Jah lives! In far north Queensland …

MaameJ in her own design (tussah silk), 1985. Got that, it was the 80s!

Or he did when I was there in 1985. As I mentioned in a previous post, I was adventuring around Australia that year when I re-discovered African music while waitressing at Fitzroy Island. I lived in the Cairns area – mostly in tourist village Kuranda - for 8 months. I waitressed, bummed around, learned yoga, swam at the Barron River Gorge, tried to sell some weird clothes I’d designed at the Kuranda market, got involved with the campaigns of the local feminist group, travelled to Cape York in a Holden Kingswood. Ah yes, the 80s …

Actually the Kingswood didn’t get us right to the top, it conked out in Weipa and we flew back to Cairns. Another story.

So how did Jah fit into all this? Well FNQ attracted interesting kinds of people in those days. Probably still does, if you exclude the trillions of ravaging tourists from your assessment of the population. So it kind of makes sense that it was in Kuranda that I met the person who introduced me to more African music.

Ibina was a white rastafarian whose parents were building her a house on a rainforest block in Kuranda. I camped in her backyard on my days off from the island, with our mutual friend Breatharian. (I call her that because she was aspiring to live solely on air. Hmm. I think that ambition was stymied by her closet chocolate bar addiction). 

Ibina was a retired dancer who had lived in Jamaica and danced in the US before coming back to Oz with her half-Jamaican son, JahLion. (Omigod, he must be nearly 40 by now!!) Ibina had dreds she could almost sit on and started each day with a fat spliff. She’d changed her anglo name to reflect Rasta beliefs and cooked a yummy vegetarian ital stew with sweet potatos and pigeon peas from a tree in her backyard. Here’s another recipe for it. So yes, Jah lived in far north Queensland.

Ibina inspired both Breatharian and I to learn dance. She was classically trained but her passion was Afro-style contemporary. She choreographed a special piece for the three of us to perform at the Kuranda festival that September. We practised on the spacious verandah of her half-finished house – surrounded on 3 sides by thick foliage. We danced to a Peter Tosh song: Rastafari Is.

Ibina on the left, Breatharian on the right, I'm the skinny one in the middle who's lost her balance.

Wow, almost brings tears to my eyes hearing it again. I can remember the first bit by heart. I can even remember the first few steps. The first bit was choreographed and when it moves into a long instrumental, we got to improvise for a while. It’s a long piece of music and about half way through Tosh stops singing and starts preaching, so Ibina very wisely only used about the first five minutes, then Peter Tosh faded out and Thomas Mapfumo faded in.

Thomas Mapfumo is another of those “master” African musicians – in this case a master of the mbira, or thumb piano. He’s not one of my favourites but this is a lovely piece of music. When I first heard it, it was another one of those gobsmacked moments where I’d never before heard anything like it. At the time, I had no idea who it was – it was just a track on some tape and Ibina didn’t know anything about it except that she liked it.

Breatharian and I didn’t get to dance to this, at least not in public. Ibina used it for her solo with a bunch of local toddlers pretending to be a rainstorm. You can hear the rain in the music, that’s the mbira. Breatharian and I reclined and admired her from the back of the stage, if I remember right.

Lulu's premiere public performance at Kuranda festival. Sorry it's so fuzzy.

The Kuranda festival was the climax of my stay in FNQ. A couple of friends from Sydney even came up for it. One of them, Lulu, had recently learned belly dancing and I will never forget seeing her dance for the first time. On Ibina’s rainforest verandah, in a deep blue skirt, the only light a candle. It was magic. Later, at the festival, Lulu discovered some Aboriginal women selling grass skirts and decided on the spot to buy one. She spent the afternoon sewing shells onto a brown singlet, then undulated to an enthusiastic crowd.

After the festival, Breatharian and I lost little time in fulfilling another dream, also inspired by Ibina: we hitch-hiked from Cairns to Adelaide, via Alice Springs and Uluru, to see the Alvin Ailey dance company perform. I’m not sure if Ibina had ever danced with them – her not actually being black, & all – but she certainly knew them, had gone to classes with them, was influenced by their style, and her passion was so infectious we put our crazy lives at risk to go and see them.

