SOUNDTRACK: MELANIE CHARLES-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #165 (January 4, 2021).
I had never heard of Melanie Charles and boy was I in for a treat with this being my first exposure to her.
A Brooklynite proud of her rich Haitian heritage, Charles is conscious of the giant shoulders upon which she stands and takes steps to both honor and advance this music. Behind her, smiling pictures of her guardian angels, Mary Lou Williams and Billie Holiday, encourage Charles while she and her musicians blend the mystique of Haitian folk music with the sorrowful optimism of negro spirituals and the free space for elevation that jazz improvisation allows.
The video opens on a dark screen with samples being manipulated and twisted. It’s amazing to have the camera fade from black into this really old-fashioned looking scene–upright bass, snare drum and a nearly sepia filter on the video. And then there’s Melanie Charlie dressed in a beautiful but old-fashioned looking ensemble manipulating all of the sounds.
She is playing from the
Williamsburg Music Center, one of Brooklyn’s last surviving black-owned jazz venues… This performance was a full circle moment for Melanie Charles. The Williamsburg Music Center is owned by Gerry Eastman, a celebrated musician and composer who taught the jazz class Charles and her brother and saxophonist, Rogerst Charles, attended when they were in high school. According to Charles, Eastman “represents a special era of Brooklyn jazz musicians” and created a space that gave these artists a place to perform when all other doors were closed to them.
Then she starts singing French while Jonathan Michel plays a bass solo /melody. This song is
“Damballa Wedo,” [in which] Charles channels her Haitian roots and delivers a modern twist of a traditional vodou song by Toto Bissainthe. She sings that when we seek transformation, we may become someone who those around us no longer recognize, but that the change is necessary and part of the ancestors’ divine plan. “C’est bon, c’est bon,” she sings.
Up next she offers a little Sun Ra vibration. She plays a sample and dramatically shuts it off as it loops. The starkness of the silence is very dramatic. Then she starts singing
Charles’ arrangement of “Deep River” is inspired by her admiration for Sun Ra. The biography of the eccentric composer, arranger, musician, and early pioneer of Afrofuturism, Space Is The Place rests on a stand behind her. By really digging into his approach and arrangements and using his “spaceship setup as a performance guide,” she breathes new life into this spiritual, injecting it with a potency that is simultaneously somber and otherworldly.
While the sample continues the band picks things up. The bass and sax play the main melody while Melanie plays some sharp and cool flute accents.
And what a voice!
Before the final song, she introduces the band:
Jonathan Michel: who looks like an upright bassist–he’s got that Ron Johnson turtleneck. Shout out to Ron Johnson. On drums, Diego Ramirez: coming in at the last minute and learning the songs over night. On saxophone, Rogerst Charles, my blood brother, my heart.
The final song is “Dilemma.”
She finishes the set with “Dilemma,” a new song written to find the balance between self-care and showing up for those you love amid the cries for justice during the first summer of the pandemic. On our phone call, Charles explained that the song is an anthem that reminds us to not to “dim your light for anybody” and “remember how vibrant we are, despite what we as black people had to deal with in 2020.”
She plays keys and sings a soft song until the whole band joins in. After a couple of minutes she she sings a high note and the sax plays the same note a wailing harmony of greatness.
With about two minutes left she starts singing the coda “we’ve been doing alright be we still shine bright.” The band sings along and she interjects:
We’ve been doing alright
even though we didn’t get our stimulus.
But we still shine bright.
[READ: March 31, 2021] Only Righteous Fights
On December 31 of 2020 I donated some money to Elizabeth Warren (I’m not actually sure to what end it was used–presumably her Senatorial campaign?) to pre-order this collection of speeches (and get a laminated bookmark!).
There are few things more disappointing than reading amazing, inspiring and truly moving speeches by a person who lost a candidacy.
Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren were my number 1 and number 2 choices for President. I didn’t have to worry too much about which one I would ultimately choose, I was just happy they both were so successful (until they weren’t). Having Harris as V.P. is pretty awesome, and I will acknowledge that Biden (who was my last choice) has been doing a good job thus far (apparently having taken ideas from all the other candidates…which is rather a good idea).
But reading this book and seeing how genuine Warren was (or came across) and how much she cared (or appeared to) for the people she spoke to and about, it is crushing that her campaign didn’t last.
There are five speeches in the book as well as lots of photos. There’s a few smaller sections as well, like photos from the Selfie Line, Letters to Elizabeth and Pinky Promises.
What’s impressive is how she manages to hit all of her main bullet points and yet how each speech is quite different.
Lawrence, Mass: February 9, 2019
Warren announced her candidacy outside of a textile mill. In January 11, 1912 at this mill, women learned that their pay was cut and they shut down their looms and walked out. Soon 20,000 textile workers were on strike. These women had nothing in common–not even a language. They translated their meetings into 25 languages. Their demands were fair wages, overtime pay and the right to join a union.
The mill owners also owned city government and declared martial law. They called in the militia and some strikers died in he attacks.
But they persisted and won–more than a million textile workers across new England got raises and Massachusetts passed the first minimum wage law. There is no more child labor, and there are now worker safety laws and a forty hour work week–all because of the women in Lawrence.
