I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: THE ROOTS-Tiny Desk Concert #665 (October 30, 2017).

This Tiny Desk starts out with The Roots walking into the area, sousaphone playing a fun riff and everyone clapping.  Questlove takes his seat behind the drums.

He introduces: This is Jeff Bradshaw and Brass Heaven.  Let’s get into it.”  They play a great big dancing brass melody singing “Just give me some more.”   There’s a fun trombone solo which starts with him playing a really long note and bending it and then just going to town.  It’s very James Brownish and utterly belies the intensity of the next song.

After 3 minutes they switch tempo completely and Bilal and Black Thought come out.  They play “It Ain’t Fair,” a thoughtful, powerful piece that I absolutely love.  I was unfamiliar with Bilal before this and his delivery is just fantastic.

He sings with a classic 70s style of raspy intensity.  There’s a great chorus: “the well is running dry / racial tensions running high / under 21 is far too young to die.”

The song builds up somewhat and then Black Thought raps a harsh counterpoint.

Justice is never color blind, never gun shy
For one crime, you may never see the sun shine
We know of one times, giving you the finger
’round hearing me, fuck you, it’s not the number one sign

then its back to Bilal

Some people say, “Let Jesus take the wheel”
Others say, “Thou shall not kill”
But that old time religion ain’t gon’ pay my bills

At the four-minute mark the whole band just goes nuts playing a cacophony of sound and then stopping silent at Questlove’s direction.

When they start Bilal absolutely wails the final verse.  It is utterly fantastic (and I think better than the performance on Fallon with the full orchestra).

Armed with the incredible vocalist Bilal, The Roots performed the signature track from Detroit, a film about the race riots in 1967. “It Ain’t Fair” glares unflinchingly, takes a knee and raises a fist against the societal construct that has systematically denied equality of experience to those “presumed inferior,” to quote one of Bilal’s verses. And it achieves all this while covering its heart with its right hand. This reflective hymn tenderly yanks your heart strings and offers a window into the ethos of those who would like to stand for the flag but cannot in good principle, lest these same evils continue to exist.

Those lucky enough to be in the Tiny Desk audience witnessed masters at work. Black Thought is truly one of the most intelligent emcees ever, and his razor-sharp lyricism was on full display. Questlove, a musical and cultural historian nonpareil, was both a metronomical and moral anchor. It felt like the culmination of decades of academic rigor and boom-bap sessions, fittingly backed by a seven-piece horn section. Bilal’s falsetto-laced vocals and warm resonance evoked powerful messaging reminiscent of Curtis Mayfield’s “Don’t Worry,” delivered with the eccentricity of Prince.

The band: Curtis L. Jones Jr (Trombone), Arnetta Johnson (Trumpet), Hiruy E. Tirfe (Sax), Richard L. Tate II (Sax), Joseph Streater (Trumpet), Norman J. Bradshaw (Trombone), Damon Bryson (Sousaphone), Ahmir (Questlove) Thompson (Drums), Tarik (Black Thought) Trotter (Emcee), Bilal Oliver (Vocals)

[READ: April 19, 2017] Captain Marvel: Alis Volat Propriis

The previous book in the series was pretty goofy.  So I was pleased that this final book was a bit more intense.  The title is the motto of the state of Oregon (probably not why it was used).  It translates as “She flies with her own wings” (which probably is why it was chosen).

As the book opens, Lila and Carl transport to her ship.  But once again something is amiss.  Harrison is offline totally and there are aliens closing in.  It is only through some quick thinking they are able to escape them until they can flee.

When full power is restored, Carol and Harrison decide to find out where Tic and Chewie are.  The baddies have a head start, but they take a shortcut through “The Endless Envelope.”  Once they get in this pocket they realize that it is bigger on the inside than the outside and their shortcut will take five times as long to traverse.  They encounter enemy ships and a phenomenon called a Warp Bear.  There’s some good humor in this section in which Carol tries to communicate with Harrison the ship.

Harrison: The organism resembles the water bear on earth but it commits space warps. Speculation: This culture uses the warp bear juice to commit its own space warp events.

Carol: You might have something there with “warp bear” but “warp bear juice” is never, ever going to be a thing that people say.

Harrison: dammit

Carol: What was that?

Harrison: Nothing

There’s also an amusing joke later on about Harrison’s “updog” which made me laugh out loud.

As far as the hyperdrive stuff, I have no idea what happened, but suffice it to say that Carol catches up to the Haffensye ship.  They believe that Carol would never hurt the ship that Tic and Chewie are on.  But when Carol shows that she can fire a laser on them with pinpoint accuracy (to amusing effect), they change their tune.

The book and the series end with an arc called The Black Vortex which unlocks the cosmic potential of its viewers, whatever that means.  This arc also has to do with Sparyax which I know nothing about.  So with no context this just turns out to be a big fight sequence.  Carol has to decide whether she want to unlock the cosmic version of herself.

The final book brings things back to earth.  Carol and Chewie return to one of the more emotionally powerful endings I’ve read in a superhero comic book.  While Carol was gone Tracey has died.  And the whole chapter involves Tracy’s final letter to Carol.  Tracy speaks about the death of her close companion Teddy (which sounds like a really interesting story line that I’d like to discover somehow), and how she felt crippled by Teddy’s death.  We even see the scene where Carol and Tracy are dispersing Teddy’s ashes on the beach.  The final few pages are really wonderfully done with humor and sadness.

Much of this series has been kind of silly and frivolous.  And as with so much Marvel lately, they just have too much going on for newbies to keep track of.

But the ending packed a real punch and absolutely saved the series for me.  Well done.