'The looting will be photoshopped'...

[Images from here]

[Images from here]

For whom the fires burn...

It all started on August 04 when this young man, Mark Duggan, was shot dead by police in Tottenham, North London. The police initially claimed that he was armed and had been the first to fire at them – a claim that was later officially disproved…




Members of the local community held a peaceful protest claiming his innocence and demanding justice…



Then all hell broke loose in the ensuing hours and days amidst calls by his family for rioters not to use his shooting by police as an excuse to loot and “burn town and country down”…



Meanwhile some youngsters involved in the rioting have been talking about the reasons for their actions citing, among others, widespread anger and frustration, unemployment and the rising cost of living.


[For a more in-depth analytical article see here]


Related Posts:

London Closing

Tottenham 2011 meets Brixton 1981

It all started on August 04 when this young man, Mark Duggan, was shot dead by police in Tottenham, North London. The police initially claimed that he was armed and had been the first to fire at them – a claim that was later officially disproved…




Members of the local community held a peaceful protest claiming his innocence and demanding justice…



Then all hell broke loose in the ensuing hours and days amidst calls by his family for rioters not to use his shooting by police as an excuse to loot and “burn town and country down”…



Meanwhile some youngsters involved in the rioting have been talking about the reasons for their actions citing, among others, widespread anger and frustration, unemployment and the rising cost of living.


[For a more in-depth analytical article see here]


Related Posts:

London Closing

Tottenham 2011 meets Brixton 1981

London closing...

London 08/08/11

Just before 9p.m. I go to my almost daily essential shopping run to Sainsbury’s Camden main store. It normally closes at midnight on weekdays but now it’s already closed. On the glass doors a notice: “… due to the incidents across London this store reserves the right to close earlier”… As I turn back to go to the nearest Sainsbury’s local convenience store I notice a couple of police officers aided by a shop’s employee packing the boot of a car with cases of bottled water…

I get to the convenience store via Camden High Street noticing that most bars and restaurants normally open till late are already closed or closing. After ten or so minutes inside, not yet made my mind on which bargains to go for except for a reduced price double pannacotta and caramel desert at 75p. I’m approached by an employee asking me to leave the store “because it’s closed”. Surprised, I argue: sorry but I’ve been inside this store for more than 10 minutes and when I came in I didn’t see any notice about the store’s earlier closure – it normally closes at 11p.m. He, a Black man, argues back: but the store manager has asked everybody out because we have to close immediately! I insist: then you shouldn’t have allowed me in the store when I came in!

He then calls the manager, an Asian man, who starts telling me that because of the riots they have to close now, to which I respond: then you should’ve put a notice outside the store about the change of closing time and not allow anyone in after that… He concedes that it should’ve been the right procedure but urges me to finish my shopping quickly and leave the store… So I did and with that seriously compromising my weekly budget.

As I leave, the doorkeeper, another Asian man, apologises: sorry for this today madam, maybe tomorrow we will be able to give you the normal appropriate treatment. I say: thank you, maybe tomorrow…

Whether it will be better or worse tomorrow I don’t know, and I don’t know how it was in London’s 81 either, but what I felt throughout the entire saga from Sainsbury’s Camden main store was a deep feeling of sadness and depression that I’d only experienced before in times of curfew in Luanda’s 80’s…





London, 09/09/11



... So, as everybody knows by now things didn't get any better, quite the contrary: the rioting spread across London and various other cities in the country. It reached Camden High Street where a few stores (mainly dealing in digital technology) got the windows smashed and a number of others started boarding up their entire fronts.

All the local supermarkets, main and conveniences, normally closing at midnight, closed at around 3p.m.

Our local library, which normally closes at 7p.m. closed at 4p.m.

It's London closing indeed...





London 11/08/11



This afternoon, walking by a road in the Chalk Farm residential area, I see on the other side of the road a black man being questioned by two policemen. He takes a folder from his bag which he leaves on the pavement and starts showing them some papers and explaining what appears to be his entire life, or at least the last few months of it.

I stood on my side of the road staring inquisitively at them, my hands firmly on my hips, until one of the policemen notices me, returns my staring and then asks: is there anything of the matter? I return: sorry? He asks back: is everything ok? And I reply, while taking off my sunglasses: well, I don’t know… He asks again: is anything concerning you? I then engage: yes, I’m concerned about him, pointing at the black man in the middle.

By then the three of them had turned in my direction and the black man said to me, smiling: oh, thank you for your concern. To which I ask him: are you ok? He replies, crossing his arms on his chest: yes, my sister, I’m ok, everything is ok, don’t worry… So, I said then everything is ok and, relieved, moved on walking by my side of the road.

Meanwhile, elsewhere police cars, ambulances and fire brigade roaring sirens flare up around town and the times the air smells of something like burning flesh…




London 12/08/11


The local convenience store I was hurried out from the other day is now all boarded up but with a notice outside: we are open as usual…

It is a Asian-only staffed store where only recently I started to see a couple of Black employees. This is noteworthy as the overwhelming majority of local food shops, convenience stores and off licences are owned and/or staffed by Asians and the big chain supermarkets like Sainsbury’s increasingly have been outsourcing staff from the Asian trading community.

The relevance of this is that, as it happened in other initially race-based riots, e.g. Brixton, members of the Asian community tend to end-up being indirectly targeted ‘via their shops’… Many papers’ front pages today bring the story of three Asian men who died during the riots.

But things around town and country appear to start calming down.


RELATED POSTS:

Tottenham Riots

London 08/08/11

Just before 9p.m. I go to my almost daily essential shopping run to Sainsbury’s Camden main store. It normally closes at midnight on weekdays but now it’s already closed. On the glass doors a notice: “… due to the incidents across London this store reserves the right to close earlier”… As I turn back to go to the nearest Sainsbury’s local convenience store I notice a couple of police officers aided by a shop’s employee packing the boot of a car with cases of bottled water…

I get to the convenience store via Camden High Street noticing that most bars and restaurants normally open till late are already closed or closing. After ten or so minutes inside, not yet made my mind on which bargains to go for except for a reduced price double pannacotta and caramel desert at 75p. I’m approached by an employee asking me to leave the store “because it’s closed”. Surprised, I argue: sorry but I’ve been inside this store for more than 10 minutes and when I came in I didn’t see any notice about the store’s earlier closure – it normally closes at 11p.m. He, a Black man, argues back: but the store manager has asked everybody out because we have to close immediately! I insist: then you shouldn’t have allowed me in the store when I came in!

He then calls the manager, an Asian man, who starts telling me that because of the riots they have to close now, to which I respond: then you should’ve put a notice outside the store about the change of closing time and not allow anyone in after that… He concedes that it should’ve been the right procedure but urges me to finish my shopping quickly and leave the store… So I did and with that seriously compromising my weekly budget.

