BIG IDEAS

Writer/musician/auteur Greg Tate is curating a very interesting musical performance, FIRE & FIRE, a collaborative examination of the parallels between Black Americans and The Rom of Romania and Hungary (aka gypsies). It’s a fascinating subject as societal study alone but the manifestation of that it into music takes it to another level. From the Fire & Fire Facebook page:

The story begins in Hungary when three New Yorkers: Eisa Davis, Melvin Gibbs and Greg Tate take a summer field trip to Budapest with Jakab Orsos, Director of the Hungarian Cultural Center New York. They are in search of the Hungarian Gypsy experience, with a mind to investigate the synergies between the Black diaspora and Gypsy culture. For three days and nights they wine, dine and jam with fellow performers and musicians, discovering new territories of expression. Back home in New York, these encounters continue to percolate, creating Fire + Fire.

Fire + Fire features an historic meeting of musical sympathies when nine Hungarian Gypsy musicians meet with seven of their Black American counterparts to interrogate a history of mutual oppression and silences. Part of the yearlong Extremely Hungary Festival, Fire + Fire delves into the synergies of two cultures, melding musical and political expression—this taking the shape through the story of star crossed lovers caught in a weft of cultural clash and political dialogue. The ensemble employs an experimental fusion of spoken word, movement and full on “jam sessions” to create a brand new vernacular that will spring this tale of two cultures to life. Fire + Fire will be presented at Symphony Space on November 19 and 21.

“There are compelling parallels between the Gypsy and African-American experience, that energy and struggle is reflected in jazz and Gypsy music—both are intense, explosive, individual and raw.”
–Greg Tate, Co-Curator FIre+ Fire

A cosmic victory for all funkheads upset about the deteriorating state of modern music.

From reports:

The phrase “bow wow wow, yippie yo, yippie yea” belongs exclusively to funk legend George Clinton, a panel of federal judges ruled this week.

Bridgeport Music, the company that administers Clinton’s work, sued Universal Music Group for copyright infringement over those words in 2001. At issue: the 1998 release of “D.O.G. in Me,” a song by hip-hop and R&B group Public Announcement, one of Universal’s artists. In the song, Bridgeport claimed, Public Announcement wrongfully used the words “bow wow wow, yippie yo, yippie yea,” as well as a repetitive use of the word “dog” in ways that infringe on Clinton’s copyright.

Clinton and two other songwriters first penned the phrase in 1982 while writing “Atomic Dog,” one of Clinton’s best-known works.

A federal jury agreed with Bridgeport and awarded the company about $89,000 in damages. The amount was based on the sales of Public Announcement’s album All Work,No Play, which included the song. Universal Music appealed the ruling, but this week the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the original decision.

Editor’s Note: There is no standard agreement on the spelling of “Yippee” or “Yay”

Photo by Sam Devonish

With only a couple of days notice, at least 100 of Washington DC’s Black political and social elite ponied up $250 to get out of work on a Friday afternoon, tilt back a few drink, eat sushi and wait patiently for the appearance of Jeffrey Wright and the main draw, Maxwell, who was playing at DC’s Verizon Center hours later.

The occasion was a quickie fundraiser for Wright’s Taia Foundation, which funds infrastructure development in Western Africa - specifically and 18 mile stretch of road that will facilitate the transport of good and services and spur economic development.

Not that anyone knew that before they gave the money. But it was Friday, it was in the middle of the day and it was Maxwell. And in DC, that’s reason enough. In that city, if you want to stay on “the list”, sometimes you just write the check.

As reported by Richard Prince:

Vibe magazine, the best-known and most respected magazine of the hip-hop generation, is folding immediately after 16 years, Steve Aaron, Vibe Media Group’s chief executive officer, announced on Tuesday.

“It is with a heavy heart that I share some tough news, VMG is closing down effective today, June 30 due to lack of additional financial investments,” Aaron told staffers in a memo.

“Unfortunately, over the last several months, a confluence of events has obviously posed VMG to exceedingly serious challenges.

“The collapse of the capital markets has impacted us greatly. Over the past several months, we have actively pursued investment resources while working intensively with our bank to find a solution. But the deal market right now remains very poor and at the end of the day, the lack of investment resources to restructure the huge debt on our small company has made this outcome become a reality.

“The print advertising collapse hit VIBE hard, especially as key ad categories like automotive and fashion, which represented the bulk of our top 10 advertisers, have stopped advertising or gone out of business. It’s also unfortunate that in a recession many companies reduce the multicultural campaigns. These facts, coupled with the continuing decline of the music industry not to mention the newsstand wholesaler consolidation in early 2009 all negatively impacted our business in a significant way.

“The relentless economic situation has depressed our growth initiatives on the digital front. To be clear, VMG has made significant improvement in this part of our business, but not at the accelerated pace required to offset the devastating effects of the most severe recession in our lifetime and the accompanying print losses.”

This is from a flyer for the nightclub, Park at Fourteenth, owned by Marc Barnes, the subject of the TV One documentary feature, PARTY BOYS.

I’ve seen many a posted dress code in my day, but none with this kind of subjective qualification. Call it broad bouncer flexibility.

