Wrocklaw, Poland

The edges of the empire; Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry: on fish and outer space ; Wrocklawbsters; a haunted backstage; The Congos; Dellé; saved by Big Blue.

The River Oder in Poland.

Switzerland is one of the first places I played outside California. That was with the Bay Area Wind Symphony, which was comprised of about one hundred and twenty teenagers, including nineteen trumpets (!), plus their braces and hair products, way back in 1984, before the fall of the Berlin Wall, before the Internet. Our unwieldy, hormone-saturated ensemble played seven classical concerts or so in Germany and Switzerland. It was my first taste of touring, and I had no idea I’d be coming back more than twenty years later, and that so much change would have occurred. I had hoped we’d have flying cars by now, but still…

Lausanne, Switzerland is scrunched between Lake Geneva and the unreal bulk of the Alps, in the beating heart of Western Europe. These vast glaciers spawn the two greatest rivers of the European continent: The Rhine, flowing north through Germany, and the Danube flowing east through Austria and Hungary and finally into the Black Sea. These rivers were once the boundaries of the Roman Empire, the boundaries between civilization and barbarity.

In the fourth century, Germany and Silesia (though they weren’t called by those names back then) were the barbarians, until one winter the impossible happened: the Rhine froze solid, and the barbarians walked right in the front door, goodbye Rome, hello Dark Ages.  Everyone was barbarians for a long time.

Colonialism and war brought huge changes to European demographics in their wake, and Europe has had to learn to cope with both the troubles and the benefits that come with diversity. Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, who shared the bill with Groundation and the Congos at this year’s Metropop Festival is an example of someone from far Jamaica who’s made his home in this mountain paradise in smack in the middle of Europe.  You’d have to ask his neighbors, but I’ll bet he brings a bit of trouble with his gifts…

Lee 'Scratch' Perry; reggae legend, former fish.

In the late sixties and seventies America produced a number of unusual performers like Mr. Perry: outlandish costumes; quirky songs, sometimes with a childlike quality; eccentricities galore. Parliment/Funkadelic/P-Funk frontman George Clinton comes to mind. His claims to have come to this planet in a funky mothership is probably one of the least unusual things about him. At a typical performance, jazz pianist and composer Sun Ra, who claimed to hail from the planet Saturn, draped his considerable bulk in a muumuu and led his eighteen-piece ‘Arkestra’ through three hours worth of music from Disney movies. To cook up a rich culture we need not only people from the different races and religions, we need people from different planets as well. Back in America’s troubled 70’s, a jazz pianist from Saturn may have been just what the world needed. He sure gave the jazz critics something to talk about. And why not different species’ as well? ‘Scratch’ Perry, doesn’t claim to be from the planet Saturn, but he said at the concert that he was a fish before he became a man, so again, let diversity be the rule…

Straight after the show, we drove all night to the One Love Festival in Wrocklaw, Poland in the old kingdom of Silesia, once the very heart of the barbarian threat which gave the Romans nightmares. It’s the doorstep of The East, once a land of warriors and a land of war. It’s also fiercely independent, stubborn even. It was fatally wedged between aggressive powers during the twentieth century and nearly eradicated, but despite being carved up and stomped on, the Polish people rose up and made Poland one of the first nations of the former Eastern Bloc to stand up against Soviet imperialism and for social justice in their own country.

Centennial Hall, named for the anniversay of Napoleon's defeat in Silesia, 1813.

I like to blab about how this place or that has ‘history’. I suppose the place we played in Wrocklaw had almost too much of it. When it was built in 1913, Centennial Hall was a word-famous miracle of design and construction: the largest steel and reinforced concrete dome in the world. It’s awe-inspiring even today, perhaps more impressive than beautiful, with interior buttresses flying fifty meters overhead. A place built for drama and spectacle, in the 1930’s the Hall hosted not only Marlene Dietrich, but also a certain ruthless and powerful nutcase from the neighborhood. You see, Silesia was then under the influence of neighboring Nazi Germany.

