Y (whirl@slack.net)
Mon, 8 Feb 1999 12:51:33 -0500 (EST)
That Bristol (?) trip hop-wutever group LAMB
( of the single wunderhit, Cotton Wool, checkout Fila Brazilia's remix v.
)
has a song that will tape endlessly loop in my mind today:
"If I should die this very moment ... I shouldn't care ... ( something
something )
for I've never felt completeness like being here ... wanna stay right
here ..."
Today's theme song after being totally entranced by the performance last
nite
of *The* Legendary PHAROAH SANDERS & ALANKAR, aka
ALEX BLAKE bass
WILLIAM HENDERSON piano
BADAL ROY tabla
ADAM RUDOLPH percussion
with HASSAN HAKMOUN sintir
presented by The World Music Institute and Thomas Buckner
on Sunday, February 7th 1999 at Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center, NYC.
Tix compliments of the Haubenator ( with a knee bandage, albeit a
Hobbitator for now )
with future repayment due and down payment of the Portable Beat handbook,
Modulations soundtrax and The Perfect Beats v.2.
The evening opened with a trailer at the public space near 68th Street
the Ollie's stand amid a grove of plastic orange good luck trees,
where a Cantonese erhu player and a woman on pipa hold evening
residencies.
Inside Alice Tully Hall, after breezing past the congregated smokeheads at
the door,
the crowd converged upon The World Music Institute tables for literature.
The audience was both ethnically and subbaculturally diverse.
I spotted more than a few Rasta boys, hipster wastoids, white dandy kids
with dreds,
one Giant Step sweatshirt, and beautiful Erykah Badhu-like nubians.
The concert stage was set for a Pantheonic display of Titans.
Framed by the long shards of silver organ pipes of chords above,
silvery sheens like schools of fish, opalescent and shimmery,
bronchial tubes dripping like cosmic icicles above heads.
As the immortals proceeded onto the stage,
the PHAROAH overfilled the stage with his presence.
He sat center-stage on a simple straight-back chair
in a very *purple* Punjabi suit, imperial and regal,
complete with a violet Fez cap atop.
The rest of the band members were scattered around each instrument.
First, they settled into an insinuating Middle Eastern riddim,
the PHAROAH bleated on a skinny brass reed
interweaving Moroccan notes into the jam.
I half-expected a stoned snake to slowly ascend
with half-dulled eyes, spitting a split tongue
from the straw-woven basket at his feet.
ALEX BLAKE was quite a sight to see.
He minimized the kickstand of his bass
to stand at par with chest, cellist-style.
Straddling his instrument, he banged the strings
in alternating fits of excitement, accenting it with little yelps of
"Yah!"
His legs thrashed wildly on each side
like the body of a recently beheaded cicada.
A pool of dusky blue spotlight gathered on him.
BADAL ROY was an early tabla player in jazz fusion.
He introduced the tabla into the j-world as a member of
the Miles Davis band in the early 1970s.
Reminded me much of the nephew of Nusrat Ali Fahed (sp?)
that I saw throating out ragga scales at Central Park Summerstage.
BADAL was arranged on an intricate Persian lap rug
with six odd tabla drums surrounding.
He bleated every once in a while like a Budweiser frog,
giving off powerful ribbits in counter-beat to his drum riffs.
ADAM RUDOLPH was a dead ringer for Chuck Norris ( heh heh ).
He skulked in back of the stage with racks of xylophones and exotic
wind-blown reeds.
Before the intermission, he joined BADAL crouched on the floor
to bang on this black urn-like African drum.
Very curious, made of ceramic with asymmetrical holes on each side.
( A woman on stage told me later the name, I forget ... anyone ? )
HASSAN HAKMOUN was a dead ringer for Mumia Abu-Jamal (ok, morbid ... sorry
).
Me silly idiot thought they spelled "sintir" wrong, ha ha,
interesting banjo shape guitar made of unpolished wood.
HASSAN was a beautiful long-haired boy in African garb
with musical mountain bear balls wrapped around each ankle.
He's a Gnawa musician from Morocco who studied with master musicians,
including Brahim el-Belkani and Amida Boussou,
and worked as an entertainer on Jamaa el-Fna
and as a m'allem (lead musician) in the derdeba purification and trance
ceremonies.
WILLIAM HENDERSON was the bald pianist in kente-cloth skullcap.
Master of a dazzling array of instruments including the clarinet,
soprano sax, vibraharp, trap drums, electric bass, and classical guitar;
he won me over with his wavery stringing of the Chinese erhu,
the classical two-stringed violin often spotted in NYC subways.
A full yellow dayglow spotted the PHAROAH
who sat for the most part, calmly still,
with hands on knees, shoulders squared, back straight.
Occasionally breaking into a slight foot tap or knee bobble.
( I heard it whispered later outside apres concert
that the P-man was a well-known tippler. )
During the second movement, the PHAROAH raised his sax
and let loose with an awesome ripple like a mean fart.
The rest of the band was dying down with a world-y twitter,
PHAROAH blew as if the Spirit has possessed him.
At random, spontaneously, moved by *the* Ghost
( Om mani padme hum ... Church of Saint Coltrane ).
The result was overpowering of the other immortals on stage.
They seemed like mere accessories next to the Legend.
The band hushed into a worldscape of sounds
as PHAROAH loosened a hot molten blast of pure vibe,
deeply soulful screams, steady and clear
like the climax of violent words in the silent lag
between the translation of words in a foreign film.
The powerful wave in a still pool of rippling water.
Most awesome.
The PHAROAH continued blaring in the second act
always posturing with little black sunglass frames
like an African Hong Kong gangstarr, John Lone,
a dark Nehru Brahmin god.
Between the intermission, PHAROAH stood up
with a large copper bowl and gonged it on the side
with a huge white Q-tip, cotton swab on a mega-stick.
He held the reverberating bowl to the mic
and the crowd was drowned under the mesmer's spell,
the sound of soothing sound vibrations.
Chuck Norris held a long digeridoo in the second act
as if he was launching a tranquilizing shot
to PHAROAH's bowl-obsessed head.
The hum had an unearthly otherworld quality
and filled the space with a knowing as if
an UFO had quietly landed amidst us,
like the quiet whirring of a turntable directly driven.
PHAROAH crowd-pleased the kids with entertaining quirks.
He screamed into the wrong end of the sax
and, during the first of two encores,
stood up like primitive ape man
to beat upon his chest and Tarzan ape yowl.
All in all, a beautiful evening spent in the presence of mythical stuff.
PHAROAH like an invited buddha in a gathered tribe of high-spirited
deities,
stately poised in extreme serenity amid the manic festivus.
In fact, had it not been for the fact that both mine and Haubenator/
Hobbitator umbrellies
were stolen within five minutes of leaving the concert hall,
it would have been quite the perfect aftermath of the weekend
spent atop the granite of Lincoln Center, Mount Olympus,
on the west side of the city island.
For more info on World Music Institute programs,
call 212/545-7536 or email: call 212/545-7536 or email: WMI@HearTheWorld.Org.
=
A naked lunch is natural to us,
we eat reality sandwiches.
But allegories are so much lettuce.
Don't hide the madness.
( Allen Ginsberg, 1954 )
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