As I leave, the doorkeeper, another Asian man, apologises: sorry for this today madam, maybe tomorrow we will be able to give you the normal appropriate treatment. I say: thank you, maybe tomorrow…

Whether it will be better or worse tomorrow I don’t know, and I don’t know how it was in London’s 81 either, but what I felt throughout the entire saga from Sainsbury’s Camden main store was a deep feeling of sadness and depression that I’d only experienced before in times of curfew in Luanda’s 80’s…





London, 09/09/11



... So, as everybody knows by now things didn't get any better, quite the contrary: the rioting spread across London and various other cities in the country. It reached Camden High Street where a few stores (mainly dealing in digital technology) got the windows smashed and a number of others started boarding up their entire fronts.

All the local supermarkets, main and conveniences, normally closing at midnight, closed at around 3p.m.

Our local library, which normally closes at 7p.m. closed at 4p.m.

It's London closing indeed...





London 11/08/11



This afternoon, walking by a road in the Chalk Farm residential area, I see on the other side of the road a black man being questioned by two policemen. He takes a folder from his bag which he leaves on the pavement and starts showing them some papers and explaining what appears to be his entire life, or at least the last few months of it.

I stood on my side of the road staring inquisitively at them, my hands firmly on my hips, until one of the policemen notices me, returns my staring and then asks: is there anything of the matter? I return: sorry? He asks back: is everything ok? And I reply, while taking off my sunglasses: well, I don’t know… He asks again: is anything concerning you? I then engage: yes, I’m concerned about him, pointing at the black man in the middle.

By then the three of them had turned in my direction and the black man said to me, smiling: oh, thank you for your concern. To which I ask him: are you ok? He replies, crossing his arms on his chest: yes, my sister, I’m ok, everything is ok, don’t worry… So, I said then everything is ok and, relieved, moved on walking by my side of the road.

Meanwhile, elsewhere police cars, ambulances and fire brigade roaring sirens flare up around town and the times the air smells of something like burning flesh…




London 12/08/11


The local convenience store I was hurried out from the other day is now all boarded up but with a notice outside: we are open as usual…

It is a Asian-only staffed store where only recently I started to see a couple of Black employees. This is noteworthy as the overwhelming majority of local food shops, convenience stores and off licences are owned and/or staffed by Asians and the big chain supermarkets like Sainsbury’s increasingly have been outsourcing staff from the Asian trading community.

The relevance of this is that, as it happened in other initially race-based riots, e.g. Brixton, members of the Asian community tend to end-up being indirectly targeted ‘via their shops’… Many papers’ front pages today bring the story of three Asian men who died during the riots.

But things around town and country appear to start calming down.


RELATED POSTS:

Tottenham Riots

Tottenham Latino - Por Isaac Bigio*

No primeiro fim de semana de agosto, toda a imprensa mundial reproduziu fotos dos edifícios e veículos queimados em Tottenham, no que é apresentado como o pior ato de vandalismo ocorrido no Reino Unido, neste século, e que já está se difundindo para outras partes da capital inglesa, dando vazão a um descontentamento – principalmente com os cortes nos gastos públicos promovidos pelo governo de coalizão, já motivo de vários protestos de estudantes e sindicatos este ano – que parece não ter fim.
Apesar de Haringey, o bairro que inclui Tottenham, ter o quarto índice de pobreza mais alto de Londres e um índice de desemprego de 8.8% – o dobro da média nacional, com uma vaga disputada em média por 54 candidatos –, há outra face do distrito, que é o mais multiétnico de Londres e talvez da Europa: este é um lugar onde muito se promove a harmonia e a multiculturalidade, e onde há fortes raízes latinas – como as deste colunista.

Multiculturalismo

Tottenham é uma das duas partes de Haringey, ao noroeste de Londres, por onde passa o rio Lea, pouco antes de desembocar no Tâmisa, na vila das Olimpíadas de 2012. Quando se chega ali, causa surpresa ver uma loja somali ao lado de uma japonesa, ao lado de uma turca, ao lado do maior mercado latino-americano do Reino Unido (o Pueblito Paísa), etc.
Desde seu surgimento, Tottenham teve uma forte presença de imigrantes provenientes do mundo de fala hispânica e portuguesa. Ali viveram vários notáveis com nomes e sobrenomes ibéricos como Baltazar Sánchez, que introduziu a cana de açúcar e os doces na Grã-Bretanha, e vários membros da corte de Catarina de Bragança, a rainha portuguesa que popularizou o chá e os garfos na Inglaterra e cuja família governou o Brasil durante a maior parte de sua história (incluindo a primeira terça parte de sua vida independente).

Judeus hispânicos

Ainda hoje, quando alguém chega a Tottenham, vindo do centro de Londres, pode passar por Stanford Hill, um dos bairros de judeus ortodoxos mais antigos do Atlântico. Diferentemente dos judeus das Américas (provenientes da Europa oriental), os da Inglaterra chegaram falando espanhol e português, pois foram deportados de sua Ibéria natal no mesmo ano em que Colombo iniciou a conquista dos ameríndios (1492).
Muitos dos judeus de Tottenham têm suas raízes nessa imigração hispânica de quase quatro séculos, e vários deles rezam na Sinagoga Espanhola e Portuguesa, que é o único templo hebreu na Europa que nunca fechou, em três séculos de vida.

Harmonia

Tottenham é um lugar onde se podem encontrar templos de todas as crenças convivendo em harmonia. Cada domingo há uma missa em espanhol na igreja católica de Santo Inácio, a qual está em frente a um dos edifícios da maior igreja não-católica nascida na América latina (a Universal, criada no Brasil) e está rodeada por mesquitas e sinagogas de todas as tendências (desde as que apóiam Israel até as que pedem que este país seja substituído por uma Palestina árabe).
O castelo de Bruce, em cujo parque termina o Carnaval de Tottenham e o Carnaval Latino, o maior do norte de Londres, foi anteriormente uma escola que atraía, no século 19, muitos hispânicos interessados em aprender inglês.
Infelizmente, pobreza, discriminação e falta de oportunidades também marcam esse distrito, povoado em grande maioria por uma população de origem imigrante, cuja relação com a Polícia Metropolitana de Londres está há tempos avariada, devido à revistas constantes para averiguações e mortes sem explicação, como a do jovem Mark Duggan, ainda não esclarecida, em cuja cena do crime só foram encontradas balas provenientes da armas dos policiais.

(*) Isaac Bigio vive em Londres e é pós-graduado em História e Política Econômica, Ensino Político e Administração Pública na América Latina pela London School of Economics. É um dos analistas políticos latino-americanos mais publicados do mundo. Tradução de Angélica Campos/BR Press.

