Flyover

This morning I went hiking with some folks from church. It was cold and it almost rained, and we read the map wrong and got turned around. But it was beautiful. Beautiful to swap life stories and ambitions. Beautiful to have company. Beautiful to have a path to walk and the mountain ahead and behind and below. We had lunch at a farm stall and ate potato bread and organic licorice.

I then went to a last-minute rehearsal at Mac's for our concert for Vincent Kolbe on Sunday. Kurt Diedericks, this young piano player we've been working with, brought along his friend Galina, who plays violin. We'd been working with two string players all week and not getting the results we wanted, but this clicked and was so satisfying to hear the parts that I'd written played with technique and passion. We joked and yelled and cavorted while Mac's girlfriend Renata made vegetable pie and we ate this soon afterward.

So I rushed out of that homey place to the Africa Day film festival, where I saw Return to Goree, a documentary about Senegalese pop star Youssou N'Dour's musical journey from Dakar to America via Europe. This brought up so many new and old emotions for me, combining all of my homesickness as the film traveled through Atlanta, New Orleans, and New York with all my longing for friends left behind as they went through the streets of Dakar and the island of Goree. Every one of those places has a level of personal meaning to me, and to see them contextualized in the story of the African diaspora was pretty powerful.

For a film that seems to so easily encapsulate the reasons and philosophies behind my project this year, I was afraid that seeing it might make my journey seem cliche or overdone in retrospect. But the film is better than that. N'Dour's experience working with musicians in America is not always seamless; he seems to wrestle with some internal conflict the entire time, not sure what to do with himself. There is a struggle to relate to a society that seems so different, speaks another language, has learned to do things in different ways. This is part of my story: the ambiguity of putting such disparate cultures in contact with one another, but ultimately realizing that there is something very basic and very human held in common. Still, this realization comes out of a story of a lot of pain, and a lot of loneliness and alienation that it is difficult to relate without having experienced. What do you say in the face of this saga that has changed the face of the world so dramatically and so tragically? How can one feel but overwhelmed?

Amiri Baraka plays a big part in the film's section in New York; he performs a piece of poetry with atmospheric drumming: "It might take you hundreds and hundreds of years... to get out. To get out. To get out." His lips push into the microphone, enclosing the vowels and sending shivers down my back. When the music does start to come together, one cannot help but surrender a small smile, even sitting alone in a movie theater. Then, out of the struggle, you can begin to feel and to share the joy. Reunion, wholeness, understanding, empathy, communality. There is a passage with Mardi Gras Indians that made me want to up and pack my bags for New Orleans tonight. Hey Pocky Way.

A word on Africa Day. The big news this week has been the xenophobic attacks against African refugees in South Africa, starting in Alexandra, a township outside of Johannesburg. I felt the tide rising all week as I followed the headlines. Friday I learned that there had been copycat attacks on Somalians living in Cape Town's outer suburbs. Then, yesterday afternoon, there was a non-violent protest outside Parliament against the attacks attended by several hundred whiteys, hippies, and black South Africans. The protest didn't make TV news or the papers. The crews were too busy covering the bad stuff elsewhere.

I find this frustrating, and frightening. The painful irony of it is that tomorrow is Africa Day - a day for African unity. I can appreciate the mentality of a desperate, impoverished South African who is less than thrilled with the waves of refugees entering the country from troubled Zimbabwe. But that does nothing to justify his violence. Africa has had many sins perpetrated against it; for one, it has been cut up on colonial rather than cultural lines, a recipe for what seems to be continuous political unrest. What mystifies me is this sense of entitlement, the idea that because someone is of a certain color, ethnicity, or nationality, that they deserve more or less of the joy of being alive.

I am personally so thankful this week for my own joys: a safe place to stay, contact with people I love, good music and friends - and that my freedom is a freedom to rather than a freedom from.

A Very Fine House

it's a nice house. the kind of house you might visit on a cold halloween night expecting candy and uncomfortably stand in the doorway while the resident gathers the goodies and you take in the strange, pleasant odor of otherness.

