Les Sapeurs de Brazzaville: Made Of More is the latest venture into global style by Guinness.
It was something of a surprise to come across this latest Guinness advert which shines a light on Les Sapeurs – the Society of Elegant Persons of the Congo. These Gentlemen of Bacongo are mostly blue-collar workers who dedicate their leisure time to displaying an effortless savoir faire.
The Republic of Congo has experience civil wars and militia conflicts. After three coup-ridden but relatively peaceful decades of independence, the former French colony experienced the first of two destructive bouts of fighting when disputed parliamentary elections in 1993 led to ethnically-based fighting between pro-government forces and the opposition. A ceasefire and the inclusion of some opposition members in the government helped to restore peace. According the this short film, a relative peace has settled on Brazzaville and given these brethren renewed optimism and confidence. However, for some strange reason this ad was filmed in South Africa. That said, based on previous film footage of Le SAPE, the vignettes in the short documentary remain essentially true to life.
Along with an ice cold glass or bottle of Guiness we get to savour the simple philosophy of the Sapeurs who defy circumstances, collect an array of expensive shoes and keep their tailors busy in order to live with “joie de vivre”. There are definitely touching moments in the documentary … check the one where the guy describes burying all his treasured sartorial possessions during an outbreak of war only to return to find them rotted away… “it is like a cemetery, like someone is buried there.” I’m also loving the policeman who was inspired by Prince Charles!
Interestingly, we get a strong bluesy soundtrack which works well with the ad but for the sake if “authenticite” I’ve added a couple of more appropriate Congolese cuts here from Papa Wemba, Evoloko Jocker and Kofi Olomide.
Solange Knowles – Beyonce’s sister – made it to the Congo-Brazzaville before Guinness.
“ The political activists, cultural revolutionary and the proverbial pain-in-the-arse to the American conservative establishment, Amiri Baraka, died on 9th January.
He identified for many of us the Blues People of America as the protagonist of the music that we all now hear and understand as jazz and R&B.
Back in 1988, 26 years ago this month, as one the writers on the first issue of Straight No Chaser, I was privileged to spend the day with the man that helped articulate my thoughts on the social and cultural importance of the music I love. The piece reproduced below captured then and represent now the concerns of a man who was passionate for and committed to the radical exposure of truth and justice” – Claudius Hilliman
Hassan Hajjaj’ s My Rock Stars Experimental, Volume 1 has crossed the Atlantic and is now showing at The Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Hassan Hajjaj
Hassan originally hails from Larache, a small harbor town in northern Morocco but moved to north London as a teenager. He currently divides his time between his shop on Calvert Avenue in Shoreditch and his atelier in Marrakesh. Initially known for his streetwear label R.A.P. and then as a photographer, Hassan has recently turned to video to depict a globalized society in which the margins of cultural identity—whether African, Arab, or European—are continuously shifting and blurred.
My Rock Stars Experimental, Volume 1 includes nine separately filmed performances by an international array of musicians and Hassan’s “rock stars” and “sitters” wear clothes that the artist designed himself and pose in spaces covered by patterns he selected. Clad in traditional fabrics, as well as luxury-brand clothes and shoes, the musicians bridge the gap between now and then, us and them, and high and low culture, thus reflecting a fusion of Moroccan craftsmanship and contemporary art while creating a conscious friction with Western stereotypes.
Fashion designer – joe_casely-hayford
IN THE MIX….
Mandisa Dumezweni (“Sit Down”) Mandisa Dumezweni is a South African singer based in London. She sings “Sit Down” from her Slow Burn EP.
Jose James (“Code”) Jose James is a singer-songwriter who trained at the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music in New York City and is signed to Blue Note. “Code” is from his album Blackmagic (2010).
Boubacar Kafando (Gnawa song) Boubacar Kafando is a Gnawa musician from Burkina Faso. He plays the kora, a 21-string bridge-harp from West Africa and sings a traditional Gnawa song.
Toca Feliciano (Capoeira song) Toca Feliciano is a capoeira master from Brazil, now based in London. He plays the berimbau, a Brazilian musical bow that is used to control the speed of capoeira games.
