Our Daily Bread

COREY HARRIS
Daily Bread (Rounder)

The most profound things come simply. Corey Harris understands this maxim, as his blues-based foundation allows him to tinker with other influences while keeping it rooted in the pentatonic tradition. He dove deeply into this exploration on 2003’s Mississippi to Mali, an American take on Malian blues so seamless country and culture was rendered insignificant. What mattered then, as on Daily Bread, is the untainted poetry of Harris’ welcoming voice backed by acoustic guitar flourishes. This doesn’t stop him from throttling into amplified territory – the rock-based reggae-tinged “Lamb’s Bread” is one of the record’s standouts – but when he quiets it to a hush, you receive the full-on experience. He steps lightly into Ben Harper territory (the playful “I See Your Face”) and gets down-home (“A Nickel and a Nail”). Two tracks with guest trumpeter Olu Dara prove the most inventive: the spoken word “Mami Wata” and 10-minute “The Peach” turn crooner into bard. On the latter, Dara ingeniously wraps a biblical story into a soulful soliloquy, tracing the genre’s roots behind gospel and spirituals to griot territory. Harris sees history in the rearview and, more importantly, a boundless expanse straight ahead. - Derek Beres

Where the Money Goes

By Derek Beres

I find little irony in the fact that as I stepped off the PATH train at Grove St an hour ago to come home to write this particular blog, I ran into the first wave of newly-hired employees of the NJ/NY Port Authority: the National Guard. Two stocky camouflaged men with machine guns and a large German shepherd were nearly blocking the entrance to the stairs as I ascended upwards. Two local cops - and two more upstairs - completed the scene.

As part of a new program, roughly forty National Guard members will be patrolling the PATH station daily, beefing up an already super-sized policing presence. It will cost the state $200,000 a month, or $2.4 million annually, to add on top of 1,600 Port Authority police officers. But my favorite part, from the NY Times article: “The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said the measure, which will cost about $200,000 a month, is not a reaction to any specific threat, but fulfills a promise of renewed cooperation on security discussed by Gov. Eliot Spitzer of New York and Gov. Jon S. Corzine of New Jersey in January.”

Wonderful. Instead of using money to make improvements to the actual service, which are sorely needed, they’ll take the surplus capital (it is the most used system in the entire NJ public transportation system, with sixty-seven million riders in 2006) to fulfill some political verbiage they slung a few years ago to slither into office. As a PATH rider for over eight years, I’ve watched rate increases with little to no improvements, and the insistent - and growing - police patrols. The trains run to Hoboken all weekend and every weeknight, which is laughable considering Jersey City is a dozen times larger and has four stops, subjected to the reduced schedule to cater to one more economically prosperous township.

Perhaps Jersey City will never live down its image of having housed a few of the members of the 9/11 incident. It is one of the most racially diverse cities in the East, although as the condos move in - a projected 50,000-65,000 more by 2020 - the area is losing its flavor. I find it not ironic at all that, as Trump and other developers move in, security is being beefed up; they want to give the appearance of security. And yet JC has always been a secure town. It’s the people strong-arming their way in with billion-dollar housing developments and politicians seeking resume fodder that I’m worried about.

Strange Indeed

By Derek Beres

In his 2003 book Passing Gas, photographer Gary Gladstone drove over 38,000 miles in search of unique visual opportunities, pairing small-town residents that somehow represented the namesake of their zip code. So you have the beady-eyed state trooper in Surprise, New York; the bubbly Bible-hugging minister in Embarrass, Illinois; and the half-asleep senior couple in Dull, Ohio. And, of course, the jumbo breakfast-wielding waitress in Gas, Kansas, a yolky meal Gladstone must have passed on. Yet, no Strange.

Perhaps this region could only come from the head of Stew, the writer/narrator of Passing Strange at the Public Theater. The exact location of his characters is, while geographically specific (Los Angeles, Amsterdam and Berlin), everywhere. That was the point: Strange is a state of being and we all, in some way, embody it. And that’s the reason the packed theater didn’t stop laughing throughout the entire two-hour, forty-minute performance.

