Trey Anastasio - Bar 17

When I first popped this CD in the stereo I imagine my response was like many other Phish fans…”This is absolutely horrible!” The first song is so strange…I didn’t get it. As the album goes on it becomes more accessible and about 3 or 4 songs into it, Trey starts playing some very listenable grooves. This brings about a serious point that I’d like to mention. Years ago it wasn’t uncommon for people to sit down and “listen” to an album. You didn’t put on a record and then have a conversation over it. You didn’t play it as background music or music to drive by to pass the time as you go from point A to point B. People have lost the art of actually listening to what an artist is producing. Anyway, I had some down time today with my iPod and I listened to the album with earphones. The whole album opened up and I got it. Trey has poured so much into the production of this album that it really is an amazing album. It’s not the “in your face” grooves that you can allow to subconsciously drizzle in...where you don’t have to think about it to get it. This album requires “contemplative listening”. It demands your attention or else you are going to shelve this CD and lose out on discovering what is obviously a labor of love for Trey. I imagine he spent a lot of time writing and producing this CD. Give it a listen with your full attention, like you would a good jazz album. I rate it as a masterpiece. The layers and detail, especially with headphones on, is mesmerizing.

Song For Baby-O, Unborn

by Diane DiPrima

Sweetheart
when you break thru
you’ll find
a poet here
not quite what one would choose.

I won’t promise
you’ll never go hungry
or that you won’t be sad
on this gutted
breaking
globe

but I can show you
baby
enough to love
to break your heartforever

Tony Rice - California Autumn

I have mixed feelings about this album. It has some great instrumentals on it…Billy In The Lowground, Red haired Boy, Bugle Call Rag, Bullet Man. But this album also highlights what I had always suspected was Tony’s weakness…songwriting. There are musicians who interpret others works brilliantly, those who compose tremendous works but can’t perform them well, and those that can do both. Tony’s strength is his interpretation of other work. California Autumn and Mr. Poverty are awkward sounding songs, though they do showcase Tony’s voice, which is arguably one of the best there ever was. And the strange thing is that his brother, the late Larry Rice, is one of my favorite songwriters. Tony has the interpretation, Larry got the composition. Anyway, this is a solid album save for the two songs I mentioned. It’s well worth picking up because the rest of the album is so solid.

Amira Baraka - beat poet

I’ve been reading some poetry lately and since I haven’t been blogging I thought I would share some of the poems that have stirred me recently.

This one from Amira Baraka, whom I really like.

State/meant

The Black Artist’s role in America is to aid in the destruction of America as he knows it. His role is to report and reflect so precisely the nature of the society, and of himself in that society, that other men will be moved by the exactness of his rendering and, if they are black men, grow strong through this moving, having seen their own strength, and weakness; and if they are white men, tremble, curse, and go mad, because they will be drenched with the filth of their evil.

The Black Artist must draw out of his soul the correct image of the world. He must use this image to band his brothers and sisters together in common understanding of the nature of the world (and the nature of America) and the nature of the human soul.

The Black Artist must demonstrate sweet life, how it differs from the deathly grip of the White Eyes. The Black Artist must teach the White Eyes their deaths, and teach the black man how to bring these deaths about.

We are unfair, and unfair.
We are black magicians, black art
s we make in the black labs of the heart.

The fair are
fair,and death
ly white.

The day will not save them
and we own

the night.

1965