Category Archives: newspaper

Asante Sana, Max Roach

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Damn.

Here’s a list of videos from youtube.

Damn.

AUG. 18 UPDATE: I got the following from Kalamu.

YOUNGBLOODS, ELDERS and FRIENDS:
 
 Legendary jazz drummer and political activist-musician Max Roach died yesterday. The funeral will be at Riverside Church in Manhattan on Friday, August 24th with services at 11 AM and viewing Max for the last time at 9 AM.  (Directions below)
 
 WKCR FM 89.9 will be playing Max Roach’s music 24 hours a day until Wednesday, August 22nd at 9 PM.   Youngbloods who haven’t heard his repertoire should take this chance to dig one of the greatest musical geniuses of the twentieth century.  
 
 One of the founders of Bebop in the 1940s Max played with Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Charles Mingus, Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, Clifford Brown, Bud Powell and Coleman Hawkins, among many others. Generally regarded as the greatest jazz drummer of all time, Max was a creative genius who crossed over into many other genres and integrated political activism and his commitment to African-American self determination into music that included classical jazz, bebop, African, Afro-Cuban, avant garde and some music which can only be classified as “Max Roach Music.”
 
 Max traveled to Africa to expand the scope of his music. He played with ensembles from Japan and Cuba as well as with avant-garde artists and hip-hoppers.  In the 1970s and 1980s he organized a ten piece all-percussion ensemble, performed solo drum concerts, worked with a regular jazz quartet, founded a quintet (actually a sextet) featuring only Max and five horns without any chords or bass, and Max worked on innumerable innovative collaborations with other artists and performed with women jazz instrumentalists at a time when women were generally limited to performing as vocalists in the Jazz scene.    
 
 Max  Roach’s commitment to African-American self-determination was always a integral part of his music.  In 1960, before the main thrust of the Black Power movement, Max wrote the music for the incredible “Freedom Now Suite” with lyrics by Ossie Davis and featuring the vocals of Abbey Lincoln.  Max’s militancy got him blacklisted by the major record labels and many of the white-owned clubs in the 1960’s.  However, the white music moguls could still neither his musical genius nor his commitment to Black freedom and self-determination.
 
 With Charles Mingus, Max co-founded Debut Records, one of the first artist-owned labels in music history.  Following his blacklisting Max, Mingus
and other Black musicians including Eric Dolphy, Roy Eldridge, Abbey Lincoln, Tommy Flanagan, Booker Little and Jo Jones recorded the Newport Rebels album and set up the Jazz Artists’ Guild Festival as a protest against the commercialization of the promoters who controlled the Newport Jazz Festival. 
 
Max didn’t just survive the blacklisting, he prevailed.  As long as he lived, there was no force on earth that could still Max’s voice or make him dampen his message to gain commercial acceptance. After the “Freedom Now Suite,” Max Roach continued to dedicate his music to militant opposition to racism in America and oppression of African people on the continent and in the Caribbean. 
 
 Max’s greatest legacy will always be his music.  But inextricably linked to his music will be his commitment to freedom and to his people.  In the end, the people recognized Max’s genius and defeated the attempts of the racists in the recording music industry to marginalize him. Thus, Max’s victory is a lesson and a testament to the power of the people to define our own culture. 
 
 In the spirit of self-definition, let us join the celebration of Max’s music and his life.  Google him. Read about Max, his life and his times.  And listen to the round-the- clock festival featuring Max Roach’s music on WKCR at 89.9 FM from now until Wednesday, August 22nd at 9 PM. 
 
 Max’s funeral will be on Friday, August 24th at Riverside Church in Manhattan.  Viewing will be at 9 AM.  Services at 11 AM. 
 
 Riverside Church is on 122nd Street between Riverside Drive and Claremont Avenue.  There are entrances at Claremont Avenue and on Riverside Drive.  Nearest subway stop is the #1 at 125th Street (at Broadway).  Walk south one block to Tiemann Place, turn right (West) one block to Claremont Avenue, turn left (south) one block to 122nd Street.  You can also take the M4 or the M104 to 122nd Street and Broadway or the M5 to 122nd Street and Riverside Drive. For a map,
see: http://www.tiny.cc/Riverside815 .
 
 Peace,
 Ronald B. McGuire

AUGUST 27th UPDATE: Please listen to/watch today’s “Democracy Now!” to hear excerpts of the funeral and interviews.

Double Standard, Double Play

Posted on by drumsintheglobalvillage

Seven-Five-Six, Bay-bee!!

So howcum a brother can’t dope up, if everyone’s doing it?