I’m embarrassed to admit that when we finally got there, it felt like a bit of an anti-climax, but then, we were exhausted. I’ve never really enjoyed seeing dance in huge theatres – I prefer small & intimate where you can see the sweat. And the facial expressions. Like at the Laura Dance festival. I don’t know what it’s like now, but when Breatharian and I went there a couple of months before Alvin Ailey, it was heart-stoppingly wonderful. I guess those vibrant, gutsy and dusty performances were a hard act for anyone to follow.

After Adelaide we took a train to Melbourne, Breatharian’s home town. From there I went to visit friends in Tassie, then I came back to Sydney to live, and Breatharian went to work in Weipa. I’m terrible at writing letters so I lost contact with both Breatharian and Ibina. I may never know if Breatharian fulfilled her goal of walking to Africa in a white robe, let alone whether she achieved breatharianism. I don’t know if Ibina’s even alive – she must be in her 70s by now if she is. When I went to Kuranda a few years ago I couldn’t even remember exactly where her house was, everything is so overgrown. Ah well. Those were the days.

The love story continues

For those who haven’t read my previous post on this topic, I’m referring to my love affair with African dance. I realise ‘African’ is a massive umbrella term so I’ll be more specific. The styles I’m in love with, and know the most about, are mainly West and Central African.

I left off in the last post implying that between 15 and 25 my life was a barren wasteland because I had no contact with African music. Strictly speaking this may not be true. I certainly was hearing a lot of reggae and two-tone, and it was the late 70s, early 80s, so it seems likely that I can across at least Fela Kuti. I can’t really remember. This is possibly because for several years I had quite a lot to do with certain recreational substances that affect memory, but I think that probably I really didn’t hear anything that grabbed me in the way the drum beat did when I was 15.

I did keep dancing during this time. I did classes and the odd performance with fringe dance & theatre groups. In one of them I even got to wear an extraordinarily uncomfortable, tower-like illuminated bird-headdress and slide down banisters on the outside of the Sydeny Opera House. In another I had to portray deep emotion whilst reciting a love poem. It wasn’t difficult, the object of my on-stage desire had his fly undone. It’s amazing how barely controlled hysterical laughter can come across as deep passion. So yes, when I say odd ….

I had friends who were volunteer DJs at the independent radio station Skid Row. Thanks to them I discovered all different kinds of music, including one of my all time favourites, Nigerian Master Guitarist King Sunny Ade. The first time I heard Sunny Ade I was mopping the dining room floor in a resort at Fitzroy Island, offshore from Cairns. This is because I was on an adventure around Australia and working for a few weeks as a waitress.  The dining room was the only place on the island that had a cassette player, and a friend of mine had sent me of two cassette compilations of her own selection, which included tracks from a diverse bunch of musicians: various Sydney indie bands, Gil Scott Heron, Astrud Gilberto, and two tracks from Sunny Ade.  Once again, I had never heard anything like it. And that’s why I figured it must be African. Even though it was far different to my previous experience of African music, no other explanation fitted. Turned out I was right, though I had to wait six months until I got back to Sydney to ask my friend.  This is one of the tracks I heard:

This is the other one. I think of it as an anthem to all those men in nightclubs who want your number within 3 minutes of meeting you. Actually if Sunny Ade had been one of those men I may just have given it to him. Anyway …. one of the reasons I love his music is because he does things with a guitar that I didn’t know were possible. Subtle, complex, flowing, you want it to go on forever and it feels like it will. Wow. After growing up on a diet of strumming, this track was a revelation to me. Amazing things can be done if you put an African musician together with a few strings.

I was pleased to find out that he is still going strong & even performed in the US as recently as June. But why doesn’t he come to Australia!?!? I will tell you my theory about Australia and African musicians in my next post.

Re-connecting with a lost love

Sorry if I disappoint, but this post is not about my romantic past. It is about another kind of passion: dance. I have recently resumed Senegalese dance classes with the Kai Fech group. I haven’t done dance classes for about 20 years, so like reconnecting with other kinds of lost love,  it’s a challenge. But a joyful one.

