A Poem by Jazz Bassist William Parker
Music is the abysmal rainbow that bridges endless galaxies.
It is the waterfall flowing through the desert,
the mother, the offspring, the ointment, the foot and hand of the wind.
All of nature is music: the many colored skies, space and planets.
Music is every wondrous canyon in a miracle’s dream. Music is evolution, the seed of change.
Music existed and exists with or without human beings.
No race invented music.
Music is a form of energy, like the sun.
Music is the voice through which spirits speak, using a language that is beyond words,
a music that is beyond notes.
Music informs us with a reality that is scented with the eternal.
Music is the tireless swan knitting landscapes of hope.
Music is the cry of life and death at birth and conception, the heart beat, the pulse, the healer and the healed, the color portrait, the magical stone and the magical mists living side by side.
Music is the chirping of birds; is the grass beneath the cracked shells.
Music is dance and the dancer. It is poetry and the poet. Music is all children. Music is hot cornbread. Music is the kindness one finds in a crayon drawing.
Music is wood touching word.
Imagine a doorbell made of light.
Imagine the house that we would enter if we rang that bell.
Music is the rhythm of butterflies.
Music is hungry stomachs being filled. Music is justice.
Music is blue water, blue whales, and blue cornmeal.
Music passes through some while others reject the image.
The best music teacher is an oak tree. Music cannot be taught.
Music is alive. Music is a pasture of yellow grass 6-foot tall.
Music tolls from the earth and lands on the sky of another universe.
Music is drone over the Ganges.
Music is a snowflake floating on the ocean.
Music is silence.
There is no music in capitalism and imperialism. Music is the answer and the question.
Particles of music cannot be measured by scientific instruments. Music vibrates. Not all music vibrates at the same rate. Music is radiant. The blessing, the understanding, the fundamental eye revealing the surrender in the realm of brightness.
Music sometimes manifests itself as sound.
Music’s only wish is the well-being of all human beings.
Music exists to feed the spirit. Music is no war, not ever, for any reason.
Music is the fertilizer and the seed. Every second we live, music is dying for us.
Music will save the day. Music must save the day.
Music is the mother to the motherless, father to the fatherless.
Music is home to the homeless.
Dance music, wedding music, funeral music, march music, waltz music, wood music, steel music, voice music, tree music, ocean music, soil music, baking bread music, pastoral music, union music, trance music, religious music, perpendicular music, circle music, square music, Zion music, Shinto music, Buddha music, Islamic music, Hindu music, Winti music, music for Damballah, Erzulie, Ogun, Ghede, Asacca music for Quetzalcoatl, for the Adena Hopewell, music for the Red Paint people, music to make the moon laugh and cause the sun to turn blue. Music is the incubation of joy.
A symbol of music is Kokopelli, the hump-back flute player...
Music is the lasting response, the elixir. Music is nothing; music is everything.
There is more music in a baby’s smile than in a thousand symphony orchestras.
Music lives in the flute mountains that are made of melted diamonds. We drink them.
Our eyes sparkle like petals of a black rose.
Music to plant beans, to plant corn. Music the burning throne, the prodigal daughter, and rain cloud over the profound branches. The cry of praise, the memory, the entrance to the fire, oupas chanting.
The effect pulls on gravity.
Through music life is altered.
This energy, if visible, might resemble bands of light stretched
across fields of flowing ash going past layers of infinite habitation.
- William Parker
August 23, 2010
August 20, 2010
Louis Moholo-Moholo Duets With Marilyn Crispell-Sibanye
a piano is a percussion also....
Only once in a great while does a recording come along that influences my thoughts on creativity, sound and spirituality in music. Sibanye (We Are One), duets with Louis Moholo-Moholo and Marilyn Crispell, is one of those recordings.
Confronted with the racist oppression of apartheid in South Africa, Moholo-Moholo immigrated to Europe in 1964 and became a significant influence on the direction of jazz and creative music in Great Britain and throughout Europe. Now at the age of 68, he continues to create music that celebrates the spirit of freedom while Sibanye (We Are One) also provides a critical argument in his belief that music is the "healing force of the universe."
Then there is Marilyn Crispell, who in the past year has blossomed into a new realm, reaching new spiritual levels and creative dimensions that few ever get to experience. She is an artist best heard and experienced live, but Sibanye (We Are One) might finally be the recording that reflects the power, grace and beauty of the music and spirit that is Marilyn Crispell.