Simo Lagnawi (Gnawa song) Simo Lagnawi, from Morocco, is the UK’s leading Gnawa musician.
The Venus Bushfires (“Love Our Lovers”) The Venus Bushfires is Helen Parker-Jayne Isibor, a singer-songwriter from Nigeria. She plays the Swiss-made hang drum and performs “Love Our Lovers” from her EP The Venus Bushfires (2013)
Poetic Pilgrimage (“No More War”) Poetic Pilgrimage, of Jamaican descent, is the Hip Hop duo Muneera Rashida and Sukina Abdul Noor. The pair is the subject of the forthcoming documentary Hip Hop Hijabis directed by Mette Reitzel.
MARQUES TOLIVER “Charter Music” Marques Toliver is a violinist, vocalist, composer, and magazine editor from the U.S. They met when he was busking in London. “Charter Music” is from his EP Butterflies Are Not Free (2011).
LUZMIRA ZERPA “El dia que yo me case” Luzmira Zerpa is a Venezuelan singer-songwriter and founder of the music and dance group Family Atlantica.
If you’re in LA… check it out. Style & pattern! Exuberant and thought provoking!
Strata Records owner Barbara Cox will lose her home and unreleased Strata master tapes with it, if she doesn’t pay $6700 in real estate taxes by January 20th.
Barbara Cox – Strata East (1978)
“I am writing you to ask for your help, urgently, with something that is very important to me. As many of you know, I recently started a record label (http://180-proof.com/) that is gradually releasing the entire catalog of Strata Records, a Jazz label, broadly speaking, founded in Detroit in the late 60s, and active through the 70s. This catalog contains many (mostly, in fact) unreleased gems. And the few titles that were originally released were not done so in great quantity or quality, due to lack of funds. My mission is to give this great music the meticulous and respectful treatment it deserves.
This journey began when I had the pleasure of meeting Barbara Cox, the woman who owns Strata records, and the widow of its founder, Kenny Cox, in her home in Detroit in 2011. She agreed to give me the exclusive rights to release the Strata catalog. But now, sadly, Barbara is in imminent danger of losing her home (and unreleased Strata catalog master tapes, which she still owns, with it) if she doesn’t come up with $6700 in real estate taxes by January 20th. She’s 75 years old and living on Social Security. If she loses her house it would be not only a personal tragedy for her, but a great loss for music and the cultural history of Black America.
Strata was much more than a record label. It was a grassroots culture and education collective in Detroit that has a rich legacy. Artists like Charles Mingus, Herbie Hancock, Elvin Jones, Weather Report and Chick Corea, all worked with Strata in some capacity. For more information on Strata see http://www.scioniqproject.com/guided-tours/strata
I have released three Strata titles on my label so far. But the money I have been able to raise from that for Barbara is not sufficient to cover these expenses. So I am reaching out to you, my friends, fellow lovers of Jazz, record collectors, musicians, djs, and good people in general who I hope can help me to help a friend in need, and preserve important music and history at the same time.
All money raised will go to Barbara Cox. Any amount over the goal of $6700 will be used to protect her (and the Strata masters) from this happening again in the future. Please give whatever you can afford. No amount is too small (or too big!). Please also help out by spreading this however you can.”
Thank you!
Amir Abdullah
PLEASE FOLLOW THE LINK BELOW & SPREAD THE WORD. ONE LOVE
Scanning through various “Best Of…” end of year selections I came across this track by Lonnie Holley. It was included in Gilles Peterson’s annual selection for on-line mag Dummy and that in turn sent me off to Bandcamp and the label who released it Dust to Digital.
Lonnie Holley is a 63 year old self taught artist who has notched up a stack of You Tube views with a meandering but hypnotic 13 minute track he recorded with Bradford Cox of Deerhunter and Cole Alexander of Black Lips. The video simply documents the three of them recording and playing and it gives us expanded access to the working of this man’s mind and how it all came together including the metallic percussive accents that result from Holley tossing a sawblade, weights and other chunks of metal into a wheel barrow.