I have been passionate about dance ever since I can remember, since the long ago days when I twirled around our lounge room to my Dad’s records of Swan Lake and Saint Saens March of the Animals. Living in a small country town it was hard to find dance classes but I made do with whatever short term classes became available: Ballet, Scottish Country and Highland dance, even Jazz one year.  But the most exciting dance discovery of my teens was when an enlightened – or possibly hippy, but at any rate very cool – teacher introduced my PE class to the truly astonishing beat of African drummers.

Looking back, I suspect it was the music of Nigerian master drummer Babatunde Olatunji. Or something quite similar. It doesn’t really matter who it was, it was the music – and the dance style – I had been waiting for all my life.

For a few short and blissful weeks, that teacher had us all stomping around the school oval to complex, powerful rythms. It made a welcome change from netball, I can tell you. I’m not sure how authentic the style was, but my dim recollection is that it was earthy, dynamic and rythmic. These are all qualities I’ve since learned are characteristic of African dance, so she must have had some idea of what she was doing.

Those PE classes were the first time in my life I had contact with any remotely genuine African culture. All I knew of Africa at age 15 was what I’d learned in social studies classes about tribes that ate only blood and milk, wildlife documentaries of course and possibly a bit about early hominid fossils (thanks to Dad’s armchair interest in archaeology). All a bit exotic really. Well, so was the music and dance. But it also felt much more real. I connected to it intensely, physically. But after our PE classes moved on (or back) to more conventional activities, I didn’t hear or dance to African music again for a good ten years more. Sob. I missed it. I didn’t know where to find it. At long last, it found me. More on that in a future post.

If it hadn’t been for that deep sense of connection I have felt to African music and dance, my life would be totally different today. I probably would never have met my son’s father. I wouldn’t now have our gorgeous boy, or all of our wonderful extended Ghanaian family. I probably would never have travelled to Africa. My comfort zone may never have stretched very far. I don’t know if I’d have the same passion to end racism, or the same commitment to figuring out, and helping others figure out, how to build and strengthen cross-cultural relationships. Well, maybe I would. My passion for social justice isn’t necessarily connected to my desire to dance. And I probably would still have had a great life. But I’m really glad I had this one!

AM taps his foot

One of the difficult things lessons of parenting adolescents is that they still need you in the background of their lives but the moment you take up some space in the foreground, you become anathema, and sooo embarrassing.

This is one of the reasons I missed out on the Rokia Traore concert a couple of weeks ago. Rokia Traore is a singer from Mali who was in Australia for the WOMAD festival in Adelaide. I hadn’t quite got to the  point of organising to go see her, when AM got an invitation. A (mixed) friend of his, whose father is a musician, had free tickets to Traore’s only Sydney concert and was inviting his four best friends to come with him, as a way of celebrating his 14th birthday. So I decided I wouldn’t go to it myself. I didn’t want to jeopardise AM’s fun – perhaps by dancing in public. Anyway, the idea of a quiet night in without him was pretty attractive.

Now as it happens, AM is going through an anti-African phase at the moment. His bad memories of our trip to Ghana have completely over-ridden the good memories and he shudders theatrically whenever anyone mentions the country or even the continent. Whenever I talk about this to (usually white) parents of younger mixed race children they get very, very worried. Many of us have put a lot of time and effort into trying to connect our children with Africa, so they don’t want to imagine it all evaporating after their child turns 12. I am less worried. A friend of mine with a son in his late teens went through a similar experience but her son now appears to have ‘come out the other side’ and is again prepared to contemplate, and perhaps even appreciate, his African heritage and connections. So I’m hoping AM will be the same. But yes, I still worry too.

So it was in this context that AM got invited to the concert and I held my breath – wondering if he would turn down the invitation when he realised Traore was (shudder) African. But the allure of going out on a school night with friends proved far stronger than his aversion to all things African. It also – to my relief – proved stronger than his prejudice against all music that is not Eminem.

And off he went. And I’m told he enjoyed it. True, the other boys all jumped around yelling right in front of the stage, whereas AM sat quietly in his seat and just tapped his foot. True, he didn’t come home raving about it. But he didn’t come home groaning about it either, and said it was “ok” when asked – which from an adolescent Australian male is high praise, really. So perhaps there is hope. Hope that AM will rediscover a wider world of music than Eminem, and hope that he will remember that Africa really isn’t all bad.