Each composition begins as a journey with both musicians always intensely engaged, treading slowly and softly with uneven tempos and rhythms; at times reaching tidal wave proportions of sonorous power and emotion.
And while new duets don't always mesh, in this essential recording, Moholo-Moholo respectfully creates underlying African feels and textures while avoiding clichés, allowing Crispell to freely glide vertically and horizontally through the textured but open space. She has the gift of selecting the right note, the right color when listening to silence, painting powerful and dynamic phrases while gracefully interacting with Moholo-Moholo's rhythmic canvas.
As is the case with most great recordings, this one has an energy and intensity from the first note to the last and will remain a timeless testament to the human spirit. It doesn't get much better than this.
Louis Moholo-Moholo: drums
Only once in a great while does a recording come along that influences my thoughts on creativity, sound and spirituality in music. Sibanye (We Are One), duets with Louis Moholo-Moholo and Marilyn Crispell, is one of those recordings.
Confronted with the racist oppression of apartheid in South Africa, Moholo-Moholo immigrated to Europe in 1964 and became a significant influence on the direction of jazz and creative music in Great Britain and throughout Europe. Now at the age of 68, he continues to create music that celebrates the spirit of freedom while Sibanye (We Are One) also provides a critical argument in his belief that music is the "healing force of the universe."
Then there is Marilyn Crispell, who in the past year has blossomed into a new realm, reaching new spiritual levels and creative dimensions that few ever get to experience. She is an artist best heard and experienced live, but Sibanye (We Are One) might finally be the recording that reflects the power, grace and beauty of the music and spirit that is Marilyn Crispell.
Each composition begins as a journey with both musicians always intensely engaged, treading slowly and softly with uneven tempos and rhythms; at times reaching tidal wave proportions of sonorous power and emotion.
And while new duets don't always mesh, in this essential recording, Moholo-Moholo respectfully creates underlying African feels and textures while avoiding clichés, allowing Crispell to freely glide vertically and horizontally through the textured but open space. She has the gift of selecting the right note, the right color when listening to silence, painting powerful and dynamic phrases while gracefully interacting with Moholo-Moholo's rhythmic canvas.
As is the case with most great recordings, this one has an energy and intensity from the first note to the last and will remain a timeless testament to the human spirit. It doesn't get much better than this.
Louis Moholo-Moholo: drums
for all my friends,you know who you are
because we are
August 15, 2010
Summertime
Sometimes we play this Music, other times this Music plays us. It's those 'other times' that we live for...
There's a 'well of souls' that speak through us at such special times. And we join the chorus in that each of us has an accent and a special message to deliver. We speak American Improvised Jazz Music in this band; we all have similar accents; we all have stories to tell... our stories, and the stories of the 'well of souls' that we carry inside of us, everywhere, every minute of every day.
I feel like I stand in the shadow of giants when I play this Music. It humbles me and keeps me real. It never lies to me, and demands absolute truthfulness on my part. When I play with Ray and Victor, it feels like I'm having a passionate discussion with other souls who understand my heart.
They are mirrors to me, and I to them, without agenda, without compromise. We are cleansed and we are always made better and more complete by our musical conversations.
We speak jazz in this band. It's an honor and a privilege to play this Music.
There's a 'well of souls' that speak through us at such special times. And we join the chorus in that each of us has an accent and a special message to deliver. We speak American Improvised Jazz Music in this band; we all have similar accents; we all have stories to tell... our stories, and the stories of the 'well of souls' that we carry inside of us, everywhere, every minute of every day.
I feel like I stand in the shadow of giants when I play this Music. It humbles me and keeps me real. It never lies to me, and demands absolute truthfulness on my part. When I play with Ray and Victor, it feels like I'm having a passionate discussion with other souls who understand my heart.
They are mirrors to me, and I to them, without agenda, without compromise. We are cleansed and we are always made better and more complete by our musical conversations.
We speak jazz in this band. It's an honor and a privilege to play this Music.
Jessica Williams
Summertime
Jessica Williams
Live At Yoshi's Vol.2
Live At Yoshi's Vol.2
Recorded on July 9, 10, 2003
August 9, 2010
My name is Albert Ayler
A MidSummer holyGhost :
Albert Ayler was the American free-jazz saxophone pioneer who (as one story goes) claimed that the survival of his mother and his kid brother required a sacrifice, and then drowned himself in New York's East River in 1970, at the age of 34. Other stories suggested he had been shot by the cops, executed by the Mob for a drugs grudge, even weighted down with a jukebox to symbolise all those commercially popular records he had lacked the good sense to make. Some, citing Jimi Hendrix's demise in the same year, believed it was part of a plot against black musicians. But a holy ghost was certainly how Ayler saw himself, saying: "Trane [John Coltrane] was the father. Pharoah [Sanders] was the son. I was the holy ghost."