On Human Relation

I forgot about flying solo, just a little bit. I forgot about the deafening silence of a house inhabited by one person for days and weeks. I forgot about the circular thought patterns, the maddening stasis of it. There is no one to come home to. There is nothing to react to but yourself, no unpredictable dish in the sink, no scuttling noises in the morning. A sneeze would be welcome. How did we fill our days?

Happiness is not real unless shared. I cannot help but feel more and more that this is true. This is designed as an individualistic endeavor. It's supposed to be about me, about my identity, what I want, what I think. On the best of days I haven't the foggiest, but one thing I do know is this: I am a communal animal. My life is inevitably, inextricably tied up in the life of every other human on this planet. And we cannot live without love. Not really.

Pictures are worth something

Best of the Fest

So I did this arts journalism course last week with writer and South African jazz historian Gwen Ansell, which meant that, for the first time in a long time, I worked over 40 hours in a week. I was up early getting educated on the finer points of freelancing, and staying out late at jam sessions and pre-festival events and then finally the grand smash of it all: a total of 32 hours of music occurring, some simultaneously, over the course of about 36 hours of existence. There were master classes and press conferences and interviews and shows and I generally just moved until I dropped.

Favorites that have survived the bleary, post-festival re-cooperation period: Friday reminded me of a formidable presence on the jazz-rock scene, Steps Ahead, in its current incarnation. Still led by the now-70-year-old Mike Manieri. Totally blew me away. They played LOUD in a boomy hall but came to PLAY. Especially liked drummer Kim Thompson, a magnetic ball of energy. She kicked the whole band. Evidently, this was her first time playing with the group.

Then Saturday brought Lionel Loueke, the guitar-hero of just about every jazz musician I met in Benin. He wore a lime green shirt and clicked and sang and guitar-effected his way into our ears, along with his collaboration of international Berklee musicians.

But Saturday's favorite was definitely Tutu Puoane, a sprightly, innocent-yet-knowing South African vocalist who has been working in Belgium and the Netherlands. She was completely in control musically, bending her vocal chords from perfect anunciation to bluesy growl and delivering an honestly touching performance.

I don't know how many Cape Tonians actually got to enjoy the festival. It was expensive, inside the convention center - a sort of circus, really. There was a free concert Wednesday night on Greenmarket Square and Sunday morning in the townships... It's a young event.

A long talk with young saxophonist and pianist Kyle Shepherd got me to realizing some of the ways in which indigenous South African music is being erased or suppressed in this place. Kyle reports that there is a tendency of South African university professors to teach to a uniformly American style of jazz, to the point where they deny the authenticity or validity of other African forms of music, like goema or street music or kwaito or mbaqanga... As it turns out, that is the stuff that is the most fascinating to me, and not the South African jazz musicians who reinterpret standards from the American song book. I am starting to understand the strife and pride of composers like Mac and Hilton Schilder who militantly create their own music informed by their own experience and cultural tradition. To me, the very REASON I'm interested in Cape Jazz or South African music that is jazz-influenced is because that music has something in common with the sounds of the African-American diaspora. I've heard people say they play jazz or listen to jazz because it sounds like "our music."

In other news, Andy has been accepted to the joint program with the Yale School of Forestry and the Yale Divinity School. Worries and excitement about August and September are developing, when I will ideally join the workforce in some capacity.

To the streets!

For the beauty of the earth

So I am here. We are here. At the same time, in the same place. There are no words.

It is summer in South Africa, and this week it felt and smelled it. The smell of summer is the grass baking. We had a few days in a row of 90 degrees in the shade, followed by cool evenings and walks to get ice cream and mountain hikes at sunset and music late at night.

