a plea for a renewed intimacy.
Duke Ellington and Coleman Hawkins - Mood Indigo Apropos tenor saxophonists, there is another version of Mood Indigo that I'm very fond of: this intimate meeting of jazz giants. Ellington introduces the theme on piano and the band step in smooth as usual. After a while Coleman Hawkins steps up and delivers the goods. His solo is discursive, breathy and virtuosic. This is someone who has lived body and soul. Duke's accompaniment is subtle, encouraging Bean to find the emotional depth in the melody. Simply magic.
Charles Mingus - Goodbye Pork Pie Hat Mingus recorded Mood Indigo twice, recognizing as he did, the genius of Ellington's composition. Each occasion elicited typically sensitive bass solos from him. I'll focus here on his own composition, Goodbye Pork Pie Hat, his tribute to Lester Young, written right after he learned of Pres's death. It captures the mournful and elegiac tone of loss, Mingus' great band remembering the arch tones and oblique art of their friend who paved the way for them. In the hip-hop vein, I suppose the closest would be Pete Rock and C.L. Smooth's They Reminisce Over You (T.R.O.Y.) although that arguably leans more towards nostalgia than wist.
Amel Larrieux - Weary
The lead single of last year's opus, Morning, this song takes on the notion of hard experience in life. She takes her time to warm up as the song progresses and only really starts letting her hair down vocally at the midpoint. She's in control throughout observing the vagaries of the mood, a midtempo soul excursion. Watching the video (slightly lower quality on youtube), you see that she has a lot on her mind ("A woman is getting weary"). Ultimately she finds comfort around her friends and family as it should be. The song ends as it starts with Amel walking down the road. Perhaps the weariness has been lifted, in any cases she has given us music for a long walk.
The most important thing of all is that no matter how dreary the situation is, and how difficult it may be, that the song really doesn't matter until the song begins to get you down.
So our advice to you, the message that the Cannonball Adderley Quintet brings to us, is that it's rough and tough in this ghetto, a lot of funny stuff going down. But you've got to walk tall.
A friend was hurting very publicly the other day. The reason was friends and, as she vented, she even started reciting the cautionary lyrics of Jody Watley and Rakim's song of the same name.
Have you ever been stabbed in the back
By someone you thought was really cool?
And its infectious chorus
Friends will let you down.
Friend won't be around.
When you need them most, where are your friends?
And so forth. At that display, I thought I'd fulfill her request and send her the song in question. Of course my computer was falling apart as usual thus my impulse was thwarted, although I did begin to compile a playlist to cheer her up. 12 hours later, the computer seemed to have temporarily recovered, and with the benefits of a night's sleep, I decided to go beyond the dozen tracks I came up with off the top of my head.
It is fitting that we start with Friends, the most enduring hit of Jody Watley's greatest solo effort, her 1989 album, Larger than Life. It has aged better than the other songs that reached the top of the charts because of its subject matter.
As she sings, "I'm talking about your friends", and she delves into the pitfalls of the subject with her customary aplomb, a terrain where envy and deception sometimes reign. And then right on cue, The R, Rakim Allah himself, at the peak of his influence, drops knowledge with a controlled verse of worldly wisdom. All you have to say is "Friends are hard to find" and any hip-hop head will complete the line for you "so be careful" and go on from there. This is the prototype of the hip-hop soul that now permeates the charts and it works better than almost all of them because it is so balanced. The then reigning Queen of Soul met with the Crown Prince of hip-hop and their child was royalty. Andre Cymone's production is straight out of the Minneapolis Sound and the result is the perfect soul, hip-hop and pop song. Serendipitously a lesson from Jody Watley was discussed just on Friday; something must be in the air about this song.
Earlier on in her career with Shalamar in which she teemed up with Howard Hewett, she also had a hit with a different version of Friends thus this a topic that motivates our Jody.