This group, Born Jamericans, has the dubious distinction of being the first very musical group I ever interviewed. Way back in 1993 when i had just launched a magazine in DC called ONE. Great memories. Cool kids as I recall. I really liked their music, but they just had the absolutely wrong marketing engine behind them. The group name didn’t help either.

Luckily, after all those changes and many years after the fact, one of us is still rocking. There is always a silver lining.

Brian Tate, my dear friend, bandmate, brother from another mother, stuck with the music the way it was supposed to be done. After the last break-up, he and I became more business partners than anything, working together programming film festivals, concerts and special events.

I went back into presidential politics for a while then did a book that became a big deal and used that to launch a counter culture magazine called ONE (which is a whole other string of posts). It did really well until paper prices went crazy in the early 1990’s, which turned me into an early adopter publisher in the net’s pioneer/ pre-browser/”do it now and figure out how to make money later” days. I’ve been in that game ever since.

But my rock days are not completely over. Over the years I bought every instrument known to man and now my five and four year-old boys are baby rock Gods who ask me to turn off Sesame Street and put on David Bowie, Steely Dan and T-Rex. I’m lovin’ life right about now. A mind is a beautiful thing to open. and hopefully we’re opening yours a bit with EbonyJet Radio (sorry, shameless plug).

Brian, however, never let the dream die. He was able to make the work/rock balance thing actually work and led a pretty hot group called Salt Diamond Mine in DC while he also headed the city’s tourism promotion agency.

Now he’s based in Brooklyn making the rock/married/working/kids balance thing work and leading a killer band, Shrine for the Black Madonna, as well as a burgeoning indie rock label in partnership with Danny Simmons, big brother of Russell, with whom he also produces the Brooklyn New Music Festival and the multi-arts performance and lecture series, Full Spectrum.

Hit the links and check him out. It’s all very smart, forward, future stuff. Brian’s a major talent and frankly, a genius.

Well, so ends the story. Every guy who wanted to rock has one similar. You might leave the band, but the dream never really dies. It passes on a generation or it manifests itself in air drumming on your dashboard. It does not, however, translate well to playing the game, Guitar Hero, a skill that oddly seems to especially elude people who actually played guitar.

But still, Hail, hail, rock and roll! Rock on, old dudes everywhere.

The drummer, man, the drummer. Ask any rock band and they’ll tell you it’s always the drummer.

So after two years without the rock, the campaign was over and I had started a small PR firm doing some government contracts and client work with non-profits. That woman that killed the rock was long gone and I had a funky bachelor pad, free time and wads of dough in my pocket - plus several pairs of shoes without holes in them.

The band, however, went on for a while, but under another name. They found some bassists who could talk that musical yang with Ric but were too well-trained to make it raw. In short, they knew too much about music to make the sort of inspired mistakes that gave the band its musical energy. it turned into Spyro Gyra or Allen Holdsworth. Amazing technical talent but it wasn’t rocking.

All was cool with me and the guys by then, and Brian asked me to work with him again on some writing. Writing turned into a couple dozen tunes and some rehearsals and just like that, Brickhouse Burning was back together again with a whole new sound, new songs and a serious lineup of gigs. During that time we opened up for bands like Defunkt, and the Butthole Surfers and headlined local band lineups with folks like 9353, Red Sink and Bloody Mannequin Orchestra.

We were getting great reviews, had saved money for studio time, had talks with indie labels and were seriously talking with venues in New York about some some shows on the road.

And then - boom! The drummer flaked - over a woman. Jeff met some woman who he followed not just out of town, but to London, where he went on to join the band, The Vapors. Yes, the Vapors - as in that stupid song “I’m Turning Japanese.”

You know: “I’m Turning Japanese, i think I’m turning Japanese, I really think so, think so, think so, think so…”

Jeff, the Tony Williams protege, the best jazz/fusion/rock drummer you’ve never heard of, abandoned the rock and joined the freaking pop world - sucky pop at that. That cut deep.

“Goodbye, Rock and Roll!”

Jeff stayed in London for about six or seven years then moved back to DC and got a job at Tower Records while doing some pick up gigs and teaching drums at his alma mater, Duke Ellington School of the Arts. Last time I talked to him (a few years ago) he was auditioning for a tour with Pink.

In case you missed it, the very first post on this blog tried to set the tone for a global look at the oddities and trends in global culture and politics. To that end, I threw up this clip from the finale of Big Brother Africa 2 and a rocking performance by Kenyan rap duo Gidi Gidi Maji Maji. It’s become a theme song of sorts for EbonyJet.com:

“We buried this video a week ago in a post about the TV show Big Brother in an item about how much cooler the show seemed than the American version.Turns out, after some digging, there’s much more to that song.Seems the tune, by Kenyan hip hop duo Gidi Gidi Maji Maji, was used as the theme music for Kenya’s winning Rainbow Alliance party in the presidential race of 2002.

According to those who know, The song “Who Can Bwogo Me” also known as ‘Unbwogable” is a taunt, if you will. “Bwogo” means “to scare” and so “unbwogable” means “unbeatable, unshakeable.” Sure beats ”Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow”.

Makes you wonder if the 2008 candidates are playing T.I. before their speeches.

Here’s the video again just in case you missed it:

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