There is a fantastic jazz jam out in Ottery at a place called Swingers every Monday night that totally impressed me. This week, the crowd was full and eager to listen. The screaming house band, led by Alvin Dyers, really set the standard. Then they stepped down and offered the stage to other players to sit in. And then they came, drummers and guitarists and bassists and hornists all - droves and droves of young players, each with his own developing sound and something different to say. Donald Byrd once told our class, "You play one note, I can tell you your whole life story, everything you been through up till now." And you really do get to know people that way, listening to them and playing with them. Highlights included a great pianist from Durban working on his Masters in Music at UCT, a drummer from New Orleans (though Canadian) also studying there... And these pick-up groups, sometimes made up of 100 percent people who had never played together before, were tight. And that is a jazz community.

I have two major projects at the moment, one being a great young sax player from Mozambique called Ivan Mazuze, who I sat in with on Friday night. I met him at an improvised music festival last weekend - an incredible event featuring several free improv groups from around town. Ivan's group included a really intelligent-sounding guitarist from Norway and a crazy drummer who played things backwards and dropped cymbals on the floor. Another favorite was saxophonist Mark Fransman's group - probably the most melodic of all the groups - which really brought out Mark's strengths as a free soloist with his long, meandering, lyrical lines. Hopefully plans to talk with Mark will come together later.

My other project is working with Cape Town's composer laureate Mac McKenzie. He was on my list of people to find, and I found him playing guitar one morning at the District Six museum. So I introduced myself and we had tea and started to talk. He is really determined to create a place for the creative musicians in Cape Town - those who make their own music, rather than playing standards or covers. There has been too much aping, too much imitation of Western music among South African musicians, he says. He began teaching Andy and I some of his compositions. Mac is militantly original, and has received a grant from the Swiss government to build a composer's workshop in his backyard. He is currently clearing the ground for the foundation. His enthusiasm for the project is incredible and untiring. Our periodic practice sessions are often interrupted by deliveries of concrete and questions from builders. When Mac needs a break from music, he goes out in the back and turns earth for a few hours. "Sometimes your instrument is the spade," he said.

We hiked Table Mountain yesterday, an exhausting, totally rewarding adventure. I've never seen anything so beautiful as these green mountains dropping down into the little towns nestled by the sea. But my knees may never forgive me. We started out at noon; then it took us about four hours to reach the top, and probably three more down the other side. Getting back to our car where we started was an adventure, but it worked out in the end. Below is the mountain with mist settling on it, seen from the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, where we've also been spending a lot of time - especially at their sunset concerts. It is bad to be on the mountain when the mist comes. But we were lucky and had a gorgeous day.

I am up too early, as Andy is off to cycle the Cape Argus race today. This one is for moving slowly, drinking tea, making cookies.

Back to Center

I feel like I have come home. Cape Town is absolutely beautiful. Since Friday, I have been staying on an eco-farm a little bit outside of the city, with strong winds blowing all day, an unbeatable view of Devil's Peak, community gardens, some Dutch Master's students, and a research assistant from Guam. Lots of hippies and vans and organic vegetables. Something akin to what I imagine Santa Cruz was like when my parents met in the '70s.

I am the proud steward of a 1978 VW Beetle, and now have two (2) days experience driving stick. I suspect that each and every car in Cape Town has honked at me by now. But I haven't rolled down a hill into anyone, so I'm counting that as a win.

I also found an apartment. A garden cottage way up in the foothills of the mountains. Five minutes from Long Street. Absolutely silent. So I'm back to center, in a way. I am slowly but steadily assembling a life here, a nest, a car. Andy will be here on Friday, long overdue.

For such a beautiful place, Cape Town still has latent weirdness. "Affirmative action hurt us all," they say. "Don't talk to him, can't you see he's colored?" [in response to the Muslim call to prayer]: "Man, does that guy have a stomachache or something? Does he have to let everybody know about it?" I listen and file these things away. I fear my silence indicates complicity. Some people speak Afrikaans here, but it's the language of oppression for most native Africans. "It's like speaking German to a Jew after World War II," one woman told me. English is more neutral. But they won't make you speak Xhosa or Zulu the way they will make you speak Wolof in Senegal. South Africa is on top as far as African economies are concerned - but what has really transpired here? Whatever it is, it may be irreversible.