Whodini too have a nice anthemic and bouncy version of Friends which can still turn a dancefloor alive. Old School hip-hop developed out of house parties and park gatherings of friends thus their take on Friends emphasizes the bonding rituals that prevail.
We are both Ghanaians, and on a nationalist high at the moment, hence we can turn to some glorious highlife from the motherland. The centerpiece of the playlist comes courtesy of the Beach Scorpions wonderful Friends Today, Enemies Tomorrow. At almost ten minutes, this song is the definition of sublime: the shifting and unhurried drums, the tongue-in-cheek chorus, the light and intricate guitar fills that float around. Every lyric is repeated twice since the tale is cautionary. Call and response is part of our traditions, and we firmly believe that there is joy in repetition as far as these life lessons go. (Some kind soul uploaded it to youtube for your listening pleasure.)
Judge for yourself as the pidgin stylings and folk wisdom pour forth from the first line on
Don't disgrace me, what I do for you? I do you good, but you can't remember
You know that, life is up and down
Wherever your are, wherever you are
oh my sister, oh yes. Oh my brother, oh yes
The matter gets complicated and we enlist onlookers in this affair
Mr Frankie, listen to my matter
Oh Brother Frankie, this is my matter
The time I get my money, I used to go without
The time I get my money, I say, I tell em it be for them They don't remember what I do for them sometime ago
Oh my sister, what I do for them oh yes.
Love your neighbour as you love yourself
Wherever you are, wherever you are. Oh yes.
Oh my sister, wherever you are, oh yes.
Oh my brother, wherever you are, oh yes.
Anthony Scorpion's plaintive voice meshes well with the mandolin and clarinet that punctuate the music. I defy you to keep from nodding your head or smiling to this laidback song and, well let me go for hyperbole, superb piece of liberation highlife.
The Beach Scorpions might well have been singing about Donald Rumsfeld. He too was so inconsistent when it came to Saddam, Friends Today, Enemies Tomorrow is the theme song for the Axis of Hypocrisy. It's funny what a little Black Gold can do to these friendships of ours.
There is another reading of the song however, which is that Brother Scorpion was playing a Kweku Ananse ruse, and all this palava was a veiled appeal for money. The clue is in the line "They don't remember what I do for them sometime ago". "Sometime ago" is awfully imprecise and perhaps it is that he is basically broke and lazy and consequently trying to appeal to one's sense of shame (the word "enemies") and foggy memory ("they don't remember") in order to get some unearned cash. Well that's the paradox of friends today, enemies tomorrow.
The Beach Scorpions know all too well what Jealousy can cause and they sing to their wives
Jealousy will kill you, take your time,
Watch yourself. Oh my wife...
Look your face in the mirror
You'll see that you'll grow lean
Again there is considerable mischief in their singing. One wonders if the jealousy wasn't a little deserved as these guys run around town with the groupies that every musician typically garners.
Musically close to Jody's track is Rumors by Timex Social Club from the aptly titled Vicious Rumours album.
Sometimes it is simply a matter of Games as Chuckii Booker would have it, and he should know given that he was Turned Away earlier in his career. Mark Morrison interpolated that song with Return of the Mack and maybe Macks, and the games they play, are the root cause of our problems with friends.
Jonathan Butler chimes in with Lies
Wish I could have seen it in your eyes.
Lies. But I never did... realize.
As do the Thompson Twins if you prefer your lies served as New Wave pop.
Prince will oblige with Old Friends for Sale but you can always make new ones, at least that has been my experience. But if you do want to hang on to them, Prince's case is instructive and indeed he eventually reconciled with those who made him sing those heady words:
The sun set on my heart this evening
For someone who said they would die for me.
Donnie recently sang You've Got A Friend in The Colored Section which sounds reasonable enough.
I won't mention Dionne Warwick singing That's What Friends Are For since you presumably know that what you want out of friends often isn't what you get.