MARK. MCGUIRE. The 1990s Great White Hope Of The Browning Game. 🙂 HEL-LO? Remember his doped-up ass, and how he wouldn’t talk about it? 🙂

C’mon, folks. Congratulate the brother. Hank Aaron did.

And admit it: it’s feels better to defend Bonds than Vick, right? LOL!

P.S. Here’s one columnist’s opinion on this issue.

Harry Potter And The Never-Ending Wait :)

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The whole family in front of me had round glasses of some type—some Harryish, some real. 

We were in line, outside, in downtown College Park, Maryland.

For The Book.

Evangelists and snarky, too-cool passerby college students couldn’t spoil our mood. In front of me, mostly 10-year-olds, dressed in black cloaks and black wizard hats I’d see all evening. In back, mostly teens, sans stuff.

Darkness was setting. The Wait Had Begun.

I’m an Old School Geek, so this particular fetish took some time to develop. I mean, I just like the movies. But since this was the last one—the last book, the last Friday/Saturday midnight book release party—I had to go to Vertigo.

One little girl was going to make sure the Vertigo folks kept their word about the 10:15 p.m. opening. She stuck her face up against the window and announced, “Two minutes.”

The doors opened on time. Staffer Jennifer Cook was in full let’s-have-fun-kids mode—y’know, the way she always is with grownups who enter Vertigo. 🙂 Kids in tonight’s standard uniform, circled on the floor. She asked them how many have read all the books more than once. Most, if not all, raised their hands.

While looking at the long line, my eye caught something from my childhood: “Charlotte’s Web.”

(Jen to Kids: “Should we trust Snape?”)

That book spawned a great animated film and a live-action movie. But it never created its own culture. I wondered what it would have been like to have a “Charlotte’s Web” club, where kids would walk around dressed as pigs or spiders carrying signs saying “SOME PIG.”

(Jen to Kids, hosting a kind of Harry Potter version of “Jeopardy”: “The Weasley’s home is called THIS.”)

A palm reader was present, while a magician worked the crowd.

One beautiful young sister, looking about 10, not only had the full hood, but the Gryffindor scarf. You know the one.

Slowly, the line became a polite crowd. At least 100, including a tall guy who had on a trench and a “Mad-Eye” Moody eye.

The Bookstore Master Plan was also in effect: some of the patrons were looking at other books.

(Jen to Kids, announcing a Harry Potter quiz: “If you’re not careful, I’ll break out into a bad British accent.”)

Zero hour. Or, more appropriately, the Witching Hour.

My number was Four. I quickly squeezed my way out the store. Knowing now there would be no more.

A (Seemingly) Very Educated Guess About Book 7: "Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows" [UPDATED WITH COMMENTS ABOUT BOOK 7]

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I thought this is a great article on the topic. I wish I knew enough about Harry Potter to be REALLY impressed.  🙂

6:36 P.M. EST UPDATE WITH *MAJOR* SPOILERS (AND PERHAPS A LINK TO THE BOOK ITSELF): I KNOW you’ve heard about the spoilers. I’ve seen the scans of the pages, but the quality is too poor to read. Now, this separate scanning of what is, apparently, the book’s Epilogue (if/when you go there, scroll down QUICKLY to the bottom if you don’t want to read the site’s listed Book 7 spoilers) has certainly circled the globe this afternoon.

So, don’t read any further if you don’t want to know anything.

Seriously.

Don’t do it.  🙂

It might be wrong anyway, so why risk it?

Okay, here goes………..

🙂

S

*

P

*

O

*

I

*

L

*

E

*

R

*

S

AND NOW, THE ONLY POSSIBLE *SPOILER* I CARE ABOUT

 

So Ron is supposedly killed, but somehow is alive and well (and a father, no less!) in the “Nineteen Years Later” Epilogue? If true (BIG “IF”), that might be the character Rowling last year said got a “reprieve.”  So, according to what I read, the epic’s central trio is safe, and both you-know-whos are married to those other you-know-whos, all with crumb-snatchers galore. An honest-to-gosh happy ending after all for this long fairy tale—if this is true.

Hmmm……long wait until 12:01 a.m. Saturday.  🙂

JULY 23rd UPDATE: I’m one-fourth in, and Ron is safe and sound. (And yes, I did cheat and skim throughout the whole thing to make sure he was fine.) And I’m sure you know now that the “Nineteen Years Later” Epilogue was indeed the real deal. So nobody died that, say, a casual Potterite cares about. I guess it was silly to think that an author worth a billion dollars would be dumb enough to enrage her fans. 😉

JULY 30TH UPDATE: Now half-way done. Really good children’s book.

Saw on “Dateline NBC” last night that the character who Rowling saved was Mr. Weasley. Good. I like him.

Nope, I Can't/Couldn't Wait! LOL! (Before And After Seeing "Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix")

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JUST GOT BACK FROM THE MOVIE, and WOW!!!………

OFF. THE. CHAIN.

Which is kind of funny, because it’s an epic film in which “nothing” happens. “Phoenix” is essentially a war flick, with a little bit of the psychological thriller genre (complete with a couple of very subtle torture scenes!) thrown in. It’s really the beginning of a NEW, tragic HP trilogy. The cute stuff is gone with Cedric and none of it is ever coming back; from now on, leave the kids at home or put them in “Ratatouille” or whatever.   🙂  It’s the Beginning Of The End now, and the End is going to be very scary and bloody.

FROM JULY 10: I really can’t believe how important the Harry Potter film series has become to me over the years. And the reviews, of course, are overwhelmingly positive.

Only two more left………..*SIGH* 😦   It’ll be a hard wait until November 2008.

I haven’t read any of the books yet, but now I’m thinking of getting the last one.

What an amazing contribution to world fantasy! I look forward to other groups of people coming from their own cultural centers and making equal or better text and picture contributions.

Charles Tisdale, A Black Press Warrior, Now An Ancestor

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Asante Sana, Charles Tisdale. May the guardians of the Realm Of The Ancestors greet and salute you.

After posting, I got the following from Kalamu.

Charles Tisdale:
 Newspaper and Community Man
 

by C. Liegh McInnis

Owner, publisher, and editor of The Jackson Advocate, Charles Tisdale has made his transition to the other side. Besides being an excellent newspaper man, Tisdale’s thirty-year legacy is two-fold.  One, he used The Jackson Advocate to provide a voice to African Americans when they were poorly represented in the mainstream media. Two, he provided opportunity for most of the African American journalists in the Jackson Metro area to be published. Although my background is creative writing, my first publication was an article in The Jackson Advocate about the legislative changes in drug rehabilitation programs. Former Mississippi Link editor and journalist Nikki Burns and I used to discuss all the time that at one point most of the African American writers working at The Clarion Ledger got their starts under Tisdale.

Despite his desire to create a competitive paper, Tisdale remained steadfast to the notion that for The Jackson Advocate to be vital it must remain a community paper. For instance, no matter what many of us went on to do, he always treated us like we worked for The Advocate. Once, Tisdale and many of us were at some rally for some cause, and several of us were lingering after the event.  As I was leaving the event, Tisdale, barely acknowledging my presence, stated to me, “Have me an article about this by 5:00 p.m. tomorrow.”  To which my response was, “Yes, sir.” By the way, I missed the deadline, but Tisdale was able to get it in the paper somehow.  In fact, one of my goals as a writer was to rise to the level of Dr Jerry W. Ward and Dr. Ivory Paul Phillips who always have a column reserved in The Advocate.  To me, that is what it meant to be a real writer—to be so accomplished that you can always publish somewhere. Yet without Tisdale, Afro-Mississippi writers would not have this goal because Tisdale made sure that the paper survived bombings,attacks from other media outlets, and a lack of advertising and subscriptions. With pocket change and a prayer, Tisdale kept The Jackson Advocate alive so that the voice of the Afro-Mississippian would remain alive in all of its forms.

A complex man, Tisdale was not afraid of controversy. He called it like he saw it even if he was the only person who saw it that way. In his many editorials, Tisdale not only challenged whites whom he felt were hurting the black community, he had no problem challenging and chastising blacks, especially black elected officials whom he often placed in the Brown Society [Tisdale using his newspaper to expose Blacks to public ridicule]. Once when my father was placed in the Brown Society because he and Tisdale disagreed on a decision that my father made as Executive Director of the Hinds County Democratic Party, my father replied, “Well, at least he told me that I was going to be in the Brown Society over lunch.” For the entire time my father was in the Brown Society, Tisdale continued to publish various articles by me as well as have lunch from time to time with my father.  At his core, Tisdale was about the discourse, the discussion, the verbal/written debate.  He was an idea man who understood the importance of African Americans being able to voice their ideas, be exposed to other ideas, and make sovereign decisions about the types of ideas that governed and framed their lives.  We will miss his fire, his dedication, and his leadership for he made so many of our dreams into reality while making sure that we were represented equally and fairly.

C. Liegh McInnis is an author of seven books and a former publisher/editor of Black Magnolias Literary Journal. He can be contacted at Psychedelic Literature, 203 Lynn Lane, Clinton, MS  39056, (601) 925-1281, psychedeliclit@bellsouth.net.