Ayler was born in Cleveland in 1936. He was taught music by his sax and violin-playing father, toured in R&B bands in his teens, was forced by family economics out of college and into the army, then moved on to the jazz scenes of Cleveland, Stockholm and New York.
He became a sublime, terrifying, impassioned and uncompromising performer - and such an influence on his mentor John Coltrane, that Coltrane asked that Ayler and Ornette Coleman play at his funeral.
Albert Ayler was the American free-jazz saxophone pioneer who (as one story goes) claimed that the survival of his mother and his kid brother required a sacrifice, and then drowned himself in New York's East River in 1970, at the age of 34. Other stories suggested he had been shot by the cops, executed by the Mob for a drugs grudge, even weighted down with a jukebox to symbolise all those commercially popular records he had lacked the good sense to make. Some, citing Jimi Hendrix's demise in the same year, believed it was part of a plot against black musicians. But a holy ghost was certainly how Ayler saw himself, saying: "Trane [John Coltrane] was the father. Pharoah [Sanders] was the son. I was the holy ghost."
Ayler was born in Cleveland in 1936. He was taught music by his sax and violin-playing father, toured in R&B bands in his teens, was forced by family economics out of college and into the army, then moved on to the jazz scenes of Cleveland, Stockholm and New York.
He became a sublime, terrifying, impassioned and uncompromising performer - and such an influence on his mentor John Coltrane, that Coltrane asked that Ayler and Ornette Coleman play at his funeral.
Yet for all his radicalism, Ayler's work eerily recalled the ragged polyphonies, street-march beats, gospel songs and spirituals of the earliest African-American music.
They called him "Bicycle Horn" in his native Cleveland: the sustained howl and battering ferocity of some of his later improvisations taxed even the sympathetic listener. He didn't have the wider appeal of being idiosyncratically swinging like Coleman, or explicitly evolved from the song form like Coltrane.
Ayler was ahead of his time. Of his music he once said, echoing a sentiment of Thelonious Monk's:
"If people don't like it now, they will." He was right.
Ayler saw himself as a jazz missionary, revealing a new improvisational path that didn't depend on the chord-changes of The Great American Songbook, but was more like impulsively painting in sound. His playing often resembled the mixture of exultation and terror expressed by the possessed in religious rituals - and Ayler was definitely a man possessed.. ....
[Un]easy listening ... Albert Ayler
[Un]easy watching ... Albert Ayler
infos about the documentary
They called him "Bicycle Horn" in his native Cleveland: the sustained howl and battering ferocity of some of his later improvisations taxed even the sympathetic listener. He didn't have the wider appeal of being idiosyncratically swinging like Coleman, or explicitly evolved from the song form like Coltrane.
Ayler was ahead of his time. Of his music he once said, echoing a sentiment of Thelonious Monk's:
"If people don't like it now, they will." He was right.
Ayler saw himself as a jazz missionary, revealing a new improvisational path that didn't depend on the chord-changes of The Great American Songbook, but was more like impulsively painting in sound. His playing often resembled the mixture of exultation and terror expressed by the possessed in religious rituals - and Ayler was definitely a man possessed.. ....
[Un]easy listening ... Albert Ayler
[Un]easy watching ... Albert Ayler
infos about the documentary
August 5, 2010
Apricot
Armenia is enriched by healthy and delicious foods and fruits. Apricot is one of the most preferred and healthy fruits in Armenia during the summer season. This colored and beautiful fruit, full of beta-carotene and fiber, is an excellent food for your diet. It provides valuable nutrition for body protects from all kinds of diseases and decreases skin problems.
Besides being known in Armenia, Apricot is known as a special fruit worldwide, as it contains gold. Apricot is known as “medicine for heart diseases”. It prevents heart attacks, cancer, improves the immune system. Apricot is truly a blessed fruit.
Armenia is known by its tasty apricot. The warm climate of summer is suitable for cultivating the sweatiest and the healthiest apricot. This period is called “apricot season”. The fruit has been cultivated in Armenia since ancient times. No wonder it is considered native.
Take a summer tour in Armenia and you will become a witness of apricot harvesting in Armenian villages, gardens, peasants’ lands etc. Armenians make apricot jams and jellies, marmalade, juices and compote. Armenian bars and restaurants, cafes and hotels serve fresh juice of apricot.
