SOUNDTRACK: TERRI LYNE CARRINGTON + SOCIAL SCIENCE-Tiny Desk Concert #955 (March 4, 2020).
There is something that sets this apart from many other rap-centric performances.
Perhaps it’s because the music is complicated and fascinating–elements of jazz and prog and not just a 4/4 beat.
Perhaps it’s because on the first song “Trapped In The American Dream,” Kassa Overall on vocals doesn’t dominate the music, he is part of it.
Maybe it’s because singer Debo Ray has an utterly amazing voice, whether she is singing lead on “Waiting Game” (which sounds like it could be from a musical) or the amazing operatic backing vocals she contributes to the opening song “Trapped In The American Dream.”
It’s definitely because bandleader and drummer Terri Lyne Carrington is phenomenal:
In the jazz world, Carrington is a celebrity — a 40-year professional musician who’s won Grammy awards and performed with a seemingly infinite list of jazz dignitaries such as Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock and Geri Allen. An outspoken activist, teacher and mentor, she is also the founder and artistic director of the Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice, a multidisciplinary program whose motto is “Jazz Without Patriarchy.”
Her skills are really impressive and it’s fun to watch her really get into it. There’s a moment where she is going super fast on the hi-hat and snare and it’s super cool.
“Trapped” has some interesting guitar melodies that run through the song. When Ray sings along with them it’s quite magical. The bass from Morgan Guerin sounds great and it’s quite a surprise when he busts out a saxophone solo.
“A Waiting Game” starts with just a piano and Ray’s voice. There’s washes of guitar and Carrington hits her drums with her hands–flat open sounds.
The song is very pretty and ends with someone (I can’t tell who) playing bells. As the bells ring out there’s rather a surprise as Malcolm Jamal Warner (yes) comes out to recite poetry “Bells (Ring Loudly),” in between verses from Ray.
The third tune, “Bells (Ring Loudly),” written by Parks and Carrington, features actor Malcolm Jamal Warner who also wrote the spoken word. Carrington had just seen the Philando Castile shooting and her powerful lyrics imagined what she would say to the offending police officer.
Throughout the set, pianist Aaron Parks plays some fantastic melodies and solos and guitarist Matthew Stevens seems to be perpetually filling the soundscape with little solos and accents.
Social Science [is] a collaboration with pianist Aaron Parks and guitarist Matthew Stevens (both performing here). In the works for some time, their project culminated in 2016 when the cultural divisiveness brought on by the presidential election inspired the trio to take action. “I think there’s an awakening happening in society in general,” Carrington writes on her website, “I feel a calling in my life to merge my artistry with any form of activism that I’m able to engage in.”
This performance features music from the band’s new album, Waiting Game. It’s story-filled, groove-music performed by a group of accomplished musicians who improvise, rap and sing over complex but highly crafted and accessible instrumental motifs. A perfect synthesis of jazz, indie rock and hip-hop influences, the four songs they played address important, culturally relevant protest narratives: mass incarceration, collective liberation, police brutality and Native American genocide.
The final song “Purple Mountains” features Kokayi rapping as Debo Ray sings beautifully with him. The music in this song is outstanding–complicated and interesting (reminds me a bit of Frank Zappa, which I did not expect).
It opens with some really heavy chords from guitar and bass together while guitar play a cool atonal melody and Aaron Parks played an electric keyboard instead of piano.
The end of the song when Kokayi is rapping faster with yea yea yeas in the middle is really intense and cool.
“I hope that you can enjoy this music because it can be heavy,” drummer and bandleader Terri Lyne Carrington told the NPR crowd gathered for this Tiny Desk. “We’ve tried to figure out a way to make it feel good and still give these messages.”
“There is so much we can be angry about but you can’t really stay there,” Carrington told NPR. “Instead, you can reach somebody on a human level.”
I was totally won over by Social Science.
[READ: March 30, 2020] “Carlitos in Charge”
This story was really great and also an interesting (presumably true) look into what (might) happen at the United Nations.
This story was written in a fluid and ease to read style. I especially enjoyed the lengthy passages of lists that he threw into the story.
Carlitos was nicknamed “Charles in Charge.” Why? because he didn’t like standing out in an American middle school with such an ethnic name. So he asked to be called Alex P. Keaton. But his father pronounced it like Alice, which didn’t help. So he settled on “Charles in Charge.”
Carlitos has worked in the United Nations building for a little over a year assembling data for the Health Department. And in that short time he has had sex with
the South Korean ambassador, the spokesman for the Swedish Mission, and Irish delegate, a Russian interpreter, an Iraqi translator, the assistant to the deputy ambassador from El Salvador, an American envoy, the chief of staff for the Ukrainian prime minister, the vice presidents of Suriname and the Gambia, a cultural attache from Poland, the special assistant to the Saudi ambassador, the nephew of the ruling party’s general secretary of Laso, a distant cousin of Castro, a film director from Mauritania, countless low-level staffers, a few guides, a half-dozen tourists and Brad.
He says that they had to leave their phones in a lock box on the second floor so cruising happened the old fashioned way.
He got the job through a college friend William Mycroft Quimby–Quim–an authentically Irish fellow living in Brooklyn. He says it was weird working for the world and not his country. But really his jobs was “Convincing the U.S. to do no harm.”
The United States was immune to easily interpretable, commonsense data on everything–pollution, tuberculosis, birth control, breastfeeding, war, rape, white phosphorous, blue phosphorous, red phosphorous, lithium, P.T.S.D., G.M.O.s, slavery, winged migration, lions, tigers, polar bears, grizzly bears, panda bears, capital punishment, corporal punishment, spanking, poverty, drug decriminalization, incarceration, labor unions, cooperative business structures, racist mascots, climate change, Puerto Rico, Yemen, Syria, Flint, Michigan, women, children, wheelchairs, factory farms, bees, whales, sharks, daylight savings time, roman numerals, centimeters, condoms, coal, cockfighting, horse betting, dog racing, doping, wealth redistribution, mass transit, the I.M.F, CIA, I.D.F., MI5, MI6, TNT, snap bracelets, Pez dispensers, Banksy. It didn’t matter what its was if the Human Rights Council (or Cuba) advocated one way, the U,S, Went the other.
He soon learned that people used their liaisons to influence decisions.
Do you mean blackmail?
Not blackmail, but, yes, blackmail.
Many of those dalliances resulted in changed results on important bills.
As for Brad, he met Brad at a bar. Brad also worked at the U.N. but in a different department. They started dating and got pretty serious. Their one rule was no talking about business. That worked very well until something was bringing Brad down. They tried not to talk about it but it soon became too much.
It turned out that Brad was working on a bill calling for a truth and reconciliation commission to investigate war crimes in El Salvador. (Charles in Charge’s family is from El Salvador).
The problem was that China signaled support for it and the U.S. can’t go on record agreeing with China about a human-rights issue. That would be a bad precedent. Carlitos said he had been working at the U.N. long enough that this made sense.
China was supporting the resolution because El Salvador cut diplomatic ties with Taiwan. If El Salvador and Taiwan agreed with each other, that might change China’s decision.
Brad wonders of Charles in Charge cam have an impact on this momentous vote.
The way the story and the vote play out are both pretty surprising.
I enjoyed this a lot.
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SOUNDTRACK: LIANNE LA HAVAS-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #18 (May 5, 2020).
This Tiny Desk is wonderful because you can clearly see the interesting chords that Lianne La Havas is playing.
I Just Read About That... 