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Ray Charles redux

I saw the biopic Ray a month or so ago, on opening night actually, mostly because I absolutely love Jamie Foxx (he spells his name with two X's; how cool is that?), but also because good biopics about people of color are so rare. I've read that the conventional wisdom in Hollywood is that they do not make much money--I was shocked to learn that Ali didn't make a lot of money for the studio. Nonetheless, these stories need to be told and shared and I wanted to learn more about this man, Ray Charles, who has been hailed as one of the musical geniuses of the 20th century by many.

The movie was pretty good; Ray's story is the classic American dream story, with the added richness of African-American history that makes it even more moving. But what I've come away from it with was a somewhat superficial understanding of Ray Charles as a musician, and how his music was able to help synthesize varied and seemingly disparate veins of Black music in the U.S. into the ubiquitous genres we now call R&B and Soul.

There's one great scene in the film that encapsulates this theme perfectly: Ray is playing in a Black nightclub for a bunch of dancers, his rollicking jazzy bluesy rough stuff that was the norm in that day (this was the 1950s mind you). And then he busts into a new song, based on gospel music, with lyrics like "I've gotta woman / way over town / that's good to me. / She gives me money / when I'm in need / Yeah she's a kind of / friend in deed."
And a couple in the crowd start yelling up at him, "That's the Lord's music! You can't sing Gospel like that!" They are visibly angry, and there is a tense moment in the scene where you think the conflict might come to blows. One of Ray's musicians even leaves the stage because he agrees that Ray is defiling what has until now been a spiritual (not secular) musical form.

And then Ray, in his characteristically smooth way, asks the crowd something like, "If you all want me to keep playing, say 'Amen!'" And of course the crowd yells 'Amen!' in unison, and the couple leaves the club in a huff as the dancers continue to get down.

That integration of gospel with 'torch' songs--about love, sex, desire and other 'vices'--was one of Ray's big contributions to the music world. It resulted in what we now call Soul music.

I bought the 'Ray' movie soundtrack to give myself a more thorough introduction to his music, and I can hear the dissonant yet somehow harmonious blending of blues with jazz with a more insistent rhythm section in some of the songs, such as 'Night and Day' and 'Unchain My Heart'. It's like listening to history in the making.

The Mars Volta: Deloused in the Comatorium

I bought this CD based on a review in the Los Angeles Times—usually not a good idea, but one that paid off this time. I've been listening to it again lately because Susana and I saw them live at a music festival a couple of weeks ago and they ROCKED.

Their music is old style rock, definitely influenced by 70's bands like Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, and Rush, but they don't make music that sounds like they are just imitating their music heroes. I usually don't like rock music that takes itself too seriously, but this album does, and it pulls it off. Here's their own description of the album which was inspired by the death of a close friend:
"Based on a story written by Cedric, it is a concept album in which the hero tries to commit suicide by overdosing on morphine. Instead of dying, he falls into a coma for a week, and experiences fantastic adventures in his dreams, elemental battles between the good and bad aspects of his conscience. At the end, he emerges from the coma, but chooses to die."

They played the "PersonalFest" here in Buenos Aires and really stole the show. (By the way, for 80's music fans, other acts included The Pet Shop Boys, Morissey, and Blondie.) The core of the band are two long-time friends. Lead guitar Omar Rodriguez-Lopez looks like the scrawny, kind of weird guy who got bullied a lot in high school and retreated to his garage to find solace in perfecting guitar solos ... and now—glorious revenge on all those high school jocks who picked on him!—he's a fuckin' guitar god. Seriously, without going into long, self-indulgent guitar solos, this guy plays some great guitar.

Lead singer Cedric Bixler Zavala's voice fits well with the first album's otherworldly battle of good vs. evil themes. His singing is variously screeching and haunting.

Oh yeah, it was also cool that the drummer was wearing a "Fuck Bush" t-shirt during the show.

I think that their CD is one of those things that you have to be in the right mood to listen to, but it really hits the spot when you are in that mood. If you have iTunes, you can check out their music here.

Did you know?

Did anyone else know that Alicia Keys' hit song, "How Come You Don't Call Me," is an old Prince song, "How Come U Don't Call Me Anymore?"? (Another link to iTunes.) It's just Prince singing solo and playing piano. Very cool stuff, even though I like Alicia Keys' version too. Listening to samples of old Prince on iTunes makes me want to go to Amoeba and buy all of his early albums. There's some great music that I've never heard or just forgot about.

Pump Up the Jam

Couldn't help myself, the blog title made me do it. Cool! I'm so excited about this blog and can't wait to read everyone's stuff--and write, too, of course!--my first contribution to this blog is recommendation to buy/download/check out Saul Williams' newest CD (called 'Saul Williams'--how original). There's a deep song on there about how hip-hop has been jacked by white boys from the suburbs and another one about Black liberation. The music is not your standard KMEL hip-hop, it is full of driving punk rock guitar riffs, vocal distortion and even some electronic violin. I've heard that some hardcore hip-hop heads don't dig some of Saul's music, but I think it's quite refreshing, like stepping out into the Frisco sunshine expecting warmth to hit your skin, but being assaulted by a brisk, chilly breeze instead. Unexpected, a little uncomfortable, but still feels good.

What is this?

First off, this is a "team blog," which means that only those of us who are "members" of the blog can post to it or post comments to it. Others can read the blog, but they can't post or comment.

I first thought of doing this because I always discover the best music, bands, and musicians from talking to my friends, or browsing through their music collections. But, I don't get to have those conversations often enough. This blog is a way of intentionally making that conversation happen.

We should all participate in defining what this blog is, but I'm thinking that for me this will be a space to share with fellow music fanatics when I have one of those moments. You know what I'm talking about, one of those moments when you hear a new song—or an old song that you haven't listened to in forever—and you are just grooving on how great the song is and how beautiful music can be sometimes. Well, if you don't have someone nearby to share it with (or even if you do), share it here with us, your other music appreciating friends....

The first "rule" that I can think of is that we keep this blog focused on music. If we want to comment on anything else we should send an email or use some other communication outside of this blog.

The second is that I think we should try to use the comments to reply to someone's post, instead of creating a new post to reply.

I look forward to hearing about good music (as soon as we add more members to this blog...).

Mike