Getting the beat

At gym this morning I was suddenly reminded of a sound I heard almost every morning when in Kumasi. The percussion intro to a piece of music was very like the druming at assembly time at the primary school on a neighbouring hill.

Each morning all the students would march and form into their lines to the lively beat, which I suspect owed as much to British military bands as to traditional African rythms. Whatever, it was great. My perception was that most schools did this in the mornings, plus an occasional “march past” where the entire school marches through the village or suburb. I’ve seen this a few times – its fun to watch and I bet even more fun to participate.

It occured to me, as I mused on this phenomena while pushing my weights, that Australian primary schools would benefit from this. Instead of everyone crowding into the school hall at the end of each term to passively sit and listen to the school band’s sometimes squeaky offerings, a daily march, with lots of students getting a turn to bash away on drums, would get everyone’s circulation going in the mornings, start the day with a bit of fun,  and improve our sense of rythm no end.  I reckon it would do as much for the school’s musical development as any formal lessons.

Sadly, I can’t see it taking off. We are too self-conscious as a culture, and too cynical. Ah well, a girl can dream.

Yes, it’s still true

Almost 24 hours later, Barack Obama is still President elect of the US! It’s not a dream, McCain conceded, Florida’s all okay this time, it’s really, really true. (ActionMan even tried to fool me yesterday that McCain had won, such is his warped sense of humour, but he was too late, the truth was out).  Yay!

Run around in excited circles for five minutes jumping up and down and squealing. 

Although his election looked a sure thing, I was so anxious it would get derailed by racism at the last moment – but no, in fact the opposite. It’s a very hopeful thing.  

And it’s an indication of real change in a society when a US President stars in a reggae song.  Yay!

I still don’t know how to embed YouTube videos, it doesn’t seem to work for me - but you can sing along with Coco Tea at http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=Zxn9jhypHfo

The US has come a long way since Buffalo Soldier.

And then there’s the Kenyan comedians staging a mock election in Kisumu.

Quite apart from his compassionate outlook, progressive politics and wonderful oratory, (etc., etc) having a Black President is going to inject a lots of great African culture into politics.

And I guess I just have to say, a trifle smugly, just look what can come of a mixed race marriage …

Yay!

Good Morning-O

Days in Ghana start early. I’m an early riser even at home, so I notice the morning sounds as I start drifting into wakefulness around dawn.

The first sound, usually, is a rooster crowing. If you’re lucky, it’s in the distance. If you are not lucky, or in the village, it is likely to be right outside your window. If you are in the village, this is followed by other rural sounds. The gentle clucking of chooks may lull you back to sleep, but if you’re starting to get romantic ideas about farmyard idylls, forget them. Turkeys gobbling outside your window at dawn is not something you will enjoy.

If you are in Mensakrom, and possibly other similar villages, however, you’ll soon prefer any amount of turkeys and roosters over the terrible clanging as over-enthusiastic clerics bang bits of metal together in the 4.00am call to prayer. I kid you not. Two different churches. One scored 45 bangs, the other 85. Give me the Islamic muezzin any day, no matter how badly amplified. I’ve only heard it once on this trip, and that was in Tamale.

But back at my place in Kumasi, the religious stuff starts a bit later on. Usually. Except when there’s a midnight or all night service at a local church. But the sound of hymns and drums are generally subdued by distance. In Asuoyeboah, the first sounds of human activity are usually a neighbour’s radio in the distance (DadaK is very firm about what time it’s appropriate to turn on the radio in our house because he doesn’t want me to be disturbed), the creaking and banging of doors as people get up and all the children consecutively come to check if we’re awake (we play dead), and sweeping. It’s the young women’s job to sweep all the floors inside the compound early each morning, with a broom made from the spines of palm fronds, tidying away any of the previous days’ debris that hasn’t already been tidied by livestock or rats: bits of chewed sugar cane, fragments of plastic, bottle tops, onion peels, powdery charcoal.