Learning that fact gave me a genuine chill.  Though the time had come to play music and call on those generous spirits, I could hear the spectre of Adolph Hitler’s raging voice echoing through the curving, labyrinthine corridors. There were ghosts in those hallways threatening to drag me down. There I was, just before showtime, wandering through the cold, empty rooms we’d been given for a backstage, imagining Der Fuhrer sitting there, going over his notes for his latest speech, intent on inciting hatred and murder. Perhaps these rooms had been occupied by some troop of naïve young fascists in their matching uniforms, brainwashed and betrayed by the emotional momentum of patriotic hatred, getting ready to stand on stage behind their leader, hold the big red, white and black flags and look as Aryan as they could for the cameras.

Those things were long ago, but they may still haunt us, until new days dawn and they are forgotten. I’m a rational positivist, but I felt some spiritual cleansing were needed, and in fact there was an exorcism on the way, and it came from a very unexpected source: a suitcase called Big Blue. 

Big Blue backstage.

Big Blue is the giant diamond-encrusted suitcase Kim Pommel has wheeled along (or had someone wheel along for her) on tour almost since I first met her years ago. In the minutes before our show in Wrocklaw I was listening to my footsteps echoing down the concrete hallways, thinking about how Hitler wasn’t really dead. But then I saw that glorious suitcase, literally overflowing with colorful clothes, curlers and make up, scarves, beads and electronics. In a few words it was a big, beautiful bloom of life and color: everything that makes a mess of Hitler’s dreams of sterility and order.

 I could see Mr. Hitler sitting there, trying to enjoy his lemon tea before his speech, and here comes Ms. Pommel and Big Blue: ‘Oh, pardon. Do you mind if I put this here? You wouldn’t believe how heavy it is. Whew! It’s hot in here, mind if I open a window? Now, where’s my scarf? What’s your name? I’m Kim. I’m from Jamaica.’ Gott im Himmel!

The Congos.

And fleeing that dressing room poor Adolph might have stumbled upon The Congos, meditating or drinking tea themselves perhaps, a proud band of foreigners invited by the Polish people, the descendants of Prussians and Bohemians, to spread their musical messages of peace and spiritual wisdom. Hitler would have hated them and everything they stand for, I’m happy to say. Poor fellow. But it gets worse, because the thing that would have really pissed off the indisputed all-powerful ruler of Wolkencuckcucksheim was the band Delle, because Delle is a German band, an interracial band, and one dedicated to a musical style not only foreign, but African in origin, music that doesn’t exalt war or nationhood, but that weaves a spell of pleasure and love extending between nations who once warred and working to put the past in the past where it belongs.  That’s a mighty tough act to follower, Mr. Hitler, it looks like the barbarians are here to stay.

 “Diesel” Dave Chachere

Groundation

Centennial Hall: UNESCO World Heritage Site

PS. Centennial Hall in Wrocklaw is now a UNESCO World Heritage site. The United Nations provides funds to preserve cultural treasures around the world, and its roster includes The Statue of Liberty, and Ruwenzori National Park in Rwanda where the mountain gorillas live. So then let the building stand, to be explored by architects, athletes, lovers of music, and seekers of ghosts.

Interlude

Inclement weather predicted; the language barrier, and why we love it; a legal disclaimer.

Sunset in Bordeaux

The band is bundling up for the next leg of our tour, heading into Switzerland, Poland and Germany. I don’t know if it’s officially winter yet, but it’s pretty freakin’ cold here in Southern France. Put the soup on the stove, people of the East, we’ll see you in a few days. As for now, this post can be considered filler material for fans hungry for news about the band; an interlude, if you will. This week’s theme: linguistics.

The language barrier probably shouldn’t be looked at as something to be overcome while on tour, because its an unending source of humor and enlightenment. Inept linguists such as myself can’t be expected to appreciate all the subtleties of French, Portugese and German, so we learn to enjoy the failures of language as much as the successes. Plus, we can blab away carelessly in our crude American tongue and not offend the folks standing next to us on the subway. These are a couple of random stories about people in Groundation being misunderstood on our travels. Also, before you read any further, I need to remind you to read and agree to the terms and conditions which are to be found at the end of the post. Thanks, folks!

