Dan wil je naar het concert van een van je favoriete artiesten, en heb je de griep te pakken… Dan maar een blogje schrijven!
Hij is jarig vandaag! Anthony Joseph, de funky spoken word zanger/schrijver uit Trinidad. En hij speelt vandaag, zaterdag 12 november 2016, in Grounds Rotterdam. De zaal afficheert het optreden als cd-presentatie, maar de plaat is al even uit natuurlijk, sinds augustus. Ik ben er weg van, van dat Caribbean Roots album.
Zie mijn recensie elders op MixedWorldMusic.
Ik schrijf: ‘Hypnotiserende beats, stevige percussie, krachtige blazers en een fraai repertoire van tien tracks. Briljante plaat!’ En: ‘Elke fraai uitgesproken zin van Joseph roept beelden op. Heldere dictie, boeiende verhalen uit het dagelijks leven, soms politiek getint, altijd oprecht en vaak met humor.'
'Meelezen met het cd-boekje verrijkt de ervaring aanzienlijk.'
Met Drum Song bijvoorbeeld:
Drum Song
(A.Joseph/A.John/E.Hick)
For Karnali Brathwaite, Derek Walcott and Richie Havens
Sometimes he was so overwhelmed
By the percussive power of his own soul that he hit in the shut-eye song, concentration deep,
in a dark well of hours,
sweat moving on the waters
towards some apex of umbilical light
where he became a mood a vibration the resonance of wood
a man made of earth
a man made of dirt and oil and eyes and hands that spanned
frets and wings of flying things,
densities, in ten cities emerging into cubic spate.
But what is a drum?
A drum is a moon
a drum is a heel
a drum is a heel, a heel, a drum is a heel a drum is a fist, beating
a drum is a beat to bleed in
a drum is the earth
and what is the earth
the sound of a drum
the sound of our souls colliding.
His joy was as hard as time
painful to earn/transcendent in tears and years.
He had come in beads and robes,
he had walked across the desert from the Niger Bend
but then he fell of his stool and lost himself in the song,
hard to mend, the river bend. He had been singing
of the zodiac, he had been strumming his
steel strung drum, he had been ringing the bell of his heart. He was made of earth and wood and stone
and branches and bone and field hollers and moans
and sea shanteys pulling
Reel man holler, reel and pull Reel man holler, reel and pull
He was a man among men
and when he shook your hand you knew
that he had penetrated deep into the mangrove with large hands, the swamplands,
he had gone deep into some wild island jungle.
`Stay with us’, we cried, but he was always here.
`Stay with us’, but we were the ones who were leaving.
And he sat on the old stump of a Cedar tree
rooted in the dark dirt, muted by the blues and sadness of the world.
Sometimes he played sad songs,
But he could make them sound
so beautiful, so beautiful
that even hummingbirds may rest for a while
in the palms of his hands.
He wears black.
He had silver rings on each finger.
And when he sings the clouds would move
With his breath exhale
In the litmus of magic
To the frequency of magic
To the drum like cathedrals falling,
to feet beating the earth to freedom. He lay deep in the groove,
so far back that we forgot he was there
and we went on grinning and grinding
and shucking and jiving
against sweaty walls, in European halls
forgetting that we were drummers, forgetting that we were black,
forgetting that in fact we were naked
that we were deeper than shadows channeling cosmic energy like wire transmits the elliptical
be dense with fury, be dynamic be fierce, be devious, be brazen be wailing in the weeping.
Sometimes he sang so deep that he didn't even know
that he was standing on the bottom of the sea
reaching up, to catch us from falling. What is a drum?
A drum is a drum, a drum is a heel. Duke said a drum is a woman
a drum is the pulse of sex and oil and heat
a drum is the skin
a drum is alive
a drum is to play, but not to beat
or be beaten, the funk between the meat
to sweeten the heat
a drum is a beat, be the drum be the rhythm, be the groove
be the drum
Reel man holler, reel and pull Reel man holler, reel and pull
Geniet ervan vanavond!!!
Zaterdag 12 november, 21.00 uur Grounds, Rotterdam
Erk Willemsen