Holley is not best known as a musician but as a an “outsider” artist. He began his artistic life in 1979 by carving tombstones for his sister’s two children who tragically died in a house fire. He believes that divine intervention inspired his artwork and also led him to the material he used – discarded blocks of a soft sandstone-like by-product of metal casting that he’d discovered at a local foundry.
Sandstone – Carved head
Holley continued to create. He made other carvings and assembled them in his yard along with various found objects and in ’81 took a few examples of his sandstone carvings to Birmingham (Alabama!)Museum of Art director Richard Murray who immediately agreed to exhibit some of the pieces. In turn, Murray introduced him to the organizers of the 1981 exhibition ‘More Than Land and Sky: Art from Appalachia’ at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Soon his work was being acquired by other institutions, such as the American Folk Art Museum in New York and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta. His work has even been shown at the White House.
By the mid-1980s his work had diversified to include paintings and recycled found-object sculptures. His yard and the adjacent abandoned lots near his home became an immersive art environment that attracted visitors from the art world and scrap-metal scavengers alike but eventually it was the expansion of the Birmingham International Airport that was to prove the biggest threat to the work he’d created.
In late 1996 Holley was notified that his hilltop property near the airport would be condemned. He rejected the airport authority’s offer to buy the property at the market rate of $14,000, knowing that his site-specific installation had personal and artistic value he demanded $250,000. The dispute went to probate court and in 1997 a settlement was reached and the airport authority paid $165,700 to move Holley’s family and work to a larger property in a small Alabama town called Harpersville. The appearance in town of this natty Afro American artist, accompanied with 5 of his 15 children and a truckload of artwork created from trash, apparently did not go down well his new neighbors.
A decade has now elapsed since Holley’s first major retrospective, Do We Think Too Much? I Don’t Think We Can Ever Stop: Lonnie Holley, A Twenty-Five Year Survey traveled from Birmingham, Alabama in 2003 to the Ikon Gallery in Birmingham, England. Since then the man has worked on numerous site specific installations, has been featured in Arthur Crenshaw’s film ‘The Sandman’s Garden’ and remains a popular guest at children’s art events, bringing blocks of the foundry stone for children to carve. Lonnie Holley gets special pleasure from sharing his experience of learning to love oneself through creative activity.
Also, while we are on an “outsider” vibe I eventually succumbed to the wayward keys and ethereal vocals of Michigan based Otis G Johnson. Braving the pre-Xmas madness of Oxford Circus I headed off to If Music – Jean Claude’s vinyl sanctuary in Langham Street- whereupon I secured a copy of the LP, ‘Everything’ on the Holy Spirit label. Basically, it was the perfect slice of left-field gospel to play alongside other Xmas morning faves like Charles Brown’s ‘Merry Xmas Baby’, Charlie Parker with Strings, Marvin Gaye’s ‘What’s Going On’, Trane’s ‘A Love Supreme’ and Ras Michael’s ‘Spiritual Roots’ – a sing along classic.
Lawrence Feringhetti – Fuck Art, Let’s Dance. (Photo by Chris Felver)
Scanning my mails I noticed that San Francisco based http://jazzybeatchick.com had posted a poem by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. I decided to check it out. I’d once rung Ferlinghetti’s City Lights bookshop in the hope hustling a copy of Serge Bramley’s excellent book on Macumba to review for Straight No Chaser. To my amazement the man himself answered the phone. Whoah… I was on a transatlantic call with a Beat Generation legend and he said he’d gladly send me the book. Anyway, I digress. Scanning Jazzybeatchick’s posts I notice another post entitled Jazz Is My Religion which sparked off another memory…
During a stay in hospital I recall having to sign a form that would enable the authorities to summon the correct denomination… Methodist, C of E, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu … whatever… to administer one’s last rites should the said treatment not prevail. And believe me, the amount people who snuffed it on that ward was radical. So, without a hesitation I filled the appropriate space with the word JAZZ. Yeah… that felt right. Jazz. Jazz is my religion.