The Nightliner orbitting Hagwart's Discount Flophouse of Witchraft and Wizardry a.k.a. The Paragon Hotel; Birmingham, England

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Poet, novelist, philospher. And Scientologist?

Monica is the driver of the Nightliner, our huge black tour bus that sleeps seventeen people or so, also known affectionately by the name of a certain evil space station currently under trademark to George Lucas. Monica is a super pro, about as laid back and wise to the ways of the road as you can be. She’s handy with her tools and she’s multilingual, which you gotta be on tour in Europe. She’s from Germany, and yesterday at breakfast we were talking about some of the interesting and highly-precise words that exist in German, and also my unrealistic dreams for future Groundation tours.

“I hope to eventually have my own tour bus,” I said. “I’ll go everywhere with my family and my own chef, and a masseuse. Everyone else will have their own bus. What’s that German word, again? Woogiecluckcluck-”

“Wolkenkuckucksheim,” said Monica. “It literally means ‘cloud cuckoo land’, and you’re living in it.” She laughed. “You see? Germans can be funny, too!”

“I know,” I said. “I read some Goëthe. He’s hilarious, though maybe that’s not the right word for it…”

 “Did you know he was a Scientologist?”

 “Goëthe? Are you sure about that, Monica?”

 “Yeah, that’s the word, right?”

 “I think you mean he was a scientist.”

“Yeah, yeah, a scientist. What did I say?”

“You said Goëthe was a Scientologist.”

 “Ach! You better not tell anyone!”

“Oh, don’t worry, I won’t.”

 “The German people would kill me!”

Aurore is the former press manager for Music Action, the company that runs our tours in France. She did a phenomenal job helping us launch the successful series of runs that began here five years ago. Since then, she’s moved on to cooking school, and we had the privilege to enjoy her craft while in Bordeaux. She reminded me of something which occurred on our first European tour when she tried to help our road manager Hossein when he asked her to help get him a new bed sheet.

“The bed sheet?” asked Aurore, looking rather concerned.

“Yeah,” said Hossein. “Could you tell them at the desk?”

“Uh, Okay.” Aurore went down to the hotel desk, but she came back empty-handed after five minutes. “Alright,” she said. “They said they were very sorry. Do you want to change rooms?”

“A new room? I just need a bed sheet!”

“Oh. Okay. What’s a bed sheet?”

“What did you tell them, Aurore?”

“I told them you had a lit de merde*”

 “What does that mean?” asked Hossein.

 “Never mind,” said Aurore.

 *In French, literally a ‘bed of shit’, or ‘a shitty bed’.

Due to space concerns, I’ll have to save the one about how someone mistook the word ‘synagogue’ for the word ‘snuggle’ for another time. Hoping to hear from y’all soon. “Diesel” Dave Chachere.

Important: Please read and accept the following terms and conditions before proceeding.

I understand that the above aimless vignettes, shaggy dog stories, balmy anecdotes, screeds, nonsequiturs, unflattering characterizations, questionable fact checking and grammatical accuracy, lapses of dignity, failures in self-patrolling of the author’s ego, half-intentioned or even quarter-intentioned innuendos and other missteps and immoderations are to be duly ignored as such. Rather, the author is to be recognized for his overall worth as a human being, the profound and nuanced character of his intellect and whatnot, and is not to be dismissed as some kind of shady Rick Steeves.

By this I solemnly swear: ___, I the undersigned.

Just had to do that for the lawyers! Thanks again, Ciao!

Paris, France

We're in the gutter, looking at the stars...

  Merci, Paris; Miles Davis in the house; Pablo Moses likewise…

It’s a cold morning in Paris, and the city is enshrouded in white gauze, the sun a pale white onion that offers little warmth and keeps its distance from the frosty streets below. Today, the members of Groundation woke to a feeling of gratitude towards the people of Paris, once again. Since our first tour in France we’ve played Glaz’art, Bataclan, The Olympia, and finally last year, the Zenith. I joked with our promoter that according to this progression I expected to be playing the Stade de France this year. He laughed uncomfortably.

