“Holberg” duet with (L to R): Pam Jones, Llanchie Stevenson, Sheila Rohan, and me
One urban swan woman of Caribbean lineage One transplanted cotton picker from Georgia USA The musical compositions of Nobre, Piccione, Shostakovich, and Grieg
Rythmtron As two of six who objectified divine favor Llanchie, Lydia, Virginia, Walter, Sam and I Exchanged stylistic tendencies With a red-toned solemnity and innovative style That was as ritualistic and dynamic As Marlos Nobre's percussive, pulsing Brazilian beat
Fun and Games As two doomed young lovers She and I wended our way Through the crepuscular light in a park Exchanging nonverbal flattery and frolicking in folksy mode To Piero Piccione’s pastel music Until the dissonance of a hateful mob raped her And hanged me
Fete Noir Picture this: Two nubile debutantes dressed in rhinestone-studded grey tulle Two gallant cadets wearing dark blue jumpsuits An abstract ballroom, chandeliers The sonic beauty of Dmitri Shostakovich’s “Piano Concerto No. 2”—the evocative “Andante” movement Miss Gayle, Mr. Lazar, she and I interwove our bodies In a graciously in a flow of wordless conversation
Holberg Suite Standing in the wings, listening inward\looking outward Edvard Grieg’s melodic “Air (andante religioso)” Moved over junctions between my neural pathways Contracted the fibrous tissue in my muscles, and unseen me/myself/we waxed romantic above the ordinary On entering the stage, I greeted her, Sheila and Pam And, lifting her out of first arabesque Into an overhead position I carried her aloft on wings of youthful purpose The lump of hurt resurfaced But it did not damper my feeling Grieg's soaring music And the vibe of her presence vanquished the past And removed the shield that I usually wore To conceal the palpitations of my Arian heart Llanchie, your Piscean vibration Enabled me to follow my heart You were Grieg’s olden music in human form My ideal of an African American neoclassical ballerina Your darkly bright Caribbean eyes radiant smile, mango complexion, raw silk hair and blue chiffon dress of light coloration Lives continuously in my memory Thank you for being yourself, and Thank you for letting me be myself
On June 15, 2003, the lights dimmed in San Francisco’s Herbst Theater. Seven musicians walked onstage, picked up their instruments and started to play. A “tropical vibe” of South African rhythm, melody and harmony wafted across the room and transported me to another hemisphere. Then Hugh Ramopolo Masekela, the father of South African Jazz/mbaqanga, came onstage and the celebration began. Having listened to and enjoyed his 1968 commercial hit “Grazing in the Grass,” I was looking forward to seeing and hearing him perform live.
“Stimela (coal train)”, the song I enjoyed the most, is a tribute to the men who work underground in Johannesburg and its surrounding metropolis, mining for diamonds. This dramatic composition vividly depicts the workers and their situation. Masekela plays an urgent 4/4 rhythm con moto on the cow bell and the drummer and percussionist join him. Their musiking gradually increases from a whisper to a scream, then segues into a few bars of commentary played by the guitarist, bassist, and a musician on the synthesizer. Thus, the psychological, emotional and spiritual atmosphere of “Stimela” is set. Masekela declaims the names of the various places of origin from which the trains come to Johannesburg. He recites the details of the dangerous and exploitative labor the men perform underground, and the wretched condition of their lives above ground:
There is a train that comes from Namibia and Malawi. There is a train that comes from Zambia and Zimbabwe. There is a train that comes from Angola and Mozambique, from Lesotho, from Botswana, from Zwaziland. From all the hinterlands of Southern and Central Africa. This train carries young and old African men who are conscripted to come and work on contract in the golden mineral mines of Johannesburg, and its surrounding metropolis. Sixteen hours or more a day for almost no pay. Deep, deep, deep down in the belly of the earth, when they are digging and drilling for that shiny mighty evasive stone. Or when they dish that mish mesh mush food into their iron plates with the iron shank. Or when they sit in their stinking, funky, filthy, Flea-ridden barracks…
At the end of his full-toned recitation, Masekela executes a vocal imitation of the train’s forward movement over the steel tracks. He punctuates this passage with a perfectly pitched reproduction of the train’s shrill whistle. He imitates the whistle once more, and the driving 4/4 beat that begins the song recapitulates more forcefully and louder, and it reaches a crescendo. The saxophonist wails wistfully and mournfully on his instrument, which lament is shot through with self-awareness, indignity, and determination. A cow bell obbligato evokes the miners rallying to protest against their situation. This statement segues into a recapitulation of the driving 4/4 beat that is heard at the beginning of the song, and the crescendo is followed this time by an authoritative trumpet statement from Masekela that is rife with bold, impassioned horn flourishes. The reflective and rational tonal quality of his statement evokes the weight that burdens the miners’ physically, emotionally, and spiritually; and it comes across as the advice that an older veteran worker gives to his younger fellow workers. Thus, the imminent protest is quelled. Then, Masekela and three of the band members sing of resolution, determination, and hope in one of the several languages spoken by black South Africans.