And so to the Ted Joans poem which was undoubtedly the lyrical root of that whimsical decision…
JAZZ IS MY RELIGION by Ted Joans
JAZZ is my religion and it alone do I dig the jazz clubs are my houses of worship and sometimes the concert halls
but some holy places are too commercial (like churches) so I don’t dig the sermons there I buy jazz sides to dig in solitude Like man/Harlem, Harlem U.S.A. used used to be a jazz heaven where most of the jazz sermons were preached but now-a-days due to chacha cha and rotten rock ‘n’roll alotta good jazzmen have sold their souls but jazz is still my religion because I know and feel the message it brings like reverend Dizzy Gillespie/Brother Bird and Basie/Uncle Armstrong/Minister Monk/ Deacon Miles Davis/ Rector Rollins/ Priest Ellington/ His funkness Horace Silver/ and the great Pope John, John COLTRANE and Cecil Taylor They Preach A Sermon That Always Swings!!
Yeah jazz is MY religion Jazz is my story it was my mom’s and pop’s and their moms and pops from the days of Buddy Bolton who swung them blues to Charlie Parker and Ornette Coleman‘s extension of Bebop Yeah jazz is my religion Jazz is unique musical religion the sermons spread happiness and joy to be able to dig and swing inside what a wonderful feeling
jazz is/YEAH BOY!! JAZZ is my religion and dig this: it wasn’t for us to choose because they created it for a damn good reason as a weapon to battle our blues!JAZZ is my religion and its international all the way JAZZ is just an Afro-American music and like us its here to stay So remember that JAZZ is my religion but it can be your religion too but JAZZ is a truth that is always black and blue Hallelujah I love JAZZ so Hallelujah I dig JAZZ so Yeah JAZZ IS MY RELIGION…….
OK… Now here’s a little film of Ted Joans – poet, surrealist, trumpeter, and painter – doing a reading in Amsterdam and as a reflection of the times Joan’s can’t help but drop in a diss of “Dave Brubeck and some other phoney musicians…” that didn’t appear in the original poem..
Take 5 Baby! and while we are on the Jazz-oetry vibe the 40th Anniversary of Lightnin’ Rod’s ‘Hustler’s Convention’ is upon us.
Back in 1973 a fast-talking, hustler by the name of Sport played a seminal role in the birth of Hip-Hop. Brought to life by Lightnin’ Rod a.k.a Jalal Mansur Nuriddin of the Last Poets and backed by music provided by Kool & The Gang among others his street tales of card games, dice and chasing women influenced Wu Tang, Ice T, Public Enemy, Jungle Brothers, Black Moon and many more.
To mark the’ 40th anniversary of ‘Hustlers Convention’, Jalal Mansur Nuriddin takes to the stage alongside the Jazz Warriors International Collective to bring the innovative and original story to life. It will be the first time ever the album has been performed live since its release.
In the pipeline is a brand new feature documentary on the pioneering role Jalal and the ‘Hustlers Convention’ LP have played in the evolution of rap. The film is set release in 2014 and be warned this session will be filmed.
Jalal Mansur Nuriddin
Support is by Malik & The O.G’s and our host on the night is poet Lemn Sissay. A radical happening for all hip-hop, spoken word and jazz headz. Flash it.
Jalal (Last Poets a.k.a Lightnin’ Rod) with Jazz Warriors International Collective
& Malik & The O.G’s + DJ Perry Louis.
7pm – 11pm Monday 10th Feb 2014
@ Jazz Café, Parkway, Camden, London NW1
Pauline Boty was a leading figure in the Pop Art movement of the 1960s until her untimely death aged just 28. A friend and contemporary of Peter Blake, Derek Boshier and David Hockney, Pauline Boty was one of the few female artists associated with the movement yet her work, which explores themes of female sexuality, gender, race and politics, has been largely overshadowed by her male Pop Art counterparts.
The Only Blonde in the World 1963
One look at the photos of Pauline Boty and you are confronted with a woman, a painter, who stylistically embodied the boundary busting ethos of swinging Sixties London. According to fellow painter Peter Blake she was the first woman in London to wear men’s 501s – “I used to say, ‘Pauline, your flies are undone.’ It was a reasonably funny thing to say to a woman in 1961.”
The photographic images of Pauline Boty convey a sense of freedom but feminist artist and Release activist Caroline Coon declares that Boty was “a woman in agony, the victim of male oppression” who had come through an art school system where women artists were loudly excluded.