The Dramatics however claim that What You See Is What You Get, but that is dubious when one considers the vagaries of the human factor.
And how about Vesta Williams with the infectious Once Bitten, Twice Shy which was contemporaneous with Jody and Rakim's take.
And for a good mix from the same era how about Robbie Nevil's wonderful slice of pop life: C'est la vie. The chorus:
C'est la vie
C'est la vie
That's just the way it goes
That's life
And while on that same theme, how about Earth Wind and Fire's That's The Way Of The World. I'm always happy after I listen to that one especially the live version. An anthem for the hard knock life that Oliver (by way of Dickens), Annie and Jay-Z know about. One really needs to hang in there under the circumstances.
As Ruby Turner sang in that neglected UK soul album produced by Womack and Womack, It's Gonna Be Alright. The Blacksmith remix was my friends' soundtrack back in 1989.
We must be mindful of what The O'Jays termed Shiftless, Shady, Jealous Kind Of People but your mileage may vary. This, of course, was part of their Back Stabbers album and the title track is often relevant in friendships.
Brenda Russell and her then husband sand a duet on Please Pardon Me (You Remind Me Of A Friend). Was that prescience about their later break up? Who knows, but you wonder sometimes whether life imitated art or if it was the reverse. She also later followed up the pragmatic soul anthem In the Thick of It and the message was "better get a grip and get it on".
Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes pose the question as follows: Where Are All My Friends?
Fried provide the answer with Friends in Lo Places. Those who know, know Fried. Jonte Short is down low, and with that unique voice of hers, gives us a soulful notion of Portishead by way of Memphis and the Fine Young Cannibals. Her voice is languid and bluesy; the song is great, what else can I say.
Cheryl Lynn notes that it's Got to be Real (although that more properly belongs in a love playlist if you want to be a pedant about these things).
Donny Hathaway reprises The Beatles' Jealous Guy and gives it soul flavour, the music that is, not the jealousy which is the eternal temptation ever since Cain.
Colonel Abrams lets bygones be bygones but rues How Soon We Forget. He also had that dancefloor groove of Trapped but that is not quite appropriate here.
You Remind Me courtesy of Patrice Rushen is wistful and has been sampled to death. It's no wonder Prince was in love with her although she was the one who got away. And what a voice, her appeal is Straight From the Heart
Count Basie's Orchestra was all about Dinner With Friends in those late night jook joints that were the essence of swing.
Charlie Parker insists with typical lyricism that Just Friends should be invited to said dinner. Bird was a sensitive soul who couldn't suffer fools. Unfortunately when it came to his addictions he didn't follow his advice.
Abstrac'sI'll Be Your Friend features Bernard Bell and is full of reassurance.
The Winans sing about A Friend, a simple gospel tune from a band of brothers produced by Teddy Riley with his customary keyboard work. "There is a friend that sticks closer than every brother". The Quakers, that original Society of Friends, would no doubt nod their heads to that message.
Donny Hathaway returns with We're Still Friends through the ups and downs.
Eddie Kendricks gets more precise on the nature of the friendship with a song called Intimate Friends. Those are the best ones, the ones that go beneath the surface.
Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong playfully debate gentle letdowns in Can't We Be Friends. They resolve things amicably, well who can deny Satchmo?
Simply Red have a partial answer to that question namely sometimes Money's Too Tight to Mention
We're talking about the dollar bill
And an old man that's over the hill Now what are we supposed to do?
This is my favourite song from Mick and the boys, and the album cover shows him as an Oliver Twist in the making since trickle-down and supply-side mantras leave much to be desired in the world commons. Nay they lead to the poorhouse, or is it Bleak House, Hard Times and worse? The song, and Dickens, remain very relevant today it is sad to say. Heck it's enough to make Warren Buffett Turn Against God.
Full Force with Friends B-4 Lovers are typographically innovative and put friendship B-4 sex which is a sound strategy for lasting relationships (and safe sex).