No primeiro fim de semana de agosto, toda a imprensa mundial reproduziu fotos dos edifícios e veículos queimados em Tottenham, no que é apresentado como o pior ato de vandalismo ocorrido no Reino Unido, neste século, e que já está se difundindo para outras partes da capital inglesa, dando vazão a um descontentamento – principalmente com os cortes nos gastos públicos promovidos pelo governo de coalizão, já motivo de vários protestos de estudantes e sindicatos este ano – que parece não ter fim.
Apesar de Haringey, o bairro que inclui Tottenham, ter o quarto índice de pobreza mais alto de Londres e um índice de desemprego de 8.8% – o dobro da média nacional, com uma vaga disputada em média por 54 candidatos –, há outra face do distrito, que é o mais multiétnico de Londres e talvez da Europa: este é um lugar onde muito se promove a harmonia e a multiculturalidade, e onde há fortes raízes latinas – como as deste colunista.

Multiculturalismo

Tottenham é uma das duas partes de Haringey, ao noroeste de Londres, por onde passa o rio Lea, pouco antes de desembocar no Tâmisa, na vila das Olimpíadas de 2012. Quando se chega ali, causa surpresa ver uma loja somali ao lado de uma japonesa, ao lado de uma turca, ao lado do maior mercado latino-americano do Reino Unido (o Pueblito Paísa), etc.
Desde seu surgimento, Tottenham teve uma forte presença de imigrantes provenientes do mundo de fala hispânica e portuguesa. Ali viveram vários notáveis com nomes e sobrenomes ibéricos como Baltazar Sánchez, que introduziu a cana de açúcar e os doces na Grã-Bretanha, e vários membros da corte de Catarina de Bragança, a rainha portuguesa que popularizou o chá e os garfos na Inglaterra e cuja família governou o Brasil durante a maior parte de sua história (incluindo a primeira terça parte de sua vida independente).

Judeus hispânicos

Ainda hoje, quando alguém chega a Tottenham, vindo do centro de Londres, pode passar por Stanford Hill, um dos bairros de judeus ortodoxos mais antigos do Atlântico. Diferentemente dos judeus das Américas (provenientes da Europa oriental), os da Inglaterra chegaram falando espanhol e português, pois foram deportados de sua Ibéria natal no mesmo ano em que Colombo iniciou a conquista dos ameríndios (1492).
Muitos dos judeus de Tottenham têm suas raízes nessa imigração hispânica de quase quatro séculos, e vários deles rezam na Sinagoga Espanhola e Portuguesa, que é o único templo hebreu na Europa que nunca fechou, em três séculos de vida.

Harmonia

Tottenham é um lugar onde se podem encontrar templos de todas as crenças convivendo em harmonia. Cada domingo há uma missa em espanhol na igreja católica de Santo Inácio, a qual está em frente a um dos edifícios da maior igreja não-católica nascida na América latina (a Universal, criada no Brasil) e está rodeada por mesquitas e sinagogas de todas as tendências (desde as que apóiam Israel até as que pedem que este país seja substituído por uma Palestina árabe).
O castelo de Bruce, em cujo parque termina o Carnaval de Tottenham e o Carnaval Latino, o maior do norte de Londres, foi anteriormente uma escola que atraía, no século 19, muitos hispânicos interessados em aprender inglês.
Infelizmente, pobreza, discriminação e falta de oportunidades também marcam esse distrito, povoado em grande maioria por uma população de origem imigrante, cuja relação com a Polícia Metropolitana de Londres está há tempos avariada, devido à revistas constantes para averiguações e mortes sem explicação, como a do jovem Mark Duggan, ainda não esclarecida, em cuja cena do crime só foram encontradas balas provenientes da armas dos policiais.

(*) Isaac Bigio vive em Londres e é pós-graduado em História e Política Econômica, Ensino Político e Administração Pública na América Latina pela London School of Economics. É um dos analistas políticos latino-americanos mais publicados do mundo. Tradução de Angélica Campos/BR Press.

Tottenham 2011 meets Brixton 1981 [*]

Tottenham 2011

















Brixton 1981



















*[Adenda (10/08/11): For an indepth analytical article see "Tottenham 2011 and Brixton 1981 – different ideals, similar lessons" - here]

Tottenham 2011

















Brixton 1981



















*[Adenda (10/08/11): For an indepth analytical article see "Tottenham 2011 and Brixton 1981 – different ideals, similar lessons" - here]

Dear Prince William...

A couple of weeks ago, on Saturday the 16th April, I was walking down Oxford Street when, approaching Oxford Circus, I saw a gathering of excited people taking pictures of something obviously “unusual”... The centre of all the fuss, it turned out, was a black woman holding – along with posters showing pictures of blonde people (royal and not so) hanging on her head and down her shoulders – a placard with these words:


Dear Prince William

Please put a stop to this wedding.
The people are demanding a natural blonde princess.
Please do not go ahead with it.
Thank you.

Because the natural blonde is the appropriated complexion to represent the natives of the country at the palace.


I joined the crowd with a mixture of puzzlement and amusement, laughed, exchanged brief comments with other people, stood there for a while and then moved on my walking down the street.

After about an hour or so of window-shopping in the surrounding streets (where, by the way, most front shops are featuring the upcoming royal wedding of William and Kate, or just the wedding theme in general), I went back to Oxford Circus to see if the woman and the large crowd were still there. She was but the crowd was much smaller this time. So I decided to approach her and started a conversation:

- Hello… Why are you doing this? Do you actually believe in it?
- Yes, I do…
- Are you doing it for an organization or by yourself?
- No, I’m doing it by myself.
- Why?
- Just to help this white people, because sometimes they don’t understand
these things…
- So, you took the initiative to help them voice what they think?
- Yes, to help the community.
- Where are you from?
- Angola…

... There, I almost suspended my breathing!

- Angola? Really? Nao pode ser! Where in Angola?
- Luanda. Are you angolan?
- Yes, I am! Por esta e' que eu nao esperava... eu so' perguntei porque de repente me pareceu que as suas feicoes eram algures da Africa Austral, estava a pensar no Botswana... afinal e' minha compatriota!
- E' verdade, sou de Luanda, da Samba. Mas nasci em Malange, so' que fui para Luanda pequena e nunca conheci bem Malange. E voce?
- Eu tambem sou de Luanda, embora tambem nao tenha nascido la', mas na Gabela, que tambem nunca conheci porque sai de la' aos dois meses de idade... E entao agora vive ca'?
- Sim.
- Ha' quanto tempo?
- Oh, ja' ha' muitos anos. Eu tenho uma filha de 15 anos que ja' nasceu ca', portanto esta' a ver...
- E entao esta' a fazer esta campanha por sua propria iniciativa, porque acredita nisso?
- Sim...
- Porque?
- E' aquela coisa do negro ajudar o branco e o branco ajudar o negro, sabe?...
- E comecou hoje, ou ja' ha' mais tempo?
- Nao, eu ja' venho fazendo isto ha' 6 meses. Aqui e no Hyde Park, no Speakers' Corner, mas ali eu nao gosto muito porque e' mais para a politica e a religiao...