La Cite de la Musique

Just across from the Zenith is the Cité de la Musique which is now hosting an exhibition on Miles Davis. Miles spent a lot of time in Europe, Paris in particular. He composed the score to the French film L’ascenseur Pour L’Echafault (Stairway to the Scaffold), had an with French actress Juliette Greco, met the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre and other national celebrities.

The ghost of Miles Davis backstage at the Kinetic Playground in Chicago

On a personal level, Miles is the reason I started playing the trumpet. The sound of Mr. Davis inspired me to pull a cold, smelly coil of metal tubing out of a box every single day and blow into it until it either started sounding good or my lips started bleeding. From childhood I emulated Miles’ ability to convey the most fragile and private feelings through his horn: love, pain, hope. It wasn’t until much later that I learned that not everything in Miles’ life was worth emulating, and I eventually came to understand that while music may be very personal, it doesn’t tell us much about the person who’s making it.

The fact that amazes me is that Miles’ egocentric, angry personality can’t be heard in songs like his version of “Someday My Prince Will Come” or “Surrey with a Fringe on Top”. His sound was vulnerable and sensitive (more like Gregory Isaacs than Burning Spear), but Miles didn’t treat the people in his life with much tenderness, nor did he show his vulnerability to them, and by most accounts, he treated his wives and girlfriends as poorly as everyone else, probably worse. On the other hand, I know that legendary jazz musician Duke Ellington was a really, really nice guy, while his one-time bassist Charles Mingus would just as soon punch you in the face as perform his heartbreaking ballad “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat”*. There’s something strangely disquieting about this fact.

Pablo Moses on stage at Le Zenith

I’ve never read Pablo Moses’ biography. I don’t even know if one exists, but I’ve known him long enough to see that he doesn’t resent the world the way Miles Davis and Charles Mingus did. Generous, philosophical, funny and humble are the words that come to my mind in describing the composer of “A Song” and “Dubbing is a Must”, adjectives which also apply to Duke Ellington. But Pablo’s vocal performance is aggressive, dark and masculine, a little bit raw. Pablo sang with Groundation last night in Paris, and we’d been touring with him, German singer Sebastian Sturm and the Jin Jin Band who backed them both for shows in Strassbourg and Lyon. The people of Paris treated all of us (Americans, Jamaicans and Germans) with respect and great warmth, and I couldn’t help thinking of the amazing encouragement this country has offered to jazzmen (as the French call them).

Coleman Hawkins, Louis Armstrong, Chet Baker, Dexter Gordon, Ben Webster, Cannonball Adderley, and many, many others tapped into the ravenous and diverse cultural appetite of Europe, allowing them to develop their music even when American audiences offered a cold shoulder, or in many cases, a racist hand pushing them down despite their talent. Today, not only jazz musicians, but Reggae artists from Lee Perry to Burning Spear rely on European audiences. After playing in Paris last night, I’m sure I share with them a deep gratitude towards these fans and their hospitality. As a reader, I also appreciate that a great many foreign writers owe much of their best work to Paris: Hemmingway, James Joyce, Henry Miller and James Baldwin to name a few. At the very least, Americans probably still owe the French a nod for their ancestors helping our ancestors with a little spot of bother known as The American Revolutionary War.

The Miles Davis exhibition in Paris included a world-class concert series, forums, classes and lectures, including one on Miles as a fashion icon. With a music school right next door, the whole neighborhood was filled with the comings and goings of different styles and instruments. While Kelsey and I were enjoying a great meal across the street at a French restaurant on Avenue Jean Jaurès a bunch of old musicians tromped in with their cases and their wives (may they be rewarded in the afterlife for having put up with us in this one). I couldn’t help grinning: artists and people who love beauty feel drawn helplessly to the beacon of Paris the way a bee is drawn to a bright, fragrant flower. But in addition to being the city of light and taste, Paris is also the greatest example of what is possible when a people refuse to allow their culture to be dictated to them by some distant authority like the church or the mass media. As long as cities like this exist, artists with vision will always have a home.

“Diesel” Dave Chachere

*The very large, very short-tempered Mr. Mingus is famous for having taken a fire axe from the stage where Duke’s band was performing and chasing composer Juan Tizol around the grand piano with it.