--In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <no_re...@yahoogroups.com> wrote : "Selling your musical taste as more than that isn't gunna get any traction from my fans here." So, you have fans here now ? We know this place is populated by some pretty weird souls but who would have guessed they are your fans !
M: Here in the world where people book my show which was the original context before you clipped it out to do your internet troll thing. I've been indulgent of your reaching out and being shitty to a stranger on the internet because it has given me a chance to reflect on my career. You are showing up as you and I am showing up as me here. Last night at my show I put percussion instruments into people's hands,many of whom had never played instruments, and certainly never at a public show. I set up a rhythm for them from Cameroon, straight 8s, sort of fast like they do in the villages there. Some people played claves, (African and Cuban), one played an amazing instrument from the Gnowa people called a krakeb which are huge metal castanets meant to symbolize how these people were brought as slaves from other parts of Africa to Morocco in slave's chains. Some played traditional bones which they were trying to figure out as they played,clicking to the simple accessible rhythm. One played the Agogo metal bell from a place in Africa where such a simple instrument can choreograph the movements of hundreds of people at a time, cutting through even the drums in syncopated messages for their feet and hips. I played a number of instruments over this community of rhythm.One was a Mvet from Cameroon, a 4 stringed lute favored by pigmies as well as the story-teller shamans in Guinea, a beautiful odd instrument amplified by large gourds on a 4 foot stick of bamboo. I played an African gourd banjo in the style of one of the last traditional black banjo players in Virgina and sang his song Roustabout. For a moment, in that urban wine bar, the barriers between audience and performer fell away as they always do in all traditional African performances. People who felt they had no rhythm or musical talent discovered that they had just had a string of shitty music teacher who had put up a wall between them and their human birthright. Strangers who would not give each other eye contact on the Metro were checking with each other without words, to make sure they were rhythmically in synch. Picking up a Brazilian berimbau, one of our planets most primitive but compelling instruments, derived from hunting bows played around the campfire of hunters and gatherers in our distant past, I sang the song I felt fit best, John Lee Hooker's "I'm in the Mood." When the audience left last night some people came up and hugged me. I could see in their eyes that this was as a special night for them as it was for me. They had experienced their musical selves, without judgement, and it made them feel wonderful. So please continue, Nabbie, what was it you wanted to say.
