Slave To The Ism

Well, as y’all know, for the past few weeks the City has been aurally preoccupied with this year’s JVC Jazz Festival. The period was bookended for this worn out rock critic. On one end by by the viral sensation of Snoop Dogg – Willie Nelson duet “My Medicine” turning up in my inbox. On the other by and being queried about Jonah Weiner’s filing on Lil’ Weezy and The Afronaut in Slate. The sum of the newsflash: Negroes is still freaky-deak…an’ they jes’ cain’t he’p it! Fittingly, I was also summoned to this BRC digital par-tay by Gregory Tate, the brer who cheekily dubbed me The Redneck Negress.
I ran a column of the same name down South during my tenure in North Cock-It-Back until recently. It only seems meet and proper to bring a bit of sepia twang to these proceedings – better the honky-tonk than the hoes down. We Afro-freaks love porch pickers, once unabashedly ate our watermelon while riveted to Hee Haw, are now running amok in New Amsterdam.
 
YEP it’s been a busy heady time of exploring whether jazz still exists. Believe I found some at the JVC closing ceremonies this past Saturday.

I was also happy to make the scene at some of my friends’ shows last week amidst the hullaballoo – Kamara Thomas of Earl Greyhound & Larune; Dom Flemons, Justin Robinson & Rhiannon Giddens of Carolina Chocolate Drops. Through them I got to delve behind the glitz and potential cynicism of Snoop an’ Akon’s ‘n Nelly’s reach-out-and-touch to Nashvegas.
 
Leading Larune, Sister Kamara is inspired by Myth America–from our downhome girl Dolly Parton to one of my all-time favorite master funkateers, Neil Young. Her sound is cosmic country, full of darkness, drone, continental drift and always soul and mystery. At the Honky-Tonk Angels party last Tuesday at Banjo Jim’s, she and Brother Gabriel and her man Gordon in town from touring with Shooter Jennings held it down sho’nuff. It was after the Witching Hour and June was my addled month of bittersweet mourning, so I don’t recall any specific songs from Bulgaria…but Postcards From Bulgaria is Larune’s album available now from the Periodic Label.

It sports cover art by Jezebel conjured from the camera obscura where Kara Walker encounters Fragonard. Bulgaria is Kamara’s horse opera though it also featured songs from her devastatingly talented musical partner Matt Whyte. She describes it as theatre about “death, suicide and Black Sea vacations.” IT is a good deal more than that: harkening the arrival of a major Afrolantica artist come into her own voice. Bulgaria is as conceptually rigorous and sonically adventurous as such long heralded suicide meditations by Melvin Van Peebles, Gil Scott-Heron and the late great Arthur Lee.
 
On Thursday last, I crossed the river even farther back into time and caught Carolina Chocolate Drops at Celebrate Brooklyn in Prospect Park. And a mighty fine prospect it was, tha Drops doing their thang before the largest audience I had witnessed thus far. Hailing from the Carolina Piedmont and Arizona, the trio’s blend of folk, bluegrass and the occasional nod to contemporary “urban” delights held everyone arrested. No surprise –they’ve been thrilling crowds from Merlefest to the Yay Area.
Rhiannon, Dom and Justin easily traded between banjo, fiddle, jug, kazoo, and a spot of freestyle Juba, rolling out songs from old-timey trad (“Starry Crown”) to Scottish standards sung in Gaelic (by she of many tongues Rhiannon) to sanctified blues (“City of Refuge”) and Blu Cantrell’s “Hit ‘Em Up Style” (no lie). If you’re unfamiliar with the glorious past of African American prewar string band repertoire and want to hear the chirren’s take on “Nobody’s Fault But Mine,” check out their MySpace and acquire Dona Got A Ramblin’ Mind post-haste. As Dom has recently relocated to Inwood, here’s hoping we might get a regular uptown hootenanny going for us sons & daughters of Ham.
 
Viacom has yanked Snoop and his western shirt from YouTube, thwarting our giggles and cyber contact high, but perhaps you kicked off your Emancipation weekend with a swift sojourn to Larune’s 3 July gig with the Basement Band at Williamsburg’s Spike Hill, and will peep Carolina Chocolate Drops online. [www.carolinachocolatedrops.com] (unless you’re swinging through Mizzou and Arkansas this weekend). Brothers and sisters, it would be healthy, hopeful and, above all, liberating to scoot yer boots before dropping the bomb at Afro-Punk. I will be riding six Jimi-purple choppers when I come.

-Kandia Crazy Horse