Hugh Ramopolo Masekela was/is a gifted musical artist; a venerable eulipion. Listening to him and the band perform “Stimela”, I was there on the train with the miners. I felt the powerful vibration of its swift, forward motion in my own body, and the collective mood of the miners in my heart and mind. Their discontent resonated with my dissatisfaction with the current racial, economic, and political situation here in the United States of America.
Masekela was/is a conscientious artist who takes it upon himself to ensure the remembrance of certain things that they not be forgotten. The seventy-four-year-old musician was variously South Africa’s elder jazz statesman, a child of Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, and a perceptive commentator on the expressive style of today’s Hip Hop celebrants. He alternately played the trumpet and cow bell and danced and sang with a vigor that belied his seniority. For me, the nimbly executed steps were a small album of kinetic snapshots: glimpses of his youthful Arian personality; the feeling that apparently fostered desire in him to become a musician; glimpses of what he has experienced down the decades of his years; what he has done with his life and who he has done.
Early in the evening, before intermission, he told us the concert commemorated ten years of a free South Africa. He thanked us for our support and effort toward the abolishment of apartheid, and then he invited us to stand up and shake our backsides. Many in the audience did just that. As a dancer/teacher/choreographer, I could not help but notice how they shook their booties not inside the rhythmic “tropical vibe”, which Masekela told us he and the band were offering, but outside of it. I, myself, did not stand up and shake my booty, because it did not need shaking. I was there in the Herbst Theater to witness a favorite elder perform his musical stories live and receive the spiritual nourishment therefrom. The audience’s outside-the-music dancing aside, it was a memorable concert.
Everywhere I go, the same ugliness the kind old folks saw back in the day and said to each other from shared experience “The Son of God better not come this way”
Programmed females and docile males walking in lockstep, duty-bound misinformed of life beyond their noses blissfully unaware of the law of karma
Dreams of global grandeur on their faces chauvinism in their imperial poses such a tired display of tinsel gaiety these pretenses, that sound, those giggles
What air of presumption in their behavior neither a glint of generosity nor love in their eyes only denial, suspicion, and cold calculation even though the wind done gone
Douglas is a city in Coffee County, Georgia, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 11,589. Douglas is the county seat of Coffee County. Coffee County was created by an act of the Georgia General Assembly on February 9, 1854, from portions of Clinch, Irwin, Telfair, and Ware counties. These lands were originally ceded by the Creek in the Treaty of Fort Jackson in (1814) and the Treaty of the Creek Agency (1818) and apportioned to the above counties before becoming Coffee County. Douglas is located 77 miles E of Albany, Georgia and 107 miles NW of Jacksonville, Florida. It was chartered as a town in 1895 and as a city in 1897. The Georgia and Florida Railroad located its offices and shops in Douglas in 1909. During the 1920s and 1930s Douglas became one of the major tobacco markets in the state. Douglas was named after Senator Stephen A. Douglas, the challenger to Abraham Lincoln in the 1860 presidential election. Coffee County is named for General John E. Coffee, a state legislator and a U. S. representative. The ethnic composition of the population of Douglas, GA is composed of 6,144 Black residents (52.3%), 4,349 White residents (37%), 1,022 Hispanic residents (8.7%), 115 Two+ residents (0.98%), and 65 Other residents (0.55%).
Famous individuals who lived in Douglas: James Brown, singer, lived here for a short time while working at a local saw mill. He was a native of Toccoa, Georgia. Matt Childers, Major League Baseball player for the Milwaukee Brewers and Atlanta Braves G. Wayne Clough, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution and former president of Georgia Institute of Technology (1994–2008), spent his early years in Douglas. His father served as mayor. Greg Holland, country singer Lance Price, Famous Historian specializing in Coffee County and Douglas. Cousin to Carey Price of the Montreal Canadiens. Country music extraordinaire, new LP titled Sweet Georgia Peach released in August 2018. Lead singer in the Trojan’s glee club. Justin Lewis, co-founder and CTO of NationalField, a private, enterprise-based social network used by the 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns of Barack Obama Jennifer Nettles, one-half of the country music duo Sugarland, is a native of Douglas. Joel Parrish, football player Maureen Tucker, drummer and occasional singer of 1960s and 1970s rock group The Velvet Underground, lives in Douglas. Greg Walker, former first baseman and hitting coach for the 2005 World Champion Chicago White Sox, is a native of Douglas. He was the hitting coach for the Atlanta Braves 2012–2014. Tyreek Hill, an American football player for the Kansas City Chiefs of the National Football League (NFL). Wyatt Miller, an American football player for the Cincinnati Bengals of the National Football League (NFL).