Perhaps this is why the central character is simply referred to as Youth (Daniel Breaker). Like Ellison’s unnamed hero in The Invisible Man, Youth plays a fantastic double-edge: he is the you inside of you, but also, like Ellison’s focal point, pivotal in introducing untold issues in black America. Invisibility too is a state of being, and in the end all Youth wanted was to be seen. The reality is he was never seeing himself, hence the root of his confusion.

Still, there’s more. In the opening scene we find Youth sleeping slack-jawed while his mother (Eisa Davis) bickers about him getting his life together (at fourteen years old), and going to church, a practice she herself has abandoned. Turns out Youth has been contemplating Zen Buddhism and, upon awakening, starts OM-ing as a rebuttal to Ma’s gripes. What sets him on his quest is an inquisitive gaze into Eastern philosophy, something not often seen in African-American culture.

In an interview I conducted with Zen Buddhist priestess Angel Kyodo Williams following the release of her book Being Black, she had thought deeply upon this very topic. “The book is for people of color,” she said, “but how do you limit something that’s really very human? There were so many times reviewers said ‘This is so much more than being black.’ In my own experiences, knowing the politics of access, a lot of black folks are not getting access to this kind of practice. For me that was a very strong component and something I wanted to direct my attention and say ‘This is your invitation.’”

Passing Strange is Stew’s invitation, and to much more than a yoga asana or koan. He explores several thorough and well-selected topics: hypocrisy in religion, film noir techniques, individual versus social liberation in a politically oppressed nation, ménage a trios and marijuana – tons of marijuana. From Youth’s first joint hit with the pastor’s son, Mr. Franklin (Colman Domingo), overlooking the LA sunset, to his introduction to the touch of two females in Amsterdam, and an inevitable loss of love in Berlin, marijuana was there with him. Well, not so much in Germany, but the faux-Kraftwerk bit with a vocoder and tinny synth riffs had the place rolling.

Black identity lies at the core of Stew’s work. He leads a musical duo called the Negro Problem, and does an amazing job at working late 1970’s South Central idealism into a middle class black suburban quandary. This is pre-hip-hop, yet the idea of “keeping it real” pervades, especially in Youth’s declaration of being “hood” while actually growing up in a financially stable neighborhood. As the play continues, it grows from a tome on black America to something more universal in scope; it really is the search for identity-at-large, grown out of a bohemian mind in love with the unique angles and postures anyone can assume.

One can’t help but guess how large an influence Baldwin was on the play (considering how many times he’s in the narration), and more specifically, Another Country. The writer’s masterpiece on these exact issues (black America, personal identity) is what Passing Strange declares; Youth could have been Rufus, had the latter not jumped from the GW Bridge. The parallels seep through many pores: a talented musician frustrated with the genre boxing blacks are placed inside, seeking his own sense of self-worth in a society that doesn’t understand him. Granted, Youth does not beat any wives, but that’s also because Stew has created something more worthwhile in his masterwork: strong females (perhaps a little bit of Ida Scott?). Besides the physical beauty of De’Adre Aziza and Rebecca Naomi Jones, both played a diversity of roles with feline acrobatics and soothing, soulful voices. Indeed, as we will close with, the musical selections were excellent.

The hero journey of Youth would have made Joseph Campbell proud; Stew played the archetype to perfection. Unsatisfied youth in Los Angeles has his eyes opened to marijuana after a powerful preaching session (Chad Goodridge) ends with motherly oppression; he joins the youth choir to get laid, and it turns out the preacher’s son is a disgruntled pothead (not to take anything from any actor, but Domingo stole the show; his pantomimes and facial expressions, and amazing use of gravity and timing, proved astounding); he leaves LA for Amsterdam, which turns out to be Eden, which – as what happens to all of us caught in too good of a situation – sours; he moves on to Tier Six of the Inferno in Berlin. And then, after creating “performance art” by splicing a seven-hour tape of his girlfriend singing in the shower, he returns to sunny California when his mother passes, from sadness of a lost son.

And there’s the rub. In one particularly inspired (and inspiring) spoken word monologue, Youth breaks into a beatific Saul Williams cadence and declares he’s lost mother gravity and is now bound to earth. Beautiful. His rebellion against his mother is man’s distancing from nature, both of himself and the world around him. It’s a very common theme, and universal. We all know it, yet how we express it is what makes lasting art. There’s no doubt that Passing Strange, after this first run, will prove to be just that.

