Brainy and Footsy?

I have been finding more and more music and musicians – lots of highlife, old and new, though still have yet to take in any self-advertised “jazz,” per se, though have found some venues. I sat in Sunday night with a band at the Ghanaian Village restaurant – a wonderful band with five percussionists, guitar, alto and tenor sax, and a great male singer. They were very welcoming. They told me, “We could play 'Fly Me To the Moon,' but we will play it the African way,” which means in 6/8 instead of 4/4, so they maintain constant tension between the subdivided three and the larger two in which the melody stretches out polyrhythmically. That was a challenge. They played everything: John Lennon's “Imagine,” some Santana repertoire, and old highlife numbers – which they thought I wouldn't be able to play, but were actually my favorite. Something about that rhythm grabs you and won't let you go. I was like, “I shouldn't be able to dance to this, but somehow I am.”

The days have been slow. There has been a constant tease of going to a rehearsal with Parisian singer-artiste Bebe in Achimota. We actually made it out to her house one day, but the rehearsal had been canceled. This band has a very interesting repertoire, too, from what I can tell: a lot of Stevie Wonder and '70s soul – horn music! - Plus Bebe's own compositions. She and her Ghanaian band are preparing for a European tour. It will be interesting to hear them play.

I have now been up to the University of Ghana at Legon and visited a few music professors. It's a nice area, a few kilometers outside Accra, under some really nice big trees, where everybody goes outside to practice and teach. Hopefully I will be able to spend some more time up there once they start classes.

Last night I went down to the Equator bar to check out the band – a loud, rock-highlife group with young, rogue-like singer and eccentric keyboardist. It turns out the keyboardist is working on a thesis on highlife music at Legon. The complaint I am hearing from a lot of people is that the old highlife music is starting to die out in the face of hip-life, and people are becoming more well-versed in production and electronic manipulation than they are in playing live acoustic music. Nobody is learning to play horns anymore, they say, which are key in highlife music. This sounds like a very familiar problem to me, because even in the States, it starts to seem like the only way to make a living in music is to submit oneself to formatting by the public image industry. People still play live music in the States; the only question is whether there is anyone there to listen. At least, in Ghana, people are craving live music – the audience is there, ready and waiting.

My host family is amazing. I have a home here. I have two host-brothers, who are 18 and 19, and are good company. There are other family members moving in and out and visiting periodically, which makes for a lively environment. My host-mother just lost an uncle, so she and her husband have been recently occupied with funeral preparations.

I started using Dr. Seuss's Oh, the Places You'll Go! as devotional material as I was preparing to leave. It has become a kind of traveling song-mantra-thing for me now. I think it makes good advice to any Watson Fellow, or any sojourner, for that matter. To share:

Congratulations!

Today is your day.

You're off to Great Places!

You're off and away!

You have brains in your head.

You have feet in your shoes.

You can steer yourself

any direction you choose.

You're on your own. And you know what you know.

And YOU are the guy who'll decide where to go.

You'll look up and down streets. Look 'em over with care.

About some you will say, “I don't choose to go there.”

With your head full of brains and your shoes full of feet,

you're too smart to go down any not-so-good street.

And you may not find any

you'll want to go down.

In that case, of course,

you'll head strait out of town.

It's opener there

in the wide open air.

Out there things can happen

and frequently do

to people as brainy

and footsy as you.

And when things start to happen,

don't worry. Don't stew.

Just go right along.

You'll start happening too...