I just cribbed that headline from a great book that Chocolate Snowflake’s father published.
I always get that feeling when I attend a Roots Jam Session at the Highline Ballroom. There’s always a visual element that perfectly complements the musician’s performances.
I try not to take the Roots for granted like I did back in the day. They were in NYC as often as they are now it seemed and the scene they were helping to build was still not the developed headliners and showstoppers that we know these people as today. The whole Rawkus movement along with what we would come to regard as the neo-Soul genre was just finding their footing. When you are building something substantial the footing is attached to the foundation and the Roots are the foundation for soul music.
The first sound that man ever made was the sound of the drum. This was the call to listen up. Man was trying to imitate the thunder from the sky because it told him to pay attention to his surroundings. The second sound that man tried to create was the song from his mouth. The song held the instructions that the drum told you were coming. When the drum and the song complement each other we learn about our world. We evolve to a higher plateau of understanding.
The final Roots Jam Session will be next week Tuesday. The Roots will continue to perform I’m sure because this is what they do, but I won’t take them for granted that I will the chance to commune with them again as I have at the Highline. This has been one of the most inspirational periods for me as a writer to be around a group of people that love what they do so much they would do it for free.
It’s now time for me to embark on my journey to deliver my journals and tell everyone I know about the sound I saw.
Wait, wait, wait… CS’s father was Mr. DeCarava?! My condolences on his recent passing if so, tho’ 89 years is a good run and, in certain circles, he always be held in the highest regard as an artist.
Times obit does a man semi-justice once in a while–
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/29/arts/29decarava.html?_r=2&scp=3&sq=DeCarava&st=cse
(Or am I misreading this and CS’s pops worked for Phaidon?)
I’ll admit to taking the Roots for granted and not feeling any of their albums, really, but I’m glad they carry forth a hip-hop x Sun Ra torch out there and…
Roy DeCarava!
p/s–
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/nov/01/roy-decarava-obituary
***
Val Wilmer writes: Edward Steichen’s inclusion of Roy DeCarava’s photographs in the 1955 Family of Man exhibition (including the one illustrating his obituary, 2 November), was an important step for African-American artists. In 1962 I encountered The Sweet Flypaper of Life, his magnificent collaboration with the writer Langston Hughes, when visiting Hughes in Harlem. DeCarava became one of my heroes, but it was not until 1986 that I met him, while gathering material for an issue of Ten.8 photographic magazine. I interviewed him at home in Bedford-Stuyvesant, the predominantly Caribbean area of Brooklyn.
When he showed me his darkroom, I was astounded. It occupied most of the basement of the virtually untouched old brownstone, and was fixed up like an apartment, with richly glowing wooden panelling. His saxophone lay on the bed; there were cooking facilities, a television and record player, and painstakingly constructed archival processing facilities that surpassed any equipment commercially available.
DeCarava was a dedicated artist who spent days making the perfect print. These were generally on a darker scale than any but the most exacting media could reproduce, and in the days before electronic scanning, that was a problem. He never provided press prints, even when it was in his own interest to do so, and we were forced to use reproductions from books for the article. Creating such difficulties, even for supporters, was somehow typical of this ascetic man. He remained a major influence on my photography, and when he came to London in 1988, I chaired an unforgettable discussion between him and Professor Stuart Hall.
Yeah, Mr.Roy is C.S.’ dad. NYTimes could never get it totally right because they describe him as somewhat of a rabble rouser when all he wanted to do was speak truth. Mr.Roy wanted to counterbalance the programming and propaganda that posited Harlemites as people to be in fear of.
His pics of John Coltrane are remarkable. The same or his images oj Billie Holliday. You almost have to cry when you see them because her pain is so crystal clear. He knew these artists so well that they allowed him into their innermost circle where they could be themselves without putting on airs.
Didn’t even realize that I owned any of his books until my dad reminded me of a book I had given him years earlier. I gave my dad ‘The Sweet Flypaper Of Life’ because he liked Laangston Hughes and I liked the photos.
The part of this story that brings all of this shgit full circle is that C.S. And I had attended pretty much the same events when the Roots were involved or our friends KeiStar Productions. At that time I had been checking for only hussy broads in high heels. C.S. Put on a pair of heels one night and I spotted her at the Bklyn Museum of Art. The rest is what they call history.
Damn! And thanks for correcting the obit distortion, which I tried to suggest by saying “semi-justice.” Much to ask and talk about, I just wish we lived in a culture– hip-hop or otherwise– where Roy’s work was better known and celebrated.
I do have high regard for the Roots, I think my issues are 1) not going to see ’em live and 2) what seems a gap between the provocative album titles and their contents. Plus I thought that “tribute” to Sly– esp. “There’s A Riot” and “Fresh”– was way too musically pedantic, tho’ perhaps I ask too much.
The other reason I’ve passed on Roots love is… who’s the band member who’s like, really into porn? It’s like… why the fuck do I even know that and not that he’s really into, say, Charles Burnett, Roy DeCarava and Sirone (recently deceased bassist for the awesome Revolutionary Ensemble, among other gigs) ** also **? Granted, that’s all mediated thru sub-literate, largely ahistorical pop cult media but… it’s had a distancing effect.
Anyway, is there any hope for future books of Roy’s work, i.e. that he has an archive of unpublished but approved photographs? I hope so.
With his passing, I think that leaves pianist Randy Weston as the oldest of the BK jazz heavyweights still among us; viva Randy, viva Roy!