Gladys Knight and The Pips invite us to get on board the Friendship Train. On the other hand they also sang about catching that Midnight Train to Georgia and that was their more enduring musical legacy. Hmmm.
Again going back to Ghana, we turn to Guyoyo whose electric highlife inveighs against Osikuni Atamfo (Gossiper Enemies)
Annie Lennox of Eurythmics posited that There Must Be An Angel playing with her heart and who can blame her. One hopes it wasn't her compere, Dave Stewart. The heavenly chorus: "Must be talking to an angel".
She should have listened to Jonathan Butler's Melodie, a soothing instrumental guaranteed to ensure soul survival.
Those southern knights known as The Crusaders, erstwhile of Street Life fame, want us to "Keep on, Keep that Same Old Feeling". Those good old days of pure friendships and southern comfort...
Best Of Friends by Lenny White is a classic bit of jazz-funk, a celebration of those that enrich our lives.
Biz Markie's Just a Friend is about betrayal sang in an off-key voice
Baby you
Got what I need
And you you say he's just a friend
And you you say he's just a friend
Jonathan Butler is quite the flirt with More Than Friends, the title track of his 1988 album which saw him continue with the themes of lies. The album features the then-ascendant Teddy Riley to liven things up a little.
Surface cut to the chase, they want to be Closer Than Friends. I've always thought it was just a seductive come-on and the song certainly sounds that way, but perhaps they are just echoing the words of The Godfather, Michael Corleone that is, namely
Keep your friends close but your enemies closer
Michael Jackson is Just Good Friends with Stevie Wonder. There were hysterical concerns about the nature of some of MJ's later friendships but really they are pure ones, even judicially certified. Judgment matters when it comes to friends you need to figure out who's bad.
Musiq Soulchild is more concise with Just Friends (Sunny). An optimistic song about yearning and wanting to hang out without hidden agendas. If only it was always so.
S.O.S. Band deliver the message of the hour with the exuberant Just Be Good to Me. The full flowering of Jam & Lewis's take on the Minneapolis Sound was in the irresistible grooves they wrote for the S.O.S. Band and they never looked back. We all need the occasional SOS Band.
Chubb Rock provides some sound advice in Treat Em' Right. As the saying goes:
The Fat Lady sang
I crushed her
Word up The Chubbster
Father MC retorts that you should Treat Them Like They Want To Be Treated to the sounds of Jodeci's chorus. He's upset about those who act all warm and cuddly only to play around with his mind when his guard is down. It is only later that he adds "you should treat them right" and it is almost an afterthought.
Prince wants to be friends and not just your boyfriend. I remember the LoveSexy tour in 1988/89, when he would sing If I Was Your Girlfriend and bring the house down with its minimalist Linn drums and Camille voice. And there was that bed on the stage business to add to the sexual confusion.
Me'Shell NdegéOcello takes no prisoners and even delivers some playground taunts
If that's your boyfriend
If that's your boyfriend
Then he wasn't last night.
That's a bit harsh but such is the life of Plantation Lullabies; this is the school of hard knocks that we are talking about. It's enough to Make You Wanna Holler as she sang in the Peace Beyond Passion album not coincidentally released on the Maverick label.
Jaguar Wright goes Woman to Woman and has a chat with someone who happens to be sharing her man. Some friendships are born of dysfunction and co-dependency but we are nothing if not social beasts.
Pebbles in Girlfriend takes up the time-honoured task of the concerned friend who witnesses a break up and mixes harsh truths
Girlfriend
How could you let him treat you so bad?
Uh oh.
with the kind words that befit a good pep-talk
You know you were the best he ever had. Oh oh
She even gets all existentialist quoting The Bard, Shakespeare that is, by way of Hamlet
To be or not to be. That is the question.
She adds the urban analysis
It just takes a street degree.
And then comes the chicken grease of the song:
You cried your last cry
I've lied my last lie.