Meanwhile a new crowd, this time comprising mainly young black women, started gathering again and perhaps encouraged by our conversation, also started addressing her. But... they were not as friendly as I had been: "Why are you doing this? Do you think you have the right to do this? You have a lot of explaining to do to me!... You are not even from this country (...apparently, they'd picked up a bit of our conversation...), but I was born here, I'm a native of this country and it wouldn't cross my mind to come up with something like this! I mean, "a natural blonde"? What are you talking about?!", shouted one, while others proceeded: "This woman is crazy, she is with the devil, she needs to go to church!... or it's the church that turned her into this!"

Well, at this point they started to become so aggressive towards her, talking (shouting!) all at the same time and moving closer and closer to her, that I felt compelled to intervene...

A long and heated discussion ensued, where I argued that "wrong as she could be, she had the right to express her views; this is a free country, where everybody has that right, why not her?" The girls argued back that "if she was brave enough to stand on Oxford circus holding such an offensive message she should be prepared to be confronted!", having one of them thrown this at her: "Look at you, you're black, carrying a plastic bag, your shoes are worn out as if there was no Top Shop right here... and you're standing here for a blonde princess in a country that's not even yours?!... Shame on you!"

And I said to this girl: - Look, I personally have a problem with black girls who permanently wear wigs and weaves like you do, yet I don’t feel that I have the right to attack you on the street because of that…
- But weaves are not offensive, she shouted back at me.
- They are offensive to me! I returned, while lifting my hat to show her my dreadlocks and adding: look, I wear my hair like this and for it I am often discriminated against, so I feel offended by black girls wearing weaves who then show ‘outrage’ on the face of a black woman arguing for a ‘natural blonde’!
- But my weave is black and my natural hair is black too!
- It doesn’t matter, I argued, you could be wearing a blonde weave or wig as many black women do just because you don't have the courage to show your natural hair and want to look white… it’s the same with white women dying their hair blonde. And to me it all amounts to the same thing that this woman is standing here for! Therefore, I don’t think that you have the 'high moral ground' to be attacking her in this way…
- But do you agree with her? Another one asked to me.
- No, I don’t and I regret what she is doing. In fact I think that she might have a mental health problem of some sort, because no one in their right mind would stand in Oxford Circus holding a message like this…
- So why are you defending her?! I don’t understand what your point is!
- My point is simply ‘leave the woman alone’! The message is not directed at you, so you shouldn’t be attacking her freedom of expression!

Well, the discussion went on and on, starting at some point to become really threatening, until I turned my back on them, saying "I don't play silly games with silly girls", and joined another conversation with a young white brunette, L., who told me that she was born in France of a North African mother and a Israeli father. She was also critical of the woman’s message calling it “narrow-minded” and “dangerous”, but this turned out to be a much more productive conversation between me, her and Maria de Jesus (that’s how my compatriot told me she is called) – it was L. who took the picture of the two of us illustrating this post.

Maria de Jesus’s main argument was to the effect that “if you want to be the Prime Minister or a member of the Cabinet in this country, it’s OK not to be white or blonde, but to be a member of the Royal Family it’s a different story, you have to preserve the royal lineage and have the same DNA as the country’s natives. It’s the same in Africa, China, or anywhere in the world where there is a Monarchy.”

Mas pelo meio da discussao com as raparigas negras, a Maria de Jesus so’ me dizia: “nao liga; essas sao umas sanzaleiras que nao entendem nada, eu ja’ estou habituada”!

No fim de tudo fiquei com pena da Maria de Jesus, porque – a menos que, como tambem admito como hipotese provavel, ela esteja de facto a ser paga para se prestar a esse papel ridiculo, especialmente com aquele chapeu de espantalho, por alguma organizacao de cidadaos brancos deste pais (e talvez mais provavelmente, de mulheres “louras naturais”…), ja’ que muitos sao os que defendem esse ponto de vista, mas nao teem a coragem de o expressar publicamente... mesmo perante o facto de haver muito poucos "louros naturais" neste pais e o proprio Principe William ser mais ruivo do que louro, sendo a ascendencia da sua Familia Real, onde tambem praticamente nao ha' "louros naturais", muito mais "nativa" do Imperio Austro-Hungaro do que destas Ilhas! –, ela deve ter mesmo problemas psiquicos e precisa de ajuda!

Uma coisa, no entanto, ficou registada na minha mente durante todo aquele episodio: de todas as pessoas que se manifestaram ultrajadas e ofendidas, a esmagadora maioria eram jovens negras usando tissagens de longos cabelos lisos artificiais… Sera' que todas elas acreditam secretamente que poderiam ser "elegiveis" para serem escolhidas pelo Principe William para suas noivas/esposas e aceites pela Familia Real Britanica e pelos seus subditos? I wonder...


Related Post:


Black Women, Wigs, Race, Identity, Brandy & Pan-Africanism

Makas na Sanzala Global

Remembering Diana 10 Years On

A couple of weeks ago, on Saturday the 16th April, I was walking down Oxford Street when, approaching Oxford Circus, I saw a gathering of excited people taking pictures of something obviously “unusual”... The centre of all the fuss, it turned out, was a black woman holding – along with posters showing pictures of blonde people (royal and not so) hanging on her head and down her shoulders – a placard with these words:


Dear Prince William

Please put a stop to this wedding.
The people are demanding a natural blonde princess.
Please do not go ahead with it.
Thank you.

Because the natural blonde is the appropriated complexion to represent the natives of the country at the palace.


I joined the crowd with a mixture of puzzlement and amusement, laughed, exchanged brief comments with other people, stood there for a while and then moved on my walking down the street.

After about an hour or so of window-shopping in the surrounding streets (where, by the way, most front shops are featuring the upcoming royal wedding of William and Kate, or just the wedding theme in general), I went back to Oxford Circus to see if the woman and the large crowd were still there. She was but the crowd was much smaller this time. So I decided to approach her and started a conversation:

- Hello… Why are you doing this? Do you actually believe in it?
- Yes, I do…
- Are you doing it for an organization or by yourself?
- No, I’m doing it by myself.
- Why?
- Just to help this white people, because sometimes they don’t understand
these things…
- So, you took the initiative to help them voice what they think?
- Yes, to help the community.
- Where are you from?
- Angola…

... There, I almost suspended my breathing!