Armenia famous musical instrument “duduk” is a cylindrical tube made from the Apricot wood (in Armenian “tsiranapogh” apricot pipe). The Armenian duduk is one of the oldest double reed instruments in the world. The apricot tree is the best material for duduk.
The duduk is a traditional woodwind instrument popular in the Caucasus, the Middle East and Eastern Europe. The English word is often used generically for a family of ethnic instruments including the doudouk or duduk (դուդուկ) (also tsiranapogh (ծիրանափող, literally "apricot horn") in Armenian, the düdük or mey in Turkey, the duduki in Georgia, the balaban (or düdük) in Azerbaijan, the narmeh-ney in Iran, the duduka or dudka in Russia and Ukraine. The word itself is ultimately derived from Turkish "düdük",likely of onomatopoeic origin. The word dudka in Slavic languages is a diminutive of duda and is of native Slavic origin.
***
July 22, 2010
Elma Cayi
Turkish Apple Tea
2 red apples, do not peel and do not remove the seeds, cut in 4 or 6
1 orange, do not peel, cut in 4 or 6
1 stick cinnamon
2 whole cloves
4 cup water
Place all the ingredients in a saucepan, bring to a boil. Turn the heat down and simmer until the fruits are tender. Strain into the bowl pushing gently with the back of the spoon to remove all the liquid. Then pour into the tea glasses.
If you like you may sweeten with honey.
It won't kill you if you add sugar ... :)
found here: http://www.turkishcookbook.com/index.php
July 21, 2010
Spirits of Korea
Ssitgim-gut performed by Park Byeong-cheon
Tracks:
Spiritual Chanting and Prayer for Abundance
1. Binari 08:34
Soul Chanting for Pacification of the Deceased
2. Namdosamhyeon 01:29
3. Yeongdotmari 03:21
4. Gopuri 08:17
5. Gilddakgeum 19:47
*Ssitgim performed by Park Byeong-cheon*
Tracks:
Spiritual Chanting and Prayer for Abundance
1. Binari 08:34
Soul Chanting for Pacification of the Deceased
2. Namdosamhyeon 01:29
3. Yeongdotmari 03:21
4. Gopuri 08:17
5. Gilddakgeum 19:47
*Ssitgim performed by Park Byeong-cheon*
Park Byeong-cheon has been performing for someone for praying throughout his life. Such talent was inherited by his family and passed down through generations. His practices are engaged in equally not only for the living but also for the deceased. The sound that he unravels makes the living to be blessed, and it is the sound itself for spirits to find out the way of entering the other world for the deceased. His own sound thus is the embodiment of heaven, earth and human being.
He is a man of knowledge and understanding. This ability indeed leads him to solve all the concerns with ease, and this is achieved by his performances that are transformed into meaningful sounds. "My performing activities that I dance and sing should be regarded as life itself, not as artistic form", according to him, and this remark clearly delivers significant messages of what he performs. The jangdan (rhythmic cycle) our of dancing and songs that he unravels with his body may be an essential model that can be applied to the principle of Korean philosophy. The sound that he, in his 70s, releases certainly touches
our heart.
...
Praying & Well Wishing Remarks for the Living
Good health, longevity, wealth and prosperity are desired by all of us.
The shaman performs praying and well wishing remarks for the living.
...
Exorcising for the Deceased
Spirit of the dead becomes a soul, and it tends to continue to remain behind the living in order to enter the other world. Before getting into the better world, the spirit is cleaned by scented water and then it becomes a clean soul, when it is purified by mugwort, a fish and scorched smell are eliminated in it; when being purified by clean water, it becomes a clear soul. Then it is able to enter the other world when being exorcised the resentful spirit of the deceased. This is done by pallbearers' dirge who lead the purified spirit to the dead.