Owuraku pouring water in the hall outside the bathrooms

Gradually the layers of sound accumulate as more people get up. Conversations, the roar of the gas cooker or the crackle of charcoal, water pouring from bucket to barrel, from barrel to cooking pot or shower bucket. Fetching water is also the ask of the youngest women in the family and sometimes Owaruku. ActionMan has done it a couple of times but no-one wants him to – they are afraid he’ll hurt himself, or spill it. It’s pretty hard on the neck and back.

Most mornings there’s the sound of a hand bell when a woman walks up the street carrying a headload of toothbrushes, toothpaste and sponges, followed by one or two of her daughters carrying assorted soaps. I bought a toothbrush from her and I’d like to warn you now, never trust a Ghanaian’s interpretation of what is a ’soft’ toothbrush.

Sometimes people sing as they go about their daily tasks. I don’t always enjoy this, and ActionMan hates it. But I loved it on the morning of her mum, Obaapa’s birthday, shortly after we arrived, when Treasure wandered around singing the birthday song all day. It was especially poignant as Obaapa wasn’t there, she’d already returned to Australia.

Finally, Akonta can stand the ’silence’ no longer, and turns on the radio. Good morning-O. And that is the end of the gentle layering of sound. Usually by then I’m awake enough that I can stand it (it’s in the next room to us) and ActionMan has his head under the pillow.

So, that’s more or less how mornings sound between 4.30ish and 6.30ish. In school term everything stars earlier; now we’re in holidays the pace is a bit more relaxed. Variations on the theme include: the period when one of the dogs slept outside our window and snored, snuffled, scratch and occasionally howled his way through the night; the time when someone from Mensakrom urned up early and had a raging argument with someone, about what I never learned; Treasure calling out “Me! Me! It’s ME!” outside my door, with the absolute certainty of three year olds that once I know it’s her, I couldn’t possibly refuse to open the door; and then of course, there’s Jesus.

On Saturdays we get terrible droning gospel until the family leave for church (they’re 7^th day Adventists). Believe me, not all gospel is good. A large percentage of Ghanaian popular music seems to be religious these days, and ActionMan and I have both developed a strong aversion to it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not because it’s religious that I object. Christians have created some of the most sublime music on the planet. It’s the style. If it’s lively and /or joyful, I’ll even sing along; but there is a certain style of religious music that drones mournfully, and it’s not restricted to Ghanaian Christian music. In fact I believe it is a style that’s been copied from western churches. However Ghanaian Christians did redeem themselves in my eyes when I went to church one day and a group of women sang glorious a capella in a more traditional chant & response style. So please, Ghanaians, remember Sankofa and stick to your roots. Don’t copy the worst the west has to offer!

The other early morning religious experience I haven’t enjoyed has been the madman preaching in our street at 5.00am. Thankfully this hasn’t happened often. I know I’ve made a terrible value judgement on the poor man, but I guess that’s a measure of my annoyance. The first time I heard him was a Sunday, and he ranted in the choleric tones I’ve heard preachers use here, so I assumed he was indeed preaching at one of the many local churches. But after further investigation it turns out that although Jesus featured in his raves, he’s not actually coherent, and one morning I sneaked out to have a look, and there he was, two houses down, preaching to the air. Thankfully, he hasn’t done it very often.

I first drafted this post very soon after arriving in Ghana, because the difference in morning sounds is so marked. In my Sydney flat I’m woken by the hum of distant traffic and birdsong, not roosters and prayers. Admittedly, nesting rainbow lorikeets are not the most melodious of birds, but still – we’ll be home within two weeks and I’m looking forward to hearing them again. (And now I’m back and the birds have left and it is soooooo quiet!)

HIV Hip Hop

Yes, yes, I know I said I wasn’t going to write much over the next week or two. But I was cleaning up my files & found this!

I post it for several reasons. One, to restore my cross-cultural credentials after two posts on non-African music. Two, because it’s fun. Three, because if it’s on my blog I’ll always be able to find it when I want it, and Four, because it shows there’s more to Sierra Leone than civil war.

Sorry, still haven’t had time to figure out why cutting and pasting YouTube code doesn’t embed the video.

 

And now for something completely different

I think I’ve discovered how Christianity managed to get such a powerful foothold in European culture. The early church bewitched congregations with its music.

