ktravula – a travelogue!

Weekend Plans and Tunes

I was singing Fela’s Lady as loudly as possible in the shower today for no reason. It’s a phase that comes and goes. A particular song finds its way back into my consciousness and remains there for days until something else knocks it off. Without doubt one of the musician’s most danceable and happiness inducing tunes, Lady has taken over my consciousness; not just the singing part of the track but the nice arrangement of horns, guitars and drums that introduce it. I now have reason to believe that Fela included so much instrumentation time on his tracks and little singing time so that when the listener feels like listening only to the sounds, they can be catered for without having to endure his voice, or politics.

My weekend has begun. It mostly begins on Thursday evenings when all classes are done. What I’ve been doing since then out of class work is scouring the internet for new places to visit. My search has led me to the Scott Joplin’s House in St. Louis and the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts Centre also in the city. I have tonight to get much of my course work out of the way then take to the road. I can’t think of something more fun to do this weekend.

Now, those interested in Fela’s ballads should do well to check this out. One of his most famous slow jamz is titled Trouble Sleep Yanga Wake Am as well as Dog Eat Dog and Observation is No Crime. Needless to say, I’m so extremely jealous of those discovering Fela’s music for the very first time. Even for me listening to them again in intervals of weeks, I still get the same thrills of the very first time. Enjoy the weekend, good people.

Note on photo: Seen at the International Institute last week. I never knew that Joseph Pulitzer was an immigrant. He came into the country from Hungary.

Weekend Plans and Tunes was published on October 22nd, 2010, with the tags , , , , , , under the Art, Fun, Observations, Soliloquy, Uncategorized category. There are currently 1 comment on this article so far.

What a Wonderful World

This video of the song by Louis Armstrong is one of my best of all times, for obvious reasons: it shows Sachmo himself singing his most famous tune live on stage. I’ve heard the song remade by so many people from Rod Stewart to Michael Bublé, but nothing beats the deep baritone of the father of Jazz.

The song’s lyrics however is another matter, as much as they speak of hope, of beauty and the wonderful world we have. Against the background of wars, natural disasters, diseases, and people killing each other for no just reason, it is very hard to sing this today without a sense of irony. I saw a video yesterday of a bunch of apparently drunk Nigerian soldiers shooting captured but unarmed civilians to death in one of the latest ethnic crises in the country. Why, I wonder now, is hope and optimism so very hard to conjur. It is a wonderful world, yes? But since when? And for whom?

Enjoy the song and ignore my attempt to drag you into my own contemplations.

What a Wonderful World was published on February 2nd, 2010, with the tags , , , , , , under the Soliloquy category. There are currently 2 comments on this article so far.

I’m Being Jazzed

A John Coltrane CD for my birthdayJazz has taken over my life.

It’s definitely not the jazz you’re thinking about in Nigeria right now, but something a little less involving of incantation or some kind of juju charm and hypnotism. Now that I think about it, I wonder why Nigerian music and Nigerian traditional medicine seems to have similar naming systems: juju and jazz don’t just refer to music, do they? Now, in jazz music, the only horn you have is the one that makes music, and not the one for incantations; and the only charming you get from it is the one that mesmerizes you, and not the one that hpynotizes.

On Saturday, I was hosted along with Reham at the home of the Palestinian American family of the Tamaris. The food was nice, the conversation was splendid, and the children were fun. The two kids spent the whole time playing a game called “Life”, and their parents’ response to them when the children invited them to come and play with them was “Why should I play Life when I can live it.”. Splendid.

The Autobiography of Miles Davies

The other surprise of the evening came when the host opened up his audio library and gave me a ton of jazz cds to choose from. I’ve never seen so much jazz and blues albums in one place. Well, I have, actually, but that was at Jazzhole in Lagos, Nigeria, where one needs a large amount of money to be able to get a really nice cd, book or picture. I remember spending hours and hours going through Jazzhole looking for something I could buy with my little student stipend, but I was disappointed. Anyway, I digress. I left the Tamari’s house with a bag of songs from Chess, Joe Turner and T-Bone Walker, Mississippi John Hurt, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Blind Willie McTell, Leadbelly, Woody Guthrie, John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Elmore James, Buddy Guy, Sonny Boy Williamson, Otis Rush, Etta James, Little Milton, Koko Taylor, Clarence Gatemouth Brown, Miles Davies, Julian Adderley, Paul Chambers, James Cobb, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, Wynton Kelly, Big Bill Broonzy, Bonnie Raitt, and a guy called Taj Mahal. Earlier on Tuesday, I had been given a gift CD of John Coltrane by my artist friend for my birthday, and Ben has complemented it with another gift of the hits of Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington. All of these songs have now found their way into my iPod, and when I look at it, the little device now looks so surprisingly heavy.

Now, coming back from a visit to my artist friend’s house, I found another library of a different kind: books. The food was good. The movie we went out to see was even better: Love Happens, featuring Jeniffer Aniston, which is really a beautiful, moving story of family and loss than romance. I think I must have shed a tear somewhere towards the end. Now I have in my hands “The Augobiography” of Miles Davies, one of jazz’s musical pioneers from East St. Louis, written by Quincy Troupe. It is 441 pages long, and I won’t finish it soon, because I have a lot to do in class during this week, but it’s enchanting to read. I’ve started, and I’m loving it so far. I am being jazzed, but this is one time when it comes with a total feeling of satisfaction.

I’m Being Jazzed was published on September 28th, 2009, with the tags , , , under the adventures, Art, Fun category. There are currently 1 comment on this article so far.