The play is a tour-de-force. As associate producer Bill Bragin told me before the show, “it’s epic.” He wasn’t kidding. The scene changes were rapid and fluid; the scenery and costumes tasteful, indulgent; and the music, well, that’s Stew’s Strange terrain. He’s a dynamic performer and the score reflects such. Curtis Mayfield undertones appear in Berlin when Youth declares his “hoodiness.” Cinematic balladry comes alive in “My Keys,” when Youth is invited into a bohemian Amsterdam flat. Little snippets of gospel and showtunes arise; blues and rock, Stew’s bread-and-butter, are sprinkled throughout. And damn it if I’ll never forget a mascara-laden limp-legged Domingo making his gut-wrenching manifesto on the German minimalist electronic tip. Peter Brook would be envious over what this Empty Space gave birth to.

For more information and to order tickets, click here.

Bebel Gilberto: Heat of the Moment

By Derek Beres

When Bebel Gilberto discusses music, she enthusiastically gestures with her hands as if her voice can’t contain her excitement. It’s ironic, simply because that instrument says so much to the millions of people that bought her first two recordings, Tanto Tempo and Bebel Gilberto. With her latest release, Momento, the woman whose name has become synonymous with Brazilian music finally returns, once again slipping her sultry, breathy vocals over gently pulsing down-tempo beats.

“I’m forever living in the future, as it’s my favorite place to be,” she says, nursing a cup of coffee in her East Village, Manhattan apartment and explaining the title of her album, which translates to “in the moment.” “But there has to be a time when you say, ‘Let’s take care of this moment here.’ Live the moment and enjoy the moment completely. That’s what I’m doing.”

Gilberto comes from the Brazilian-music equivalent of the royal family: her father, Joao, is a bossa nova pioneer, and her mother, Miucha, is one of her country’s top singers. Since making her debut at the age of 7 on one of her mother’s recordings, Gilberto, who was born in New York but raised in Brazil, has developed into a solo star, a Latin Grammy nominee and a highly sought-after collaborator.

Read the complete piece on VH1.

Industry Growth, Sometimes Like Fungus

By Derek Beres

One of the truly sad displays of grown-up juveniles with too much power and not enough to say has been coming from the RIAA and their clients, otherwise known as the “Big Five” record labels. On an extremely basic level, when they claim that they are losing twenty billion dollars (or whatever their number-of-the-week is), how is that even possible? How can one “lose” what one never had? It’s like the USPS claiming they are going bankrupt “because of” e-mail and the Internet. There’s two different things going on, and the previous power-that-was tries to stand tight to their platform by making false accusations. The problem is that everyone is looking at another stage.

Well, problem for them, at least. When I read reports like this one from eMarketer, my skepticism of their false wolf cries grows exponentially.  The subtitle, “Dancing to a New Beat,” says it all: in order to stay on top of the game, you have to evolve. There is nothing intelligently designed about that; it’s the nature of business. Firstly:

Sales of CDs, which currently account for 55% of the industry’s total revenues, will continue to decline sharply, falling to 29% of the overall business by 2011. On the other hand, digital music has been growing exponentially in the past few years and is expected to continue on a healthy growth trajectory, reaching $14.8 billion in worldwide revenues by 2011.

This is otherwise known as a “transition.” It’s kind of like growing pains, that awkward phase of life where teens trying to look five years older than they are have to deal with acne, braces and a blossoming, tickling feeling down under. Thing is, that feeling doesn’t stop, especially in an industry like music, where they suck the lifeline dry.  The article continues:

“Whereas in the past, rock musicians tended to view commercial associations as ’sellouts,’ today the media landscape is rife with name artists who have attached themselves to top brands: U2 and the Apple iPod, Bob Dylan and Victoria’s Secret, Robbie Williams and T-Mobile — and the list goes on.”

So while Akon isn’t getting the Verizon love anymore, the message remains clear: associate yourself with a brand, and you may be “saved” the tragedy of the industry. But the tragedy only remains such until the big players regain their successes. The sad truth is that they’re already in control of what they need to be. The smokescreens are a distraction. Every industry changes, and the most efficient way to maintain control is to make people think you’re losing it. While it is true that the Internet and digital distribution has leveled the playing field a bit, there are still way more of us in the trenches than on top of the hill. What we really need is an earthquake to level out the land.