Last night I was privileged to attend a sublime concert of Gregorian chants and early choral music performed by the St Laurence Singers (I told you Apocalyptica wasn’t my usual choice in music).

There is a fascinating story behind the performance. It was the 4th, by popular demand, in a short series of concerts in which the songs from a medieval manuscript called the Rimini Antiphonal were performed for the first time in 600 years. The manuscript was beqeathed to the NSW State Library in 1928 by an English collector, in recognition of and gratitude for, Australia’s contribution to the war effort in WW1.

It was only last year that the manuscript was finally transcribed and prepared for performance by Neil McEwen, a distinguished scholar of Gregorian chants and the director of the St Laurence Singers, as well as choirs at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.

We were first treated to a slideshow of illuminations from the pages of the manuscript and a short presentation about the music by McEwen. Apparently the original score had been scratched out in the 16th C (due to changing musical conventions), so he has actually had to reconstruct how the original 1328 chants probably sounded! Even before we got to hear the music, I was greatly moved by his obvious passion for it. He exuded happiness and well-deserved pride at the prospect of presenting this glorious sound to our ears.

And when the singing started, I wanted to fall at his feet in gratitude. I wanted to garland the singers with roses and shower them with incense and myrrh. Words can barely express my appreciation for this transcendant gift they have given all who were privileged to hear them.

What is it about music that moves us so profoundly? I wanted to dance, I did weep, I felt I was lifted beyond the mundane preoccupations of my life. The exquisite purity of the soaring sopranos, the perfect harmonies (or should that be polyphonies?), to me represented all that is best and beautiful about human beings. No wonder my ancestors went to church a lot!

To all who were connected with this event – what an achievement. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

If you’d like to know more, and hear the singing, there’s a program about it on ABC Classic FM tomorrow at 2.00pm.

Music for gentlemen

I’d like to introduce you to a very special music clip. It brings a whole new meaning to the word ‘fusion’.

But first, a little background. ActionMan has three younger (half) brothers, and it’s time for you to meet the middle one: Abrantie.

Abrantie in Twi means “gentleman’. People who know Abrantie may be surprised that I have called him this, because he can be extremely obnoxious. He has quite a mean streak, and has an unfortunate habit of laughing when other people are hurt. Personally I think this is just a nervous reaction, but I know I’m in a minority there.

Of course, like all seven year old boys, Abrantie has many redeeming features, & these explain why I’ve called him a gentleman. At risk of sounding totally cliched, I do believe that underneath that gruff and sometimes surly exterior lurks a truly sensitive soul.

For a start, he likes chess. He also likes really looooong cuddles. At least one of his close friends is a girl (usually anathema to his age group). And he likes classical music. Well, perhaps I exaggerate. He likes the one piece of classical music I currently possess. When Abrantie gets into the front seat of my car, he always puts it on, to the disgust of his brothers. ActionMan used to enjoy the same piece of music, but now he only listens to Eminem, and Eminem, and Eminem, and … The nine year old has slightly broader tastes. He listens to rap, hip hop & related genres. I’ve considered calling him 50 Cedis for this blog – Cedis being the Ghanaian currency. The four year old is in that strange transitional period where The Wiggles no longer cut it and all he’s really interested in is Spiderman, (and agreeing with his biggest brothers).

Abrantie fights them off and listens to it anyway. He calls it the music that goes up and down. I suggested to him that when he got on the big plane to Ghana he made sure he got headphones and listened to the in-flight radio, in case he could find other, similar music. He later reported that he couldn’t find the music that goes up & down but he did find music he liked. Excellent. (Wish I knew what it was ….)

I think a broad taste in music shoud always be encouraged, so I asked my brother to find some free downloads that I could take to Ghana for Abrantie. He found an unusual interpretation of the music that goes up and down. It’s not the kind of thing I usually listen to, but I love it. I don’t know what Abrantie will make of it, so I’ll take a more trad version in case he doesn’t like it. Along with whatever other gems my brother finds.

And so I give you …

… Peer Gynt: Hall of the Mountain King, composed by Grieg, performed by … Apocalyptica.

Told you it was special

(PS, next time I will try & figure out how to embed it properly).