In 1966 her career was about to take off. She was taken on by Mateusz Garbowski, an agent with an eye for up and coming artists. She was receiving commissions. She was appearing on chat-shows. She’d met Bob Dylan. She was pregnant with her first child. Tragically, during her pregnancy she discovered she was suffering from leukaemia and survived for only a few weeks after the birth of her daughter. It sent a shock wave throughout London’s creative community.
Thanks to the Wolverhampton Art Gallery this show at the Pallant House Gallery in Chichester is the first public exhibition to survey Pauline Boty’s career as a whole, reinstating her at the forefront of British Pop Art. It features paintings and collages which are essentially brightly coloured scrapbooks of public and pop figures in ironic juxtaposition – Jean-Paul Belmondo, Johnny Hallyday, Profumo, Lenin, Lennon, Cassius Clay – along with ephemera from public and private collections. The exhibition includes rarely seen pieces that have not been seen for 40 years.
While we can only speculate where her artistic journey would have taken her, and I’ll leaving the last word to Caroline Coon she views Pauline Boy’s work as “A generous, extrovert use of talent combined with a Gothic delicacy.”
Pauline Boty: In her studio. Pic by Lewis Morley
So, if you’re feeling bold and fancy a day out… head off to Chichester to experience Pauline Boty: Pop Artist and Woman: 30 November 2013 – 9 February 2014.
Pallant House Gallery
9 North Pallant, Chichester
West Sussex, PO19 1TJ
Festival of Dangerous Ideas 2013: David Simon – Some People are More Equal than Others
When I read about this contribution to the Festival Of Dangerous Ideas in Australia by David Simon I thought I’d love to hear it in full. Having, now, heard it all the way through I thought it definitely made interesting listening for anyone who lives in the inner city, has their own thoughts about the current global crisis and is interested in the future role of a socially divided America.
David Simon is a Baltimore based author, journalist, and a TV writer/producer. He worked for the Baltimore Sun city desk for 12 years. In 1991 he wrote Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets and then 6 years later co-wrote The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood with Ed Burns. NBC series picked up the the former and adapted it for TV. The latter appeared as the HBO mini-series The Corner which, in turn, led to him become the executive producer and head writer for the whole 5 seasons of The Wire. Simon also co-created the excellent post Katrina drama series Treme with Eric Overmyer.
If you’ve got a spare hour and a bit. Kick back and give it a listen.
JOCKS & NERDS the quarterly magazine of Style/History/Culture hit the streets last week.
Autumn Issue – Out Now!
The much anticipated Autumn issue Of Jocks & Nerds is out now with a cover featuring the Zulu Nation’s Afrika Bambaata and articles on Moondog, Lonnie Liston Smith, film maker Kenneth Anger, Paris In The 20s, Sonny Liston, Mo’ Wax’s James Lavelle, typographer Ken Garland and designer Christopher Nemeth.
As ever the photographic content is excellent and the range of features will keep this reader going up to Xmas. The scribblers who have contributed to this handsome publication include Chis May – who was, for me, a major source of inspiration during the 70s when he was a scribe for Black Music magazine; Paulo Hewitt – who I’ve known since he worked for the NME; Chris Sullivan formerly of The Wag and Blue Rondo A La Turk; Mark Webster who is both broadcaster and journalist and Andy Thomas who wrote for Straight No Chaser and today contributes to Dazed & Confused and The Quietus. Basically, it’s all quality stuff that’s imbued with a broad cross cultural perspective.
I also make my Jocks & Nerds debut in this issue with a feature on James Lavelle. I met James when he was 17, gave him a column in a Straight No Chaser called Mo’ Wax Please and watched him bring Mo’ Wax records to life. However, I lost touch with him around the time ‘Psyence Fiction’ and this interview was an opportunity to explore beyond Mo’ Wax and UNKLE and shed light on the projects that have led to the next year’s Mo’Wax – Urban Archaeology exhibition/book and to him curating Meltdown 2014 on the Southbank.
Also, Mark Webster catches up with Dr. Bob Jones to chat about his Sound Of The Drum Project with http://www.stererophonic-supply.co. Nice
All in all, Jocks & Nerds is a top read. It’s 192 pages + and it’s free! Yes, that right. Seek it out.