Soap Opera

By Jill Ettinger

Cleanliness is next to godliness, as the saying goes. That would make soap as important as the religious rites we put ourselves through. Yet on any given supermarket shelf are thousands of bars and bottles of detergent-laden products positioning themselves as soap, but are, more accurately, false idols.

Being in this natural products industry for over half of my life, there is one product ubiquitous with “natural,” one that stands for everything this industry represents at its finest: Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soap. It’s instantly recognizable bottle, covered in text with quotes like “ALL-ONE”  and the “moral ABC’s,” is the quintessential in organic consciousness. I imagine a thousand years from now future generations will proudly tout this wisdom as prophecy. The healthy blend of jojoba, coconut and hemp oils on the inside serve for well-rounded peace of mind and body.

The Bronner family continues to stand up for truth, integrity and quality in every capacity. Proof positive that there is something truly magical in those yummy peppermint suds. Their evolution to hemp oil in 1999,  the use of organic ingredients and fair trade labor practices are unrivaled in the personal care industry, raising the bar on ethics and quality again and again.

This video above, just posted on the Bronner site, tells the eerie and comical tale of our nations drug-testing (in)abilities and exposes the truth about what is really soap and what is just foam.

Tangled Web

TANGLED WEB NOW FOR SALE ON AMAZON

Photojournalist Derek Beres spent one month traveling across America with what appeared to be the most ambitious Latin music tour ever assembled in this country. Featuring Yerba Buena, Voltio, Akwid and Radio Mundial, what was to help forge a new identity in global music ended up falling victim to those ever-present constants of the music industry: greed, corruption and mismanagement. Tangled Web documents the tour day by day, including personal, behind-the-scenes gazes into life on tour, as well as an honest overview of the downfall of this tumultuous industry. By capturing this moment in sonic history, Beres recounts the story of contemporary music, as well as catching some of today’s most talented artists in action.

From the Introduction
Fresh Music. This would be the final title of a tour of artists caravaning across America in hopes of introducing audiences to the unique and innovative sounds coming from the Latin Diaspora. The idea was to create a festival in which congregations of any ethnicity could tap into a host of musical forms rooted in Latin America, the Caribbean and – as the history of music goes – the African roots of modern music. Both a philosophical and sonic foundation was created, and the end result, Musica Fresca, was set to celebrate Latin Heritage Month by touring 15 cities coast-to-coast, bringing what musical director Andres Levin called an “urban edge” to the more compartmentalized genres of Latin music. A main driving force was to showcase the universality of music using Latin artists as a springboard. It had the double nature of honing in on musicians from certain regions, while simultaneously tapping into the ears and hearts of everyone with those to listen, and those to feel. From helping pen the business plan that secured funding to writing these words after the tour has commenced, the past year of my life has been involved with Musica Fresca. While this book is a journal of one month spent on the road across America, the story is timeless. It is one we have all heard, lived and experienced in some way or another. It’s both tragedy and redemption, all the darkness of avarice and beauty of music wrapped into four dozen people trekking from Florida to California, then back to the Northeast. At root this story is about being human and all the flaws and grace that requires, the quest for community and connection that ties us together.

Future or History of Violence

By Jill Ettinger

The ridiculous media accusations that Rage Against the Machine’s opinion constitutes a threat to our national security offended me. There is a difference between saying “our administration deserves to be shot” and “I am going to shoot George Bush.” (Did I just threaten the president?) If we, as citizens of this country, dwellers of this planet, procreating members of this species, cannot freely express ourselves, then what exactly is the point to this existence? There’s a line to one of Rage’s songs, “Testify,” that comes to mind: “Who controls the past now controls the future/Who controls the present now controls the past.” We have as much freedom as we allow ourselves. This administration, this corrupted media machine, has power over us because we’ve let them. We’ve subdued ourselves, numbed ourselves and dumbed ourselves into a fearful state of compliance. That allows the media to pontificate on in the manner they do, intent on making us feel stupid or heaven forbid unpatriotic if we stand up for ourselves, our families or our freedom.