- Angola? Really? Nao pode ser! Where in Angola?
- Luanda. Are you angolan?
- Yes, I am! Por esta e' que eu nao esperava... eu so' perguntei porque de repente me pareceu que as suas feicoes eram algures da Africa Austral, estava a pensar no Botswana... afinal e' minha compatriota!
- E' verdade, sou de Luanda, da Samba. Mas nasci em Malange, so' que fui para Luanda pequena e nunca conheci bem Malange. E voce?
- Eu tambem sou de Luanda, embora tambem nao tenha nascido la', mas na Gabela, que tambem nunca conheci porque sai de la' aos dois meses de idade... E entao agora vive ca'?
- Sim.
- Ha' quanto tempo?
- Oh, ja' ha' muitos anos. Eu tenho uma filha de 15 anos que ja' nasceu ca', portanto esta' a ver...
- E entao esta' a fazer esta campanha por sua propria iniciativa, porque acredita nisso?
- Sim...
- Porque?
- E' aquela coisa do negro ajudar o branco e o branco ajudar o negro, sabe?...
- E comecou hoje, ou ja' ha' mais tempo?
- Nao, eu ja' venho fazendo isto ha' 6 meses. Aqui e no Hyde Park, no Speakers' Corner, mas ali eu nao gosto muito porque e' mais para a politica e a religiao...

Meanwhile a new crowd, this time comprising mainly young black women, started gathering again and perhaps encouraged by our conversation, also started addressing her. But... they were not as friendly as I had been: "Why are you doing this? Do you think you have the right to do this? You have a lot of explaining to do to me!... You are not even from this country (...apparently, they'd picked up a bit of our conversation...), but I was born here, I'm a native of this country and it wouldn't cross my mind to come up with something like this! I mean, "a natural blonde"? What are you talking about?!", shouted one, while others proceeded: "This woman is crazy, she is with the devil, she needs to go to church!... or it's the church that turned her into this!"

Well, at this point they started to become so aggressive towards her, talking (shouting!) all at the same time and moving closer and closer to her, that I felt compelled to intervene...

A long and heated discussion ensued, where I argued that "wrong as she could be, she had the right to express her views; this is a free country, where everybody has that right, why not her?" The girls argued back that "if she was brave enough to stand on Oxford circus holding such an offensive message she should be prepared to be confronted!", having one of them thrown this at her: "Look at you, you're black, carrying a plastic bag, your shoes are worn out as if there was no Top Shop right here... and you're standing here for a blonde princess in a country that's not even yours?!... Shame on you!"

And I said to this girl: - Look, I personally have a problem with black girls who permanently wear wigs and weaves like you do, yet I don’t feel that I have the right to attack you on the street because of that…
- But weaves are not offensive, she shouted back at me.
- They are offensive to me! I returned, while lifting my hat to show her my dreadlocks and adding: look, I wear my hair like this and for it I am often discriminated against, so I feel offended by black girls wearing weaves who then show ‘outrage’ on the face of a black woman arguing for a ‘natural blonde’!
- But my weave is black and my natural hair is black too!
- It doesn’t matter, I argued, you could be wearing a blonde weave or wig as many black women do just because you don't have the courage to show your natural hair and want to look white… it’s the same with white women dying their hair blonde. And to me it all amounts to the same thing that this woman is standing here for! Therefore, I don’t think that you have the 'high moral ground' to be attacking her in this way…
- But do you agree with her? Another one asked to me.
- No, I don’t and I regret what she is doing. In fact I think that she might have a mental health problem of some sort, because no one in their right mind would stand in Oxford Circus holding a message like this…
- So why are you defending her?! I don’t understand what your point is!
- My point is simply ‘leave the woman alone’! The message is not directed at you, so you shouldn’t be attacking her freedom of expression!

Well, the discussion went on and on, starting at some point to become really threatening, until I turned my back on them, saying "I don't play silly games with silly girls", and joined another conversation with a young white brunette, L., who told me that she was born in France of a North African mother and a Israeli father. She was also critical of the woman’s message calling it “narrow-minded” and “dangerous”, but this turned out to be a much more productive conversation between me, her and Maria de Jesus (that’s how my compatriot told me she is called) – it was L. who took the picture of the two of us illustrating this post.

Maria de Jesus’s main argument was to the effect that “if you want to be the Prime Minister or a member of the Cabinet in this country, it’s OK not to be white or blonde, but to be a member of the Royal Family it’s a different story, you have to preserve the royal lineage and have the same DNA as the country’s natives. It’s the same in Africa, China, or anywhere in the world where there is a Monarchy.”

Mas pelo meio da discussao com as raparigas negras, a Maria de Jesus so’ me dizia: “nao liga; essas sao umas sanzaleiras que nao entendem nada, eu ja’ estou habituada”!

No fim de tudo fiquei com pena da Maria de Jesus, porque – a menos que, como tambem admito como hipotese provavel, ela esteja de facto a ser paga para se prestar a esse papel ridiculo, especialmente com aquele chapeu de espantalho, por alguma organizacao de cidadaos brancos deste pais (e talvez mais provavelmente, de mulheres “louras naturais”…), ja’ que muitos sao os que defendem esse ponto de vista, mas nao teem a coragem de o expressar publicamente... mesmo perante o facto de haver muito poucos "louros naturais" neste pais e o proprio Principe William ser mais ruivo do que louro, sendo a ascendencia da sua Familia Real, onde tambem praticamente nao ha' "louros naturais", muito mais "nativa" do Imperio Austro-Hungaro do que destas Ilhas! –, ela deve ter mesmo problemas psiquicos e precisa de ajuda!

Uma coisa, no entanto, ficou registada na minha mente durante todo aquele episodio: de todas as pessoas que se manifestaram ultrajadas e ofendidas, a esmagadora maioria eram jovens negras usando tissagens de longos cabelos lisos artificiais… Sera' que todas elas acreditam secretamente que poderiam ser "elegiveis" para serem escolhidas pelo Principe William para suas noivas/esposas e aceites pela Familia Real Britanica e pelos seus subditos? I wonder...


Related Post:


Black Women, Wigs, Race, Identity, Brandy & Pan-Africanism

Makas na Sanzala Global

Remembering Diana 10 Years On

The Obscene Moon

Exactly a week ago, on Saturday the 19th March 2011, coming from a stroll in the Regents Park, I was heading home through one of the main pathways of the Primrose Hill. I had just dispelled the idea of climbing up the hill to get that magnificent sight of central London from there: it had been a dry and sunny day but now the sun had downed and we tend to be “undercoated” for the cold that comes back to hunt us in the evenings of such early spring days. So, I thought, I’d better head straight home.



That’s when I spotted it through some trees: rising from whatever hiding place, a huge, humongous, startling moon! I didn’t think twice before changing my mind and my pathway and starting the climbing up the hill while not losing sight of that obscene moon – that’s how I immediately called it through my teeth: obscene!




Got up there and just marvelled at the spectacle of its wondrous rising, as more and more people, transfixed by it, came to the spot and its surroundings. Most had cameras, some of them potent, professional ones. I didn’t have any with me though.





