Another Memory Haunts Me
yesterday was hot
enjoyed a long drink of cool
water—thought of you
—kalamu ya salaam
Concert Excerpts
featuring Kidd Jordan
& The Improvisational Arts Ensemble
Every note, every word was improvised in concert.
Rainbows Come After The Rain
(featuring Tim Green on soprano saxophone)
Rainbows come after the rain
If I don't touch you in the flesh
I'll see you in the dreamtime
If I can't hold you in the present
The future will know our kiss
Everything that keeps us apart
Just makes our coming together stronger
And all the hard hassels of today
Will be sung as funny lyrics tomorrow
In the rainbow sweetness
Of our love song
—kalamu ya salaam
UNFINISHED BLUES
(featuring Walter "Wolfman" Washington - guitar)
sometimes i never
think of you
other times seems
like i never get through
seasons pass, rain falls
i never think of you
some recorded singer sighs
i wonder how you do
the ache in my heart
got a key
to my mind’s back door
comes and goes
as it please
i don’t miss you all
a the time
just
sometimes
—kalamu ya salaam
HARD NEWS FOR HIP HARRY (for Nefertiti, new word journalist) it was like cowboys & Indians and he was the whole 10th cavalry diving down into her ravine raising dust in a surprise swoop attack that left her laying there bent back her thighs all aquiver with convulsive love spasms and when the big guns went off, his coming was like a gattling tearing her little target apart each time they got down it was always the same, a rerun in 3-D the kid riding rough and ready into town turning it out at high noon taking swift car of business ah, they should of ought to have made a movie out of his moves til the day she wouldn’t roll with his punches, didn’t feel like faking it anymore, refused to be the stunt man taking dives and doing what she didn’t do she knew there was no easy way to release it to romeo without putting his love lights out, so she simply said “Harry, this is no way to make love” like a silent star in the age of talkies unable to learn new lines, like a sky diver whose parachute was shot, falling over committed to a point of no return, Harry didn’t know what to do so he called her “frigid” but it was finis for his toy balloons the film had rolled to the end of the reel, Harry’s hard humping had become a fantasy that no one would any longer pay to see yet Harry sat nonetheless incredulously contemplating a blank screen, unable to figure out why the show wasn’t going on (he had always thought sex was like what he saw in the pictures) “Harry, talk to me” —kalamu ya salaam ___________________________ THE WORD BAND Kalamu ya Salaam - poet Ginger Tanner - lead vocals Anua Nantambu - backing vocals Kenyatta Simon - percussion
Miles Davis
(featuring Kenneth D. Ferdinand - trumpet)
Greta Garbo is credited with saying "I want to be alone." Except I'm sure by "alone" she meant: away from you lames. I want to be where I can be me and this place is not it. Then she would blow some smoke, or pick her fingernails, or do something else nonchalantly to indicate her total boredom with the scene. Miles on the other hand never had to say it. He made a career of being alone and sending back notes from the other world, notes as piercing as his eyeballs dismissing a fan who was trying to tell him how pretty he played.
Here this man was: Miles Dewey Davis, a self made motherfucker, a total terror whose only evident tenderness is the limp in his smashed-up hip walk, like he can't stand touching the ground, the cement, the wooden floor, plush carpet, whatever he is walking on. This man who, considering all the abuse he has dished out to others as well as all the self abuse he has creatively consumed, this man who should have died a long, long time ago but who outlived a bunch of other people who tried to clean up their act. This pact with the devil incarnate. This choir boy from hell. This disaster whose only value is music, a value which is invaluable. If he hadn't given us his music there would have been no earthly reason to put up with Miles, but he gave on the stage and at the studio, he gave. If there is any redemption he deserves it.
As for me, I admit I don't have the music, but so what? Perhaps in time you will understand that I really don't want to be here. I don't want to be loved or to love. I...
Perhaps you will understand that once you don't care, nothing else matters. I don't need a reason why to hