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Kola
Moderator
Username: Kola
Post Number: 895
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, May 16, 2005 - 07:04 pm: | 
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Tell us what you're reading....
If possible, let us know what's good for the summer beach months.
_____
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Mahoganyanais
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Mahoganyanais
Post Number: 442
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, May 16, 2005 - 10:30 pm: |
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I'm still reading Flesh and the Devil by Kola Boof ;-) and I just started Frida Kahlo: Brush of Anguish. I always read more than one book at a time.
From another thread: Kola, I hope your son is feeling better. |
Anonymous
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 17, 2005 - 12:23 am: |
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Just finished "Jelly's Blues: The Life, Music, and Redemption of Jelly Roll Morton" (2003) by Howard Reich and William Gaines. Considered the definitive bio because it dispells some of the myths that have been perpetuated about the early jazz genius. He's considered the first jazz composer. He was a Creole born in New Orleans in 1885 and was already a famous musician when Louis Armstrong was still a child. He was inspired by the French opera and disowned by his family when he became a whorehouse piano player in the French Quarter (jazz music comes from some very humble beginnings).
He was one of the star performers on the early Chicago jazz scene at a time when music publishing was an unregulated industry. Consequently, he was ripped off by an agreement with an unscrupulous publisher even as his songs -- King Porter Stomp, Wolverine Blues, etc. -- were being played and recorded by nearly every jazz band in the country. This was compounded by ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers), an organization set up to collect broadcast and performance royalties and distribute the proceeds among its members. This was at a time when no one could have forseen how radio would pervade America. ASCAP was crooked too because it collected flat fees from radio stations and theaters and then just distributed the profits among its members as it saw fit. I think the authors say that Harry Burleigh and James Weldon Johnson were the only black members of ASCAP at the time, so even though his songs were all over the radio -- performed by Fletcher Henderson, Benny Goodman, and many others, including himself -- he was not getting any money at all.
With the popularity of newer styles his star eventually began to wane. He made important recordings and wrote new music right up until the end but sadly, he became kind of a laughingstock to a lot of people. Anyway, with very limited funds, he decided to take on the publishers and ASCAP, writing letters to politicians, the Justice Dept., and everyone he could think of. He received a reply from Thurgood Marshall, then an assistant at the Dept. of Justice, but he never benefited because it took the government decades to straighten out ASCAP.
Sad ending. In bad health, he drove cross country to California to help his godfather after his godmother had passed. Along the way he hooked up with a former lover, a Creole woman, now married, who he had known in New Orleans. Even she took advantage of him, writing a phony will which left everything to her and her descendants, not his wife, who didn't have the money to contest the will. The royalties (his music has been used in three Hollywood movies) are still going to the descendants of the crooked publisher and the woman.
Alan Lomax interviewed the publisher, Walter Melrose, for the Library of Congress and wrote that he was appalled by the man's lies. Lomax also interviewed Morton over a period of two months, but unfortunately, codified many of the myths associated with Morton's name. It's almost inconceivable, but Lomax never paid Morton for the interviews and published a book after his death, Mister Jelly Roll, without sharing any of the proceeds with the composer's estate. I know that Lomax has made some important contributions in the area of folklore, but this is unexcusable.
I know this sounds like a hard luck tale, but he was a genius of jazz music and his music survives via recordings. The book is based on 1,000 pages of documents found in the French Quarter apartment of a collector named William Russell who died in 1992. They include: official documents on microfilm which Russell saved from destruction, 200 letters between Morton and Roy Carew, his late-in-life friend and business partner, and Morton's groundbreaking last compositions which Russell pulled out of the trash at Morton's last address. |
Kola
Moderator
Username: Kola
Post Number: 902
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 17, 2005 - 02:12 am: |
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Hey Mahogany,
Thanks.
He IS feeling better, but won't be able to get out of bed until around tomorrow late afternoon.
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Libralind2
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Libralind2
Post Number: 83
Registered: 09-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 17, 2005 - 01:33 pm: |
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I just finished "The Black Rose" Tananarive Due a story about Madama CJ Walker. Im about to start "For Love And Grace" Kendra Norman-Bellamy.
Couple of books I recommend:
Three Perfect Men Evelyn Palfrey
daughter asha bandele (I cried for 2-3 chapters..whew)
A Woman's Worth Tracy Price-Thompson
The Blackbird Papers Ian Smith
Sula Toni Morrison
Any book written by Dee Savoy (romance with a great story)
LiLi |
Kola
Moderator
Username: Kola
Post Number: 909
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 17, 2005 - 01:35 pm: |
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Yes, all.
Please pick up "A Woman's Worth" by my good friend Tracy Price Thompson.
She's NOMINATED for the Hurston-Wright Literary award this year for that book!!
And she's the sweetest, dearest sister you'd want to know. I love her.
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Kola
Moderator
Username: Kola
Post Number: 911
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 17, 2005 - 01:37 pm: |
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"STEVE"
we know that's you with the Jazz book.
LOL
But I will have to check that out.
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Mahoganyanais
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Mahoganyanais
Post Number: 443
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 17, 2005 - 01:46 pm: |
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Kola, you know you ain't RIGHT, outting Brother Steve_s like that!
I started to, as soon as I read that post, but I thought, "Naaah..."
Nice try, Steve! And great post, as usual! |
Kola
Moderator
Username: Kola
Post Number: 913
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 17, 2005 - 02:06 pm: |
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I love Steve.
I always admire his posts, even when we disagree. He's a smart man and he's very nice.
I'm delighted he posted on my board.
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Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 2783
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 17, 2005 - 02:12 pm: |
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I've been lumbering through the Jack Johnson bio "Unforgivable Blackness". The only reason I'm bothering to complete it is that someone gave it to me for Christmas, thus I feel compelled to offer her the courtesy of giving her my opinion of it.
Otherwise, I'd toss it.
Steve,
Stories about how musicians are screwed by music producers, radio, associations are boring.
Because anyone who knows anything about the music business knows with the RAREST of exceptions, ALL singers/musicians get boned by the business people. That's as predictable and frequent as ice in Antartica.
What I'd find more interesting about Morton would be what/who inspired his musical development, what he wrote/produced/performed and their effect on contemporary music and whom amongst those he mentored we might be familiar with.
If THOSE points are adequately covered, I read "Jelly's Blues"...not for the ubiquitous somebody-done-me-wrong lament all artist eventually sing. |
Yvettep
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 321
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 18, 2005 - 11:08 am: |
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I'm about to go on a trip to a conference in Michigan. I've got the latest Essence, "Therapy" by Jonathan Kellerman, and on my iPod I've got "Charlie WIlson's War," which I am halfway through, and "Graceland," which I just started.
(I think I may have over done it, as far as reading/listening material goes...It's just a couple states over, not a transatlantic flight...) |
Kola
Moderator
Username: Kola
Post Number: 926
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 18, 2005 - 02:00 pm: |
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Yvette,
I LOVE how "Graceland" starts.
It's like a personal tribute to me.
AWE.
The Kola Nut. Kola is our superstar, he writes. When you bring the people Kola--you bring the people life.
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Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 2815
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 18, 2005 - 03:35 pm: |
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Kola: "I LOVE how "Graceland" starts...It's like a personal tribute to me.
ABM: Of course it is, Kola. EVERYTHANG is a tribute to you. Even those farts I cut late at nite after I've had too much chili and beer are ALL in honor of YOU. |
Kola
Moderator
Username: Kola
Post Number: 936
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 18, 2005 - 04:00 pm: |
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ABM,
you MEANT to say
"those farts that me wifey's bottom cuts when I'm tagg'n it"
farts FORCED by the fuel-injected horse power getty-up BANG'n that come courtesy of your thoughts about KOLA
______
a-ha
You got the pussy farts over Miss Kola.
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Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 2820
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 18, 2005 - 04:25 pm: |
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Kola,
Okay now. Help me out.
Is this my fantasy...or is it YOURS? |
Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 2821
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 18, 2005 - 04:28 pm: |
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Kola,
And don't underestimate yourself. I'm sure that you can p-fart with the best of'em. |
Kola
Moderator
Username: Kola
Post Number: 942
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 18, 2005 - 04:43 pm: |
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Well NO WOMAN can "pussy-fart".....unless the right PIPE is forcing her to make such embarrassing sounds.
And you black men are good for inducing the pussy-farts.
There's even a white woman who confides to a black woman in my new book: "I never had this happen until I got fucked by a black man! Just...fart,fart,fart with each stroke."
___________
And of course,
We'd better not pursue whose fantasy is who's.
I warned you not to pull my berries this morning, Mr. Blue Bird.
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Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 2825
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 18, 2005 - 05:09 pm: |
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Kola,
You know what really COOL: After a brothah stops laying pipe and as 'the woman' tries to relax her body a veritable symphony of p-fart sounds are released over the course of about +5 seconds.
And the 'the woman' nervously giggles and you can barely manage to restrain the laughter.
Man! At that moment, I Brothah know there MUST be a GOD. |
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