But in the last two days I managed to borrow these pictures from someone who got them from a couple of people who where there, at that same Primrose Hill spot, and saw exactly what I saw last Saturday: That Obscene Moon!

Exactly a week ago, on Saturday the 19th March 2011, coming from a stroll in the Regents Park, I was heading home through one of the main pathways of the Primrose Hill. I had just dispelled the idea of climbing up the hill to get that magnificent sight of central London from there: it had been a dry and sunny day but now the sun had downed and we tend to be “undercoated” for the cold that comes back to hunt us in the evenings of such early spring days. So, I thought, I’d better head straight home.



That’s when I spotted it through some trees: rising from whatever hiding place, a huge, humongous, startling moon! I didn’t think twice before changing my mind and my pathway and starting the climbing up the hill while not losing sight of that obscene moon – that’s how I immediately called it through my teeth: obscene!




Got up there and just marvelled at the spectacle of its wondrous rising, as more and more people, transfixed by it, came to the spot and its surroundings. Most had cameras, some of them potent, professional ones. I didn’t have any with me though.





But in the last two days I managed to borrow these pictures from someone who got them from a couple of people who where there, at that same Primrose Hill spot, and saw exactly what I saw last Saturday: That Obscene Moon!

London Jazz Festival

This was supposed to be my London Jazz Festival 2010...

Hugh Masekela & The Mahotella Queens

...But: SOLD OUT!

[Parece incrivel, mas com tantas passagens e estadias na Africa do Sul e arredores, nunca tive uma oportunidade de ver este que e' um dos meus maiores idolos do Jazz Africano (depois do nosso eterno Manu Dibango) ao vivo... e, parece mentira, mas ainda nao foi desta!]

Sonny Rollins at 80

...But: SOLD OUT!

[Vi-o ao vivo ha' ja' alguns anos em Lisboa no Centro Cultural de Belem, numa noite absolutamente inesquecivel, com a Paula Tavares, a Luisa de Almeida, o Jean-Yves e a Zarito (esta, por quem tenho grande estima e que e' irma de um certo minion de triste memoria neste blog... Lembro-me de, por aqueles dias, enquanto tomavamos o pequeno almoco de domingo numa esplanada nos jardins de Belem, perante as minhas repetidas queixas sobre o comportamento - estupido, crapula e cabotino, para dizer o minimo - do seu irmao para comigo, ela me ter dito: "Porque que nao cortas com ele? Corta, Paula!"...

{Zarito e Jean-Yves no meu quintal de limoeiro, nespreira e roseiras-trepadeiras em Belem - algures na ponta final dos anos 80 ou no inicio dos 90 (a toalha de mesa ainda (r)existe after all these years...) - foto JEA}

... Pois, mas levou-me todos estes anos ate' ao ano passado - desde que, com a criacao deste blog, ele nao perdeu a primeira oportunidade para manifestar mais uma vez a sua pequenez incuravel, so' que desta vez atraves do tal de NJ de igualmente triste memoria neste blog - para que eu me decidisse definitivamente a acatar o sabio conselho da Zarito... O que tambem se deveu ao facto de nao ter tido qualquer contacto com ele durante estas ultimas quase duas decadas, excepto brevemente quando estive em Luanda em 2001, ocasiao que tambem nao me deixou particularmente boas memorias dele... (e, by the way, nessa ocasiao ainda tive a insensatez - na verdade na altura disse de mim para cumim: "isto e' perola para porco"... - de lhe oferecer como prenda de Natal um CD que e' uma verdadeira enciclopedia de vida, musica e cultura dos Khoisan, do que muito me haveria de arrepender porque nunca mais consegui encontrar e comprar outro para mim!...).
E' que, quando alguem, como eu, valoriza sobremaneira, ainda que frequentemente incompreendida, a amizade e a familia - por uma questao dos agora tao "badalados" valores e principios! -, esta' sujeito a engolir muitos sapos, porque familiares e amigos ha' que, perante a nossa aparentemente infinita compreensao e tolerancia, acabam por tornar-se absolutamente insuportaveis, ate' que... o "corte" se torna inevitavel!

Mas, nao pretendo, com esta triste recordacao, estragar completamente a memoria de uma noite inesquecivel ao som vibrante do Sonny Rollins com aqueles que naquela altura eram alguns dos meus amigos mais proximos em Lisboa. Portanto, que fique apenas registada a pena de nao o poder ver e ouvir mais uma vez nesta que talvez tenha sido a ultima oportunidade de o fazer - e' que ele esta' a celebrar os seus 80 anos...]




Herbie Hancock...

[Tambem o vi ao vivo em Lisboa no mesmo Coliseu em que vi o Miles Davis, com o meu filho, nos dois ultimos concertos que deu naquela cidade, em 1989 e 1991 (tendo sido este ultimo no mesmo ano em que, alguns meses mais tarde, ele deixaria este mundo e em que, como aqui se da' conta, se estaria a programar uma sua possivel ida a Angola: “Nós tínhamos combinado levá-lo a Angola, estávamos a tratar disso para 1992 porque tínhamos pessoas em Luanda que queriam. Era demais. Fantástico.”)

Gostava de ver Herbie mais uma vez (nao sei se ainda terei muitas oportunidades futuras para o fazer uma vez que ele tambem ja' esta' nos seus 70...), mas porque tinha em mente as 'prioridades' acima nao o pude, infelizmente, incluir no meu programa inicial... and now it's too late!
Mas ouvi-o ontem numa entrevista em directo para o programa Jazz on 3 da BBC Radio 3, que cobriu ao vivo o lancamento deste festival a partir do legendario Ronnie Scott's (tambem a celebrar os seus 50 anos): fiquei assim a saber que o Herbie, apesar da sua "idade avancada", continua "tao bem parecido, energetico e criativo como sempre" (segundo o entrevistador, obviamente...) , o que ele, por entre uma sonora gargalhada, atribui a "evitar o stress", e que a piece de resistance da sua participacao neste festival e' o seu Imagine Project, baseado na obra do John Lennon e em que ele integra piano snippets by Kongo traditional musicians - I can't wait to check it out on CD!]

So, I'm now looking forward to this one:

Terence Blanchard Band + Robert Glasper Trio

[Terence Blanchard: um nome incontornavel do Jazz Contemporaneo. Nunca o vi ao vivo e devo confessar que o meu maior interesse em ve-lo e ouvi-lo deve-se aos seus film scores para o Spike Lee e ao seu ultimo album, Choices, com a participacao do "meu amigo" Cornel West...

I can't wait to see him tomorrow in the same Barbican where I saw, over a decade ago, our eternal African Jazz legend, Manu Dibango, for the first time - the second was at the 2006 edition of the Cape Town International Jazz Festival pictured here]

THAT WAS GREAT!

After a sizzling warm-up at the FreeStage brought to us fresh from New Orleans by the Soul Rebels Brass Band, we had just about three hours of some of the best contemporary jazz - before us was what Terence Blanchard said is the future of jazz to his mind (although also adding something like "people speculate all the time about the future of jazz, but to me there's no point in that: the future of jazz will be what it's going to be"...): opening for him, The Robert Glasper Trio (Glasper – whose artistic world is said to be “where the iconic record label Blue Note gets back to the streets, marrying hip-hop with the free flow of a classic piano trio, merging jazz and contemporary sounds”, and who also served us Herbie Hancock's "I Have A Dream" and Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" – on piano; Derrick Hodge on bass and Mark Colenburg on drums) and, then, alongside himself on trumpet and Bruce Wilson on tenor saxophone, the three young players on his own Quintet (Fabian Almazan on piano, Joshua Crumbly on bass and Kendrick Scott on drums).

[There was something funny in between the two group's performance: another drummer, Chris Dave, replaced Mark Colenburg and Terence Blanchard just came on the stage and started playing his thing unannounced with the Glasper's Trio for about 10-15 minutes until their time on stage was over... Many people became quite agitated thinking that it was all for the night and I started saying "these guys can only be joking!"... and they were: it was just the interval before the Blanchard real thing!]

Blanchard offered us parts of his most recent creation, ‘Choices’, where we could hear Cornel West’s voice talking about subjects such as political consciousness, music, love and humanity: from the hurricanes Katrina and Obama, through how Beethoven considered music to be deeper than philosophy, to the love that existed between Miles and Coltrane… in short, about the human condition.

Through and through (with a few jokes about some of his band members’ personal details in between: the pianist – "a very shy guy" from Cuba; the bassist – "a scared to death" recent graduate from the Juilliard (..."you know, there's some intelligent people up here... at least one of us!", he said...); the drummer – a record label owner from Texas "who makes no money with it"; the saxophonist “who came from where it all began: Toussaint, Arizona!” ... Well, this one led to a few other jokes about the first time we hear Arizona and Jazz on the same breath and the woman who approached him at the end of one concert to rebuke him for his 'downplaying' of jazz in Arizona and presenting herself as the president of the Toussaint Jazz Society, and then the pilot who one day popped into him and Herbie Hancock on a plane and introduced himself as the brother of the president of the Toussaint Jazz Society!...], the main man of the evening fulfilled the promise in the words he was presented to us:

“Terence Blanchard is one of the few contemporary horn players who can truly claim to inherit the legacy of jazz trumpet giants Miles Davis, Lee Morgan and Freddie Hubbard. Born in New Orleans, as a child he played alongside friend Wynton Marsalis in summer band camps – later in life Wynton was to recommend him to Art Blakey as his replacement in The Jazz Messengers, becoming its lead soloist and musical director. By the 1990s, Blanchard had become a leader in his own right and had embarked on a highly successful partnership with film maker Spike Lee, writing the scores for every one of his films since 1991, including Malcolm X, Clockers, and the Hurricane Katrina documentary When the Levees Broke for HBO.

His film credits are extensive with over 40 scores to his name. He maintains a regular studio presence, recording his own original music and has been nominated for 11 Grammys, winning four. He stretches himself stylistically, working with other musicians such as Stevie Wonder and Dr John. His last Concord album Choices is probably his most radical yet, with readings by philosopher Cornel West and vocals by neo-soul singer Bilal over a meld of speculative post-bop, experimental yet accessible song forms, and jazz-initiated atmospheres to create a compelling, instructive and uplifting work.”

OTHER FESTIVAL HIGHLIGHTS

Esperanza Spalding
The 26 years old rising star who counts Obama among her biggest fans...

Chucho Valdés & The Afro-Cuban Messengers + Ibrahim Maalouf

AfroCubism
Featuring Eliades Ochoa, Toumani Diabate, Bassekou Kouyate, Djelimady Tounkora, Kasse Mady Diabate.

Charles Lloyd Quartet + Winstone/Gesing/Venier

This was supposed to be my London Jazz Festival 2010...

Hugh Masekela & The Mahotella Queens

...But: SOLD OUT!

[Parece incrivel, mas com tantas passagens e estadias na Africa do Sul e arredores, nunca tive uma oportunidade de ver este que e' um dos meus maiores idolos do Jazz Africano (depois do nosso eterno Manu Dibango) ao vivo... e, parece mentira, mas ainda nao foi desta!]

Sonny Rollins at 80

...But: SOLD OUT!

[Vi-o ao vivo ha' ja' alguns anos em Lisboa no Centro Cultural de Belem, numa noite absolutamente inesquecivel, com a Paula Tavares, a Luisa de Almeida, o Jean-Yves e a Zarito (esta, por quem tenho grande estima e que e' irma de um certo minion de triste memoria neste blog... Lembro-me de, por aqueles dias, enquanto tomavamos o pequeno almoco de domingo numa esplanada nos jardins de Belem, perante as minhas repetidas queixas sobre o comportamento - estupido, crapula e cabotino, para dizer o minimo - do seu irmao para comigo, ela me ter dito: "Porque que nao cortas com ele? Corta, Paula!"...

{Zarito e Jean-Yves no meu quintal de limoeiro, nespreira e roseiras-trepadeiras em Belem - algures na ponta final dos anos 80 ou no inicio dos 90 (a toalha de mesa ainda (r)existe after all these years...) - foto JEA}

... Pois, mas levou-me todos estes anos ate' ao ano passado - desde que, com a criacao deste blog, ele nao perdeu a primeira oportunidade para manifestar mais uma vez a sua pequenez incuravel, so' que desta vez atraves do tal de NJ de igualmente triste memoria neste blog - para que eu me decidisse definitivamente a acatar o sabio conselho da Zarito... O que tambem se deveu ao facto de nao ter tido qualquer contacto com ele durante estas ultimas quase duas decadas, excepto brevemente quando estive em Luanda em 2001, ocasiao que tambem nao me deixou particularmente boas memorias dele... (e, by the way, nessa ocasiao ainda tive a insensatez - na verdade na altura disse de mim para cumim: "isto e' perola para porco"... - de lhe oferecer como prenda de Natal um CD que e' uma verdadeira enciclopedia de vida, musica e cultura dos Khoisan, do que muito me haveria de arrepender porque nunca mais consegui encontrar e comprar outro para mim!...).
E' que, quando alguem, como eu, valoriza sobremaneira, ainda que frequentemente incompreendida, a amizade e a familia - por uma questao dos agora tao "badalados" valores e principios! -, esta' sujeito a engolir muitos sapos, porque familiares e amigos ha' que, perante a nossa aparentemente infinita compreensao e tolerancia, acabam por tornar-se absolutamente insuportaveis, ate' que... o "corte" se torna inevitavel!