July 19, 2010
Bulut mu olsam
Bulut mu olsam
Denizin üstünde ala bulut
Yüzünde gümüş gemi
İçinde sarı balık
Dibinde mavi yosun
Dibinde mavi yosun
Kıyıda bir çıplak adam
Durmuş düşünür
Bulut mu olsam gemi mi yoksa
Yosun mu olsam balık mı yoksa
Ne o ne o ne o ne o
Deniz olunmalı oğlum
Bulutuyla gemisiyle balığıyla yosunuyla
Bulutuyla gemisiyle deniz olunmalı oğlum
Denizin üstünde ala bulut
Yüzünde gümüş gemi
İçinde sarı balık
Dibinde mavi yosun
Dibinde mavi yosun
Kıyıda bir çıplak adam
Durmuş düşünür
Bulut mu olsam gemi mi yoksa
Yosun mu olsam balık mı yoksa
Ne o ne o ne o ne o
Deniz olunmalı oğlum
Bulutuyla gemisiyle balığıyla yosunuyla
Bulutuyla gemisiyle deniz olunmalı oğlum
***
Shall I be a cloud
over the sea
silver boat upon
yellow fish beneath
at the bottom blue algae
at the bottom blue algae
on the beach a naked man
stands thinking
shall I be a cloud, or a boat
shall I be algae, or a fish
no no neither this nor that
you must be the sea, my son
with the clouds, with the boats,
with the fish, with the algae, my son!
this translation is the best I could do... if you can do better...pls let us know
Music: Maria Farantouri Zülfü Livaneli - Ensemble
Poem: Nazim Hikmet
July 16, 2010
Frédéric Bruly Bouabré - the universalist
Frédéric Bruly Bouabré, was born in 1923 in Zéprégüé, Côte d’Ivoire.
The origin of all of Frédérick Bruly Bouabré ’s work stems from a revelatory experience: on March 11, 1948, “the heavens opened up before my eyes and seven colorful suns described a circle of beauty around their Mother-Sun, I became Cheik Nadro: ‘He who does not forget.’'
From then on Bruly Bouabré tackled every field of knowledge and collected his research in manuscripts about arts and traditions, poetry, tales, religion, esthetics, and philosophy, revealing himself to be an astonishing thinker, poet, encyclopedist, creator. Searching for a way to preserve and transmit the knowledge of the Bété people, as well as the knowledge of the entire world, he invented an alphabet of 448 monosyllabic pictograms to represent phonetic syllables. Bouabré’s alphabet, which can transcribe all human sounds, reflects the essence of his thought: to achieve universality and to unite mankind.
In the 1970s, Bouabré started to transfer his thoughts to hundreds of small
drawings in postcard format, using a ballpoint pen and colour crayons. These drawings, gathered under the title of Connaissance du Monde (World Knowledge), form an encyclopedia of universal knowledge and experience.
Other projects, such as Readings from Signs Observed in Oranges (1988), serve as visionary records of divination.
For Frédéric Bruly Bouabré, his drawings are representation of everything that is revealed or concealed—signs, divine thoughts, dreams, myths, the sciences, traditions—and he views his role as an artist as a redemptive calling. He has stated: “Now that we are recognized as artists, our duty is to organize into a society, and in such a way to create a framework for discussion and exchange among those who acquire and those who create. From that could arise a felicitous world civilisation.”
Fréderic Bruly Bouabré the universalist . VO.English Subtitled from Andres Alvarez on Vimeo.
The origin of all of Frédérick Bruly Bouabré ’s work stems from a revelatory experience: on March 11, 1948, “the heavens opened up before my eyes and seven colorful suns described a circle of beauty around their Mother-Sun, I became Cheik Nadro: ‘He who does not forget.’'From then on Bruly Bouabré tackled every field of knowledge and collected his research in manuscripts about arts and traditions, poetry, tales, religion, esthetics, and philosophy, revealing himself to be an astonishing thinker, poet, encyclopedist, creator. Searching for a way to preserve and transmit the knowledge of the Bété people, as well as the knowledge of the entire world, he invented an alphabet of 448 monosyllabic pictograms to represent phonetic syllables. Bouabré’s alphabet, which can transcribe all human sounds, reflects the essence of his thought: to achieve universality and to unite mankind.
In the 1970s, Bouabré started to transfer his thoughts to hundreds of small
drawings in postcard format, using a ballpoint pen and colour crayons. These drawings, gathered under the title of Connaissance du Monde (World Knowledge), form an encyclopedia of universal knowledge and experience.Other projects, such as Readings from Signs Observed in Oranges (1988), serve as visionary records of divination.
For Frédéric Bruly Bouabré, his drawings are representation of everything that is revealed or concealed—signs, divine thoughts, dreams, myths, the sciences, traditions—and he views his role as an artist as a redemptive calling. He has stated: “Now that we are recognized as artists, our duty is to organize into a society, and in such a way to create a framework for discussion and exchange among those who acquire and those who create. From that could arise a felicitous world civilisation.”
Fréderic Bruly Bouabré the universalist . VO.English Subtitled from Andres Alvarez on Vimeo.
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