THE RETURN OF GALLIANO came a big surprise to many including, former Talkin’ Loud label boss, Gilles Peterson, who hosted their recent performance at the House Of St Barnabus alongside Denai Moore and Reginald Omas-Mamode IV.
The concluding session to the House Of Barnabus’ Autumn Culture Series was brimming over with promise. Peckham based Reginald Omas-Mamode IV took to the stage first, on the back of his ‘Do You?’ EP (Five Easy Pieces) and a track on the last Brownswood Bubblers compilation. Shunning the minimal electronic stylings of the EP he and his two brethren dropped a strictly unplugged set with voice and percussion and a touch of acoustic guitar which still allowed shades of D’angelo and Dilla to bubble through.
Denai Moore
Fresh from Jools Holland’s Later… or is it Laters?… came singer songwriter Denai Moore and her friend on keys. Without doubt Denai is a great singer with a rich, warm voice and the house warmed to her instantly. The Chapel at the House Of Barnabus is a very intimate setting and I couldn’t help feeling it made her a little nervous. However, by the end of her set the audience response to Denai was overwhelming. Personally I found it a touch frustrating. I might be putting myself out on a limb here but I struggled to hear the lyrics, the words, the essence of the songs. Still, watch out for Denai.
And so to Galliano. I wrote about the first single back in ’88 and was an enthusiastic follower of their wayward and groundbreaking live sets which got better and better as the stack of album’s and 12’s for Talkin’ Loud records grew. The House Barnabus’ Nadra Shah had seen them at Glastonbury when she was 16 and was thrilled be hosting their first performance in over two decades.
Rog G aka Earl Zinger aka William Adamson
Of the original line up there was Rob Gallagher and Valerie Etienne on vocals and Ski Oakenfull on Fender Rhodes/keys. They were supplemented by Booey Gallagher on percussion, Bembe Segue on vocals and Shawn Lee on vocals and guitar and the vibe was all smiles. The lovely melodic ‘Roofing Tiles’ set the scene before going into the Shuggie Otis tribute of ‘Better All The Time’. ‘Prince Of Peace’ came via Pharoah’s ‘Hum-Allah-Hum-Allah-Hum-Allah’ intro with lots of shaken percussion. All the band were seated but both Val and Bembe, whose vocal rapport was simply wonderful to behold, were a vision of movement and rhythm.
Misguidedly, perceived off as “Acid Jazz”, Galliano – the “tribe” – were way too original and complex for that. It was about having a good time but Galliano had something to say, they had depth and that shone through at the House Of Barnabus. We were met with a flow of conscious poetic lyrics that were underpinned by an easy snapping innovative attitude that effortlessly co-opted the essence of cosmic funk, a dash of blues and an ambience born of spiritual jazz.
There were renditions of ‘Shadowlands’ and Slack hands’ and eventually, they ran out of tunes leaving Shawn Lee to finish off the night with a complimentary and inspiring composition of his own. I’m glad I was there. They should do it again.
Plum Publications
Excellent resource for run by Ted & Debbie in California, both long time martial arts practitioners…. lots of books, dvds etc with informed reviews based on experience.
SUPA DUPA rare 'n' old skool Nigerian Ju Ju, Fuji & hi life…
Just haul up the the groovemonzter, log on & stream the majestic sounds of Sir Shina Adewale, Dr Orlando Owoh, King Sunny Ade, Cardinal Rex Lawson, Queen Oludunni Decency, Tunde Nightingale, Alhaji Sikuru Ayinde Barrister…. wonderful!
the blue moment
Richard William’s exellent reflections on the world of music and….
Plum Publications
Excellent resource for run by Ted & Debbie in California, both long time martial arts practitioners…. lots of books, dvds etc with informed reviews based on experience.
It was something of a surprise to come across this latest Guinness advert which shines a light on Les Sapeurs – the Society of Elegant Persons of the Congo. These Gentlemen of Bacongo are mostly blue-collar workers who dedicate their leisure time to displaying an effortless savoir faire.
ancienttofuture.com 