I'm out the door, Babe
There's other fish in the sea.
If only I could count the number of times my female friends have sang those words to my face, and with a quite vicious intent in their face and voice. L.A. and Babyface broke through commercially with their production on this song and never looked back since. Incidentally if memory serves me right, Pebbles's words of wisdom got her married to L.A. Reid.
Ronnie Laws gives us Friends and Strangers, soothing jazz funk for two-faced operators. "Doublé" as I used to say in secondary school. If you care, the remix by Madlib is infused with some fiercesome drums.
On the pure jazz front we can turn to Sonny Rollins's version of Just Friends. When Rollins plays for Bird you know its all about friends
Tina Turner boldly states that What You Get Is What You See and, well, Ike Turner didn't hold anything back in their relationship. He was like Jody Watley, larger than life.
Samuelle'sSo You Like What You See is the missing link of the New Jack Swing movement and is graced by one of Teddy Riley's best songs. "You better get with the program". Incidentally this album was available for 6 cents on Amazon. I bought another copy to send to a friend. Really there's one great song there, it's worth your time.
We then turn to War's Why Can't We Be Friends and this gets us into matter of politics; maybe those neocon rogues could listen to this tune. It's not a zero-sum game, and the prisoner's dilemma will only put us on The Road to Guantanamo Bay.
Amel Larrieux sang Get Up a few years ago to motivate her friends about the Infinite Possibilities in the world. By the way some friendly advice from your lowly DJ, her new album is the truth, run to your record store or iTunes as appropriate.
Jonathan Butler pleads Take Me Home, another instrumental track from More than Friends. He was sorely missing his friends in South Africa living all those years in the US as he did. People like to forget apartheid and downplay its human costs but they are still with us, and this song provides musical evidence. The most talented musicians were forced into exile and, even if some landed well like Butler did, it is worth remembering all those friendships that had to be put on hold for P.W. Botha, De Klerk and those other rogues.
Isaac Hayes, Black Moses himself, preaches about A Friend's Place and one hopes friends don't get the Shaft.
Tweet sings Best Friend with Bilal who reciprocates with Soul Sista. Bilal too turned in an unreleased version of Prince's How Come You Don't Call Me Anymore? which is far better than Alicia Keys' take. Of course Bilal is the greatest jazz singer to play the soul scene. As Marc Anthony Nealput it in Songs in the Key of Black Life, Bilal quite literally pimps the microphone.
Kirk Franklin on the other hand received A Letter From My Friend a graceful gospel ballad. He certainly knows how to put a choir to good use.
Vesta Williams' Congratulations is about that quite common emotion termed Schadenfreude. The occasion is her being informed of a friend's impending marriage, it's about the one who got away. Thus she wails
Congratula-a-a-a-a-a-a-tions I thought it would be me Standing next to you
And so forth. She also has that Relationships album for a full length treatment of such matters.
Cameo contribute one of their rare ballads to this soundrack: Friend To Me. The interplay between the voice and the horns make this delicate song a great testimonial. Sometimes however, they get pointed and will come back with You're Talking Out The Side Of Your Neck on the She's Strange album.
Eddie Kendricks explains that He's A Friend Of Mine, Eddie is one of those Temptations who Keeps on Truckin'.
The Hollies make it a matter of family with He Ain't Heavy (He's my Brother) and again we turn to Donny Hathaway's version which is full of the pathos the song deserves.
Donny Hathaway also contributes You've Got A Friend which he reprised in his duet album with Roberta Flack.
In the same vein we can turn to Rodgers and Hammerstein's You'll Never Walk Alone from Carousel, a song beloved by Liverpool football fans all over (speaking as one). It builds the tribal connection quite effectively. Nina Simone's instrumental version is poignant and reflective on Little Girl Blue, her big coming out party whose fortieth anniversary is right around the corner.
Incognito, the acid jazz pioneers, intone that you're Still A Friend Of Mine and more will be forthcoming on said group and genre.