Watching the clip Derek posted Friday was one of the most puzzling experiences I’ve witnessed in a while. The innocent-because-we’re-journalists deer-in-headlights look from the condescending media puppets is so transparent that its scary. Why don’t we just fit everyone with a device that tracks whether we’re having happy thoughts or not? Those of us in a bad mood will get a slow drip of lexapro, and those of us down right aggressive, thorazine. After all, our national security is at risk. And heaven forbid any artist use a platform like Coachella to say out loud what countless minds are already thinking. Our government is a sham, a hoax, a big fat american lie with extra mayonnaise. Really, the thought of Zack de la Rocha tiptoeing across the white house lawn with an AK is not only absurd, it seems a quite a bit beneath him. He’s an artist, an activist, and let’s be real folks, those of us opposed to the arrogance of this “war on terror” are using our time wisely, unlike the powers that be.

Some good friends of mine - who just spent a week down in the Havasupai Native American Reservation planting trees, as in food and shelter where there was little to none - also just finished this incredibly powerful video for hip-hop artist “Belly” Rebellyus, who says clearly and powerfully what so many of us are thinking about this war. (It’s OK, he’s Canadian.) Please watch all the way through and pass along. It’s our continued dialogue with each other about the future we want that will make it happen. PEACE

Rage Against Something Real

By Derek Beres

In what is quickly being passed and posted widely, I couldn’t ignore the importance of such a shoddy piece of “journalism” as this. Discussing Zack de la Rocha’s commentary about the Bush administration during a Rage Against the Machine reunion performance, Ann Coulter was asked to throw in her two cents. (Indeed, even this was a steep price.) I’ll leave her conservativeness alone, and just ask one simple question: why was she asked to comment on this? If, as she said, she had to call her friend at MTV to find out who they were (the sarcasm was not lost, as it was never there), why would she have a thing to say in the first place?

Watching Sean Hannity repeatedly state that the band should be looked into by the CIA was too much, though. Watching this, I had to repeatedly smack my head. Between this sort of sophistic distraction and the current debates over overturning Roe vs. Wade, I am wondering why this country is becoming more fascinated with its own absurdity. While there are plenty of intelligent, forward-seeking individuals and businesses seeking to solve many of our world’s ails - global warming and nutrition, to name two - our national media and political ramblings are being thrown back three decades. That abortion is even being discussed is disheartening, and this quasi-piece of reporting above can only remind one of a throwback Red Scare.

What’s truly frightening is that when issues like global warming are touched upon, it’s seen as a “liberal” issue. There is nothing liberal about it. The smokescreen clash between politically-motivated initiatives like Intelligent Design, designing itself as a spiritual front, is strongarming its way into too many consciousnesses right now. This is not where we need to be focused. I nearly got upset at myself for watching the above nonsense for eight minutes instead of actually producing something. Because at root, this is what these public figures are doing: distracting us from serious issues at hand. It’s tragic, and unfortunately showing no sign of slowing.

The Sweetest Sting

By Jill Ettinger

It’s well known that beekeepers are some of the longest-living people on the planet. Honey bees are the most studied insect ever because of their impact on our food supply. We rely on them to pollinate most of our fruits (they are responsible for pollinating a whopping one-third of our total diet, probably even more so for vegans and vegetarians). I keep hearing and reading about these dying honey bees and with no real answer in sight to what is causing the situation, we should become educated on the matter - and prepared to find answers.

Bees, like birds, fish and frogs, are an indicator species. When they have population and survival challenges, it is a sign that there is a grave, serious situation at hand. I lived in south Florida for several years and there were a number of birds that had simply disappeared from parts of the Everglades due to sugar crops, pollution and irrigation. Whether or not they come back is telling of whether or not the ecosystem is sustainable. Once an indicator species has disappeared, there’s no real way of knowing when, or if, they will ever return to that environment.

With honey bees so ubiquitous a species, their recent widespread decline would elude to our worldwide environmental pandemic. (Though if you’re a republican, of course I’m exaggerating.) I’m reminded of John Muir’s quote “tug on anything at all in nature and you’ll find it connected to everything else.” Bees are that link between anything and everything else.