photo by Alex Lear

SOUND is ProFound Sense 

music is

more than model

coordinated sound

is inspiration

is literally breath

indispensable

the taking in

of the material world

the exhale of

the spirit self

into the atmosphere we go, journeying into the cold but bringing the warm of our movements, the friction heat of our singing, our sounding, & of course the daunting ferocity of our memory which makes impossible us remaining slaves no matter how long we’ve been downpressed

like the old man sayz: i ain’t never been free, but i done had a good time or two

i am telling you people hold on to the music, worship sound if you just got to bend your knee to something, a god who can not sing or at least pat foot & keep time is no god at all

humble in the light may i never forget the sounds from which i am sprung, may i always remember to give thanx through song

give thanx

for the gods who came amongst us and were given earthly names as they gifted us with vibrations.

Ashe.

for the tranes who ran underground through us sound transporting us to another place & time, prettier weather, a hipper clime, where we could be free, & if not be free, at the very least envision freedom. imagine ourselves unlocked & unshackled to “devil & sons, incorporated”.

Ashe.

for the birds who flew above us. brilliant doves in their love calls, those grace notes which opened us in places which had been closed so tightly we never even knew what was inside. how high, how fast we flew fueled by bird’s incandescent warble. for black imagination unafraid to totally express itself, unafraid to approach the whole world, unafraid to listen to anything, to everything & righteously respond.

Ashe.

for the oh so hip holidays we celebrate as we struggle through day to day, as we survive & resist with a song like billie turning even the most maudlin, most juvenile, most pop trash B side into A-1 lyrics of love & sophistication, cool as prez riffing with his legs crossed, & horn held at the sacred angle of ascent, weaving obbligatos of concern & support beneath, behind & all up around the sound of our great lady igniting life passions with the blue flame torch of her voice. for all the sister love ladies, of all our sacred days.

Ashe.

for the taciturn monks who told us so much more than we will ever know, left us rosetta stone platters to comprehend whose total decoding & deciphering may take us another million years or more, & for the dizzy lecturers who left us reeling in a sublime spin of shining notes. for the downhome mary lou’s who knew how to twirl the ivories and obsidians into an enticing swirl of sounds. for the james named europe who elevated the afrikan in us. for all our bold buddies with their arms so strong sonically lifting us. for the djalis frenchified and angolicized into jellyrolls, and for our best smiths whose striking songs anviled the cruelest moments of our solitudes into defiant anthems of braveheart blues.

Ashe.

For the hues of our spectrum’s vibe from the funk filled foundational brown of james to the anything but bland midnight blues moaning of B. O.  B – B.  Y.

Ashe.

to all we have not mentioned (e.g. the gaye wondersongs, the jimi rigged i&i brothers, & the diva bright willing sounds, the earthy aretha moans, & on & on), to all of them whomever they are/were, we will never forget you. to all, to each & every one we owe our very breath.

Ashe.

our music is more than model

well coordinated sounds are inspiration

are literally

indispensable breath

the taking in of the material world

the exhaling of the spirit self

into the atmosphere of this bitter earth

sweetened only by the honey of our song

people have asked me why am i such a fanatic about the music, i in turn wonder why they are not, & if not music, what? dance? carvings? cooking? what? anything we do, if it is done well will have the music in it, be influenced by the music because music is literally organized movement & the very definition of being alive is to be able to self generate motion, since the beginning of time, life has been nothing more than a measurement of movement, how well, the vibrations we leave in our wake, how we sound doing whatever we do, how the motion of our coming through the slaughter affects all whom we touch & we got this essentialness from the universe itself, we are born in motion spinning on the planet, circling around the sun, thousands, & thousands of miles an hour, moving. being still is an optical illusion. we are all in motion. & music is nothing but the organization of the sounds that motion makes. which is why black people operate on vibes. nothing metaphysical about it. motion. vibrations. music. that’s real. in fact, motion is the primal reality & this is why & what we respond to.

the cosmic timing

of the evolutionary rhythms

of starlight

pulsing

a pulsing that is eaten

through the moist eye

of

visionaries

digested and transformed into aural red cells of sound which enable human movement. without starlight we die.

looking up in rapt wonder beneath the velvet, star-studded quilt of the heavens, a child asked her grandmother what the silver twinkling was called. “big mama, my mama’s mama, how do yo call all those holes in the night sky?”

big mama laughed without looking up & then tilted her head toward sirius. “those are our ancestors winking at us, letting us know they are watching and that we should always make them proud.”

big mama gently tugged the little girl’s hand. “come, it’s time to sleep. when you dream tonight, the starpeople will be inside your head.”

when we dream at night, stars illuminate the interiors of our heads, populate our souls with visions we could never think of on our own. the power push & pull of star light is pervasive. in fact, it is the rays of the closest star to us, the rays of the sun which strike the earth and make the world go round. i mean motion is necessary cause stillness is death.

without stars we die/decay

into mere matter

far, far more than any day

we need the deep of night

to unfetter

our imaginations

which is why most musicians are night creatures who roam the earth singing & swinging, representing the advanced thought of their time, deep art is the imagination of its age, the most disturbing, the most beautiful, the most unnerving, the most insightful visions we can imagine & make real.

sound. sound. sound.

sounds. motion. sounds. vibrations.

music is the architecture of higher life forms.

i do not understand silence

except as a pause between noise

a preparation for the next sounding

a momentary rest from the preceding sound

if you study the music

you will understand all that is necessary to know

until you study the music

you can not understand anything there is to know

study sound. study sound. study sound.

because our music is more than model

sound is the necessary

the necessary

the very necessary

sunshine of our existence.

& music

music is more than model

the sound

of our music

is literally inspiration

the indispensable

breath

with which we take in

the material world

through which we exhale

our spirit self

—kalamu ya salaam