Mas, nao pretendo, com esta triste recordacao, estragar completamente a memoria de uma noite inesquecivel ao som vibrante do Sonny Rollins com aqueles que naquela altura eram alguns dos meus amigos mais proximos em Lisboa. Portanto, que fique apenas registada a pena de nao o poder ver e ouvir mais uma vez nesta que talvez tenha sido a ultima oportunidade de o fazer - e' que ele esta' a celebrar os seus 80 anos...]




Herbie Hancock...

[Tambem o vi ao vivo em Lisboa no mesmo Coliseu em que vi o Miles Davis, com o meu filho, nos dois ultimos concertos que deu naquela cidade, em 1989 e 1991 (tendo sido este ultimo no mesmo ano em que, alguns meses mais tarde, ele deixaria este mundo e em que, como aqui se da' conta, se estaria a programar uma sua possivel ida a Angola: “Nós tínhamos combinado levá-lo a Angola, estávamos a tratar disso para 1992 porque tínhamos pessoas em Luanda que queriam. Era demais. Fantástico.”)

Gostava de ver Herbie mais uma vez (nao sei se ainda terei muitas oportunidades futuras para o fazer uma vez que ele tambem ja' esta' nos seus 70...), mas porque tinha em mente as 'prioridades' acima nao o pude, infelizmente, incluir no meu programa inicial... and now it's too late!
Mas ouvi-o ontem numa entrevista em directo para o programa Jazz on 3 da BBC Radio 3, que cobriu ao vivo o lancamento deste festival a partir do legendario Ronnie Scott's (tambem a celebrar os seus 50 anos): fiquei assim a saber que o Herbie, apesar da sua "idade avancada", continua "tao bem parecido, energetico e criativo como sempre" (segundo o entrevistador, obviamente...) , o que ele, por entre uma sonora gargalhada, atribui a "evitar o stress", e que a piece de resistance da sua participacao neste festival e' o seu Imagine Project, baseado na obra do John Lennon e em que ele integra piano snippets by Kongo traditional musicians - I can't wait to check it out on CD!]

So, I'm now looking forward to this one:

Terence Blanchard Band + Robert Glasper Trio

[Terence Blanchard: um nome incontornavel do Jazz Contemporaneo. Nunca o vi ao vivo e devo confessar que o meu maior interesse em ve-lo e ouvi-lo deve-se aos seus film scores para o Spike Lee e ao seu ultimo album, Choices, com a participacao do "meu amigo" Cornel West...

I can't wait to see him tomorrow in the same Barbican where I saw, over a decade ago, our eternal African Jazz legend, Manu Dibango, for the first time - the second was at the 2006 edition of the Cape Town International Jazz Festival pictured here]

THAT WAS GREAT!

After a sizzling warm-up at the FreeStage brought to us fresh from New Orleans by the Soul Rebels Brass Band, we had just about three hours of some of the best contemporary jazz - before us was what Terence Blanchard said is the future of jazz to his mind (although also adding something like "people speculate all the time about the future of jazz, but to me there's no point in that: the future of jazz will be what it's going to be"...): opening for him, The Robert Glasper Trio (Glasper – whose artistic world is said to be “where the iconic record label Blue Note gets back to the streets, marrying hip-hop with the free flow of a classic piano trio, merging jazz and contemporary sounds”, and who also served us Herbie Hancock's "I Have A Dream" and Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" – on piano; Derrick Hodge on bass and Mark Colenburg on drums) and, then, alongside himself on trumpet and Bruce Wilson on tenor saxophone, the three young players on his own Quintet (Fabian Almazan on piano, Joshua Crumbly on bass and Kendrick Scott on drums).

[There was something funny in between the two group's performance: another drummer, Chris Dave, replaced Mark Colenburg and Terence Blanchard just came on the stage and started playing his thing unannounced with the Glasper's Trio for about 10-15 minutes until their time on stage was over... Many people became quite agitated thinking that it was all for the night and I started saying "these guys can only be joking!"... and they were: it was just the interval before the Blanchard real thing!]

Blanchard offered us parts of his most recent creation, ‘Choices’, where we could hear Cornel West’s voice talking about subjects such as political consciousness, music, love and humanity: from the hurricanes Katrina and Obama, through how Beethoven considered music to be deeper than philosophy, to the love that existed between Miles and Coltrane… in short, about the human condition.

Through and through (with a few jokes about some of his band members’ personal details in between: the pianist – "a very shy guy" from Cuba; the bassist – "a scared to death" recent graduate from the Juilliard (..."you know, there's some intelligent people up here... at least one of us!", he said...); the drummer – a record label owner from Texas "who makes no money with it"; the saxophonist “who came from where it all began: Toussaint, Arizona!” ... Well, this one led to a few other jokes about the first time we hear Arizona and Jazz on the same breath and the woman who approached him at the end of one concert to rebuke him for his 'downplaying' of jazz in Arizona and presenting herself as the president of the Toussaint Jazz Society, and then the pilot who one day popped into him and Herbie Hancock on a plane and introduced himself as the brother of the president of the Toussaint Jazz Society!...], the main man of the evening fulfilled the promise in the words he was presented to us:

“Terence Blanchard is one of the few contemporary horn players who can truly claim to inherit the legacy of jazz trumpet giants Miles Davis, Lee Morgan and Freddie Hubbard. Born in New Orleans, as a child he played alongside friend Wynton Marsalis in summer band camps – later in life Wynton was to recommend him to Art Blakey as his replacement in The Jazz Messengers, becoming its lead soloist and musical director. By the 1990s, Blanchard had become a leader in his own right and had embarked on a highly successful partnership with film maker Spike Lee, writing the scores for every one of his films since 1991, including Malcolm X, Clockers, and the Hurricane Katrina documentary When the Levees Broke for HBO.

His film credits are extensive with over 40 scores to his name. He maintains a regular studio presence, recording his own original music and has been nominated for 11 Grammys, winning four. He stretches himself stylistically, working with other musicians such as Stevie Wonder and Dr John. His last Concord album Choices is probably his most radical yet, with readings by philosopher Cornel West and vocals by neo-soul singer Bilal over a meld of speculative post-bop, experimental yet accessible song forms, and jazz-initiated atmospheres to create a compelling, instructive and uplifting work.”

OTHER FESTIVAL HIGHLIGHTS

Esperanza Spalding
The 26 years old rising star who counts Obama among her biggest fans...

Chucho Valdés & The Afro-Cuban Messengers + Ibrahim Maalouf

AfroCubism
Featuring Eliades Ochoa, Toumani Diabate, Bassekou Kouyate, Djelimady Tounkora, Kasse Mady Diabate.

Charles Lloyd Quartet + Winstone/Gesing/Venier