She also says that the path to security of o families of color was rocky not by accident but by design. Rich people lobbied Washington and paid off politicians to tilt the system in their direction.
And this disgusting statistic: In the 19690s housing discrimination was legal and the gap in home ownership between black and white families was 27 percentage points. But today the gap is 30 percentage points–bigger than when discrimination was legal.
She summarizes our rigged system: Too little accountability for the rich and too little opportunity for everyone else.
Scarily enough, given what’s going on in Georgia and elsewhere, she even talks about her desire to “overturn every single voter suppression rule that racist politicians use to steal votes from people of color.”
New York, New York, September 16, 2019
She is in Washington Square Park not because of the arch behind me, or the president this square is named for No we’re not here today because of famous arches or famous men. In fact, we’re not here because of men at all.
She is there to speak about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. On March 25, 1911 (Sunday) a fire happened. Women as young as 14 were killed–jumping out of windows for fear of being burnet to death because the door were locked from the outside. Their bosses were afraid these women were stealing textiles. 146 people died in 20 minutes. Women who made as little as $45 a week. Half a million people marched in the funeral procession–in 1911!
Frances Perkins was thirty years old and already a workers’ rights activist. She advocated in Albany–years before women could even vote. They rewrote fire safety laws and New Yoke labor laws. Governor Franklin Roosevelt appointed her to head his Labor Dept in Albany and she eventually became federal Secretary of Labor.
Corruption is the root of all the problem. tRUMP is corruption in the flesh…he serves only himself an his partners in corruption.
He tries to divide us–white against Black, Christians against Muslims, straight against queer and trans, everyone against immigrants. Because if we’re all fighting each other, no one will notice that he and his buddies are stealing more and more of our country’s wealth and destroying the future for everyone else.
She wants to end lobbying as we know it–make every meeting with a lobbyist public–no secret meetings. And how about this wonderful idea:
Presidents, Cabinet members and members of Congress will be barred from owning businesses on the side. Barred from owning and trading in individual stocks.
And an idea that Biden seems to be interested in
Any great fortune in America was built, at least in part, using workers all of us helped pay to educate. Built at least in part getting your goods to market on roads and bridges all of us helped pay to build. Built at least in part protected by police and firefighters–all of us helped pay their salaries.
People making more than $50 million pitch in two cents so everyone else can have a chance.
What can we do with two cents
- Universal child care for every baby in this country, age zero to five
- Universal pre-K for every 3 year old and 4 year old in the country..
- Raise the wages of every child care worker and preschool teacher in America
- Make technical school, community college and four year college tuition free everyone who wants to get an education
- Level the playing field and put $50 billion into Historically Black Colleges and Universities and other minority-serving intuitions.
- And cancel student loan debt for 95 percent of people who have it.
Atlanta, Georgia, November 21, 2019
At Clark Atlanta University HBCU after the debate from the night before
She is talking about Black women
In 1881 in Atlanta the fight for equality and opportunity was just beginning. The only work that Black women and girls could do was caring for white families. Trudging dirty laundry and toting gallons of water where they would scrub for hours. Then bring it all back and do it again,
In July 1881 The Washing Society formed a union to strike for higher wages and dignity. In the space of three weeks, 20 women became 3,000. Eventually the employers, the city council and powerful white citizens backed down.
Politicians pitted white people against black people to keep everyone fighting. Racism doesn’t just tear apart Black and Brown communities, it keeps all working people down,
Boston, Massachusetts December 31, 2019
Post first impeachment
Republicans’ are pushing fear and intimidation.
But victories are never born of fear–they are born of boldness and big dreams.
Here she talks about Phillis Wheatley a young enslaved girl brought to New England in 1761. She mastered multiple languages and became a writer in the early 1770s. She wrote poetry and became the first published Black poet in America.
A group of white men hauled her into court believing she could never have written these poems. By the end of the proceeding judges were persuaded and even embarrassed.
Los Angeles, California March 2 2020
Honor Latinas, the unsung heroes of American story.
During the great depression government turned its back on immigrant families whipping up fear that immigrants were taking jobs. But during WWII the government welcomed thousands of Latino soldiers into the military. But they were later excluded from GI benefits and paid poverty wages. Then in the 1950s the government deported more than a million Mexican nationals.
On June 15, 1990, 400 janitors in Los Angeles took to the streets in peaceful protest. Even though they had gotten permission to march, they were met by 100 police offices who beat them with billy clubs. In 1990.
Police claimed that acted in self defense but televised footage showed otherwise.
This inspired more and more people to stand with them. Two weeks later the SEIU union gave janitors a raise and benefits.
Nobody makes it on their own. Anyone who wants to make real change, meaningful lasting change, needs allies needs partners, needs a willing coalition.
Unbelievably it was just three days later that she ended her campaign
The Fight Goes On March 5, 2020
She is saddened but pleased that they changed the topics of the campaigns in the race
A year ago people weren’t talking about a two-cent wealth tax, universal child care, cancelling student loan debt while reducing the racial wealth gap.
Our work continues the fight goes on and big dreams never die.
Dream Big
Fight Hard
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