Van Hunt recognizes Suspicion (She Knows Me Too Well). You can't hide certain things from good friends even if you try. There's also the bit about being Down Here in Hell (With You).
Les Nubians and Morgan Heritage mix France, Congo, Jamaica, French and English and ask Brothers and Sisters to "give thanks a praise to the Almighty".
Zap Mama get to Yellin' Away with Talib Kweli and Common in the camaraderie of Ancestry in Progress.
I've previously discussed Cherrelle singing My Friend in the context of her affair with Randy Ran and friendships are things that endure at Home.
And apropos affairs, Sade claims that she's not one to Turn My Back On You.
To raise the feelgood quotient, I suppose we can include Bill Withers' Lean on Me. Perhaps though we should try the funky version of that song done by Club Nouveau, the revamped Timex Social Club in that album about Life, Love & Pain you can't go wrong with that song. The boys also had a hit with Jealousy and perhaps that is part of what is up in these cases.
Zhané know that it's all about the party and the need to unwind.
I am ready to call my friends So we can all get down With the party Hey Hey, Mr DJ Hey Mr DJ You can get this started
If I'm asked this nicely, I try to deliver. Renée Neufville continued her collaboration (and presumably friendship) with Roy Hargrove and gave us "Drop it On the One"
Aretha Franklin is a preacher's daughter and goes back to the source in What A Friend We Have In Jesus, a song performed with such Amazing Grace.
Earth, Wind & Fire are soulful prophets and say that you should Keep Your Head To The Sky. The live version of course is coupled with Devotion and that's what we seek of our best friends.
De La Soul enlist the Native Tongues with Buddy. The remix takes Tanaa Gardner's Heartbeat and turns it into a collective exercise in celebrating friendships. It features the Jungle Brothers, A Tribe Called Quest, Monie Love and Queen Latifah and embodies the best of hip-hop.
The end of this playlist will be Friends To The End by Wreckx-N-Effect. Featuring the Redhead Kingpin (of Do the Right Thing fame), this is the best that those Soul Men released. On an album that introduced the New Jack Swing, and foreshadowed Rump Shakers and such, this was the standout track. A posse cut is all about friendship and they oblige with verbal dexterity, wit and that ineffable feeling we call kinship. The first line states the thesis: "We've had the peanut butter now it's time for the jelly". We've gone from Friends Today, Enemies Tomorrow to Friends to the End.
I'm sure you have your own favourite songs about friends and I'm sure the suggestions will be forthcoming and they are welcomed. I called it quits at around 100 songs. In any case, it will be a while longer before I can add to this list: the computer gave up the ghost right after I burned the cd (and possibly for good). As they say things fall apart. Still I hope I managed to give some comfort in this suite.
I was recently re-reading Food Culture in Sub-Saharan Africa by Fran Osseo-Asare - a book I've been meaning to review since it came out last year. Briefly, it's nothing less than a comprehensive overview of the culture and history of food in Africa. It covers the continent, dipping into all the regional flavours. There's lots of historical insight about the types of ingredients used, the crops, animals, fisheries etc. It's one of those books you can open at any page and find lots of to chew on (pun intended, tongue in cheek etc). Most culinary books concentrate on recipes but this goes beyond that into the cultural and social significance of food (from who prepares it, traditions surrounding it, special meals etc). Anyway I'll return to it at length shortly, shall we say that it deserves a fuller digestion. I'm rather concerned in this note with rare groove.
As normally occurs when matters literary and gastronomical coincide, my salivary glands began to do their thing after barely 5 minutes of reading. Much like that recent article on street food in Ghana, my immediate reaction was to think of smells, sounds and kitchens. Oh the smells! As my mouth started watering, my mind started wandering and I was thinking about Auntie Becky's roadside kelewele (fried ripe plantains) in North Labone which is the first place I head to when I land in Accra. Auntie Becky has been cooking outside a house for thirty odd years and has a devoted and international following. Indeed she married the owner of the house which is one way of romancing I suppose - Like Water For Chocolate as they say. The marriage got her the hookup to household gas replacing the previous charcoal fires... In any case, my lunch companions were 20 minutes away thus to distract the incipient hunger pangs, I dipped into my musical library and compiled the following menu of comfort food and rare groove. Hope you enjoy it.
