De Drum Song van Anthony Joseph Erk Willemsen - zaterdag 12 november, 2016

anthony1

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 

anthony3

 


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