FAMOUS GEORGIANS
Conrad Aiken poet, Savannah James Bowie soldier, Burke County Jim Brown actor, athlete, St. Simons Island Erskine Caldwell writer, Moreland James E. Carter U.S. president, Plains Ray Charles singer, Albany Lucius D. Clay banker, general, Marietta Ty Cobb baseball player, Narrows Charles Coburn movie and TV actor, Macon Ossie Davis actor, writer, Cogdell James Dickey poet, Atlanta Mattiwilda Dobbs soprano, Atlanta Melvyn Douglas actor, Macon Pete Drake musician/record producer, Augusta Rebecca Latimer Felton first appointed woman U.S. senator, Decatur Lawrence Fishburne III actor, Augusta Henry W. Grady journalist, Athens Amy Grant singer, Augusta Oliver Hardy comedian, Harlem Joel Chandler Harris journalist, author, Eatonton Roland Hayes singer, Curyville Fletcher Henderson musician/songwriter, Cuthbert Hulk Hogan professional wrestler, Augusta John Henry Doc Holliday western hero, Griffin Larry Holmes boxer, Cuthert Miriam Hopkins actress, Bainbridge Harry James trumpeter, Albany Jasper Johns painter, sculptor, Augusta Bobby Jones golfer, Atlanta Stacy Keach actor, Savannah DeForest Kelley actor, Atlanta Martin Luther King, Jr. civil rights leader, Atlanta Gladys Knight singer, Atlanta Joseph R. Lamar jurist, Elbert Brenda Lee singer, Lithonia Juliette Gordon Low U.S. Girl Scouts founder, Savannah Carson McCullers author, Columbus Blind Willie McTell blues pioneer, Thomson Johnny Mercer songwriter, Savannah Margaret Mitchell author, Atlanta John Robert Johnny Mize baseball player, Demorest Jessye Norman singer, Augusta Otis Redding singer, Dawson Jerry Reed singer/songwriter/actor, Atlanta Burt Reynolds actor, Waycross Little Richard singer, Macon Jackie Robinson baseball player, Cairo Tommy Roe singer/songwriter, Alpharetta Billy Joe Royal singer, Valdosta Dean Rusk secretary of state, Cherokee Cty Nipsey Russell comedian, Atlanta Ray Stevens singer/songwriter, Clarksdale Janelle Taylor romance novelist, Athens Clarence Thomas supreme court associate justice, Savannah Travis Tritt singer/songwriter, Marietta Alice Walker author, Eatonton Joanne Woodward actress, Thomasville Trisha Yearwood singer, Monticello
Ferrying a restless current thinking “Was what it was, is what it is” she recalls the spring of her years when, in 1970, heads turned all over Manhattan every time she made her way on Lenox Avenue, Fifth Avenue and in the West Village
Gone are the days when she greeted the sons and daughters of students she once taught the ballet lessons with Maestro Odukudovsky infusing Martha Graham’s technique with Mother Africa's vibe having her say on David Susskind's Show and rebuffing the flattery of brothers whose off-key words lacked proper tonality
These moments stream across the screen of her memory and sympathetic understanding brings this insight: "The most painful tears are not those that flow from the eyes and cover the face but the ones that fall from the heart and cover the soul"
She contemplates her fallings and risings along the way and tells herself the given descriptions of her Cancerian personality were only a combination of zodiacal fours, fives, and thirteens neither the experience of her legendary career nor the autobiography of her regal days
When you leave Leland House and follow your heart south to Florida the soil of your birth I wish you high joy on seeing flesh of your flesh
You sang in the Chocolate Factory that Sunday afternoon, May 1998 it was an experience I shall not soon forget
Your clear, soaring tones were as satisfying as cool well water on a summer's day evocative of lone windmill palms swaying in praise of soft breezes and ocean waves
I wish that the Floridian sun shines on you 365/12 that each morning be dedicated to keeping faith with Great Mother Spirit that the subtropical environment stimulates songs of witness, sincerity and truth in your heart so the home folks may hear, as I did the beauty of your voice
(Peggy Campbell is Native American. She was a resident at Leland House while I was employed there, and a member of ACT UP; an international grassroots political group working to end the AIDS pandemic during the ninth decade of the Twentieth Century.)
Writings And Other Manifestations of My Mind 