Omar - Confection (ft Mica Paris) (see also Tasty Morsel for bite-sized portions)
Horace Silver - Cookin' At The Continental
Charles Wright - Cooking Session
Goodie Mob - Soul Food
Miles Davis - Steamin' (Note: album sized, you may substitute Miles Davis - Cookin' if you prefer)
Snacks
Charlie Parker - Salt Peanuts
James Brown - Mother Popcorn
Main Course
Charles Mingus - Eat That Chicken
Anthony Hamilton - Cornbread, Fish & Collard Greens
Kruder & Dorfmeister - Lamb, Trans Fatty Acid
Booker T & The MG's - My Sweet Potato
Jimmy Smith - Pork Chop
Musical Youth - Pass The Dutchie
Cannonball Adderley - Afro-Spanish Omlet
Dwele - Flapjacks
Freddie Hubbard - Cold Turkey
Kenny Burrell - Chitlins Con Carne
Lee Morgan - Cornbread
Roy Hargrove - Greens At The Chicken Shack
James Brown - The Chicken
Soul Runners - Grits 'N' Corn Bread
Miles Davis - Fishermen, Strawberry and Devil Crab
King Curtis - Memphis Soul Stew
Ohio Players - Jive Turkey
Jimmy Smith - Back At The Chicken Shack
Prince - Starfish and Coffee
Main Source - Live at the Barbeque
MC Serch ft Chubb Rock, Nas - Back To The Grill
Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong - Crab Man
Meshell NdegeOcello - Oysters
Rufus Thomas - Funky Hot Grits
The Meters - Chicken Strut
Dessert
Sade - Cherry Pie
Dexter Gordon - Cheese Cake
Herbie Hancock - Watermelon Man
Mtume - Juicy Fruit
Duke Ellington - Arabesque Cookie (from the Nutcracker Suite no less)
Charlie Parker - Scrapple From the Apple
Charles Mingus - Song With Orange
Dave Bruebeck - Tangerine
Hugh Masekela - Strawberries
The Time - Ice Cream Castles
Billie Holiday - Strange Fruit (also available Cassandra Wilson or Nina Simone style)
Wendy & Lisa - Fruit At the Bottom
Erykah Badu - Appletree
The Brothers Johnson - Strawberry Letter 23
Prince - Raspberry Beret
Amel Larrieux - Berries and Cream
Secret Ingredients
Loose Ends - A Little Spice
Lizz Wright - Salt
Booker T & The MG's - Green Onions
The Time - Chili Sauce
Lou Donaldson - Nice 'N' Greasy
Marlena Shaw - Spice of Life
D'Angelo - Chicken Grease
Count Basie - Honeysuckle Rose
Booker T & The MG's - Soul Dressing
Sweets
D'Angelo - Brown Sugar
Cassandra Wilson - Tupelo Honey
Kool & The Gang - Chocolate Butter Milk
Cameo - Candy
Nina Simone - I Want A Little Sugar In My Bowl
Jill Scott - Honey Molasses
Johnny Hammond - Los Conquistadores Chocolates
Bob Marley - Guava Jelly
Lo-Key - Sweet On You
A Tribe Called Quest - Butter
Parliament - Chocolate City
Beres Hammond - Sugar You Want
Ohio Players - Sweet Sticky Thing
Beverages
Fela Kuti - Water No Get Enemy
Jimmy Mcgriff - Blue Juice
E.T. Mensah & The Tempos - Tea Samba
The Roots - Water
Thelonious Monk - Tea For Two
Kelis - Suga Honey Iced Tea
Duke Ellington - Chocolate Shake
The Manhattan Project - Old Wine, New Bottles
Duke Ellington - Sugar Rum Cherry
UB40 - Red Red Wine
Tha Alkaholiks - Only When I'm Drunk
Tony Rich Project - Red Wine
Snoop Doggy Dogg - Gin and Juice
Busta Rhymes - Pass The Courvoisier
Bennie Maupin - Water Torture
Lester Young And Oscar Peterson - Tea For Two
Supplements
Baby Cham - Vitamin S (Fiesta Riddim)
Booker T & The MG's - 'Mo Onions
Liner Notes
Do not listen to this playlist on an empty stomach or you may have a case of jazz-funk Water Torture ala Bennie Maupin.
On matters of etiquette, feel free to use your hands when partaking of toli comfort food, remember though that it is best to use only one hand unless it's chicken or ribs of course. The only other advice you'll need is Musical Youth's, namely "Pass The Dutchie 'Pon The Left Hand Side".
Surpisingly there isn't much else on food culture and, no, Charles Mingus' The Shoes of the Fisherman's Wife doesn't count. Neither does Scratch's hilarious 3 Barstools Away, might I add.
From the evidence of this playlist, it is clear that the chicken came before the egg. The earthy music I tend to listen to tends to celebrate our hens more than their eggs, other than the one Afro-Spanish omelette, the chickens rule the roost. (I discarded Disjam's Softboiled for being imprecise. The Time's The Bird, The Roots' Duck Down and Bob Marley's Three Little Birds were disqualified for the same imprecision).
Prince's Starfish and Coffee comes with "Maple Syrup And Jam, A Butterscotch Cloud, A Tangerine, A Side Order Of Ham", he is a special one. His Sticky Wicked collaboration with Chaka Khan and Miles Davis is only available on the adult menu as is R Kelly's Chocolate Factory, positive id is required. Oscar Peterson's The Honeydripper is discounted for reasons of messiness.
Of course I've noted before that eating people is wrong thus with a track like Miles Davis's Fishermen, Strawberry and Devil Crab, you don't get the fishermen. Sorry, but I believe in truth in advertising. I omitted The Coup's Fat Cats, Bigger Fish out of similar cultural sensitivity.
Surprisingly for a playlist heavy on soul food, there aren't too many stews, gumbo or fish on the menu and unfortunately we're out of soup in the toli kitchen; as Troop would have it "I'm Not Soupped". You might also ask, where's the beef, goat or black sheep? The answer is that my musical collection isn't that extensive.
The artist historically most concerned with food is strangely unrepresented in this food playlist. Jill Scott punctuates almost every song with lyrics about grits, collard greens and the like yet it's only Honey Molasses that I'm highlighting. However her Family Reunion song about barbecues deserves an honorary mention as does Joy and Pain by Maze featuring Frankie Beverly which comes with most backyard grills.
Memphis's finest band Booker T and the MG.s contribute the most tracks to the menu and no wonder, they live in a melting pot.
An update: as pointed out in the comments, I completely missed a meal and it is rather Louis Jordan and his Tympany 5 that take the cake. Well that's what happens if you have Five Guys Named Moe, I suppose.
Yesterday, after lunch of course, I listened to this almost 6 hour multi-course meal and it all fits together remarkably well, a balanced diet of soul, jazz and funk (metaphor overload: "a cornucopia of extra-sensory nuggets"). It put me in an anticipatory mood for dinner which I wolfed down voraciously - gusto was written all over my face. There's a lot of humour in all the music since food culture is mostly celebatory - the funniest track being Mingus' Eat that Chicken - what a chorus. I've been told that my musical obsession is far out, or as Eric Dolphy would have put it, I'm Out to Lunch but bear with me and, above all, enjoy your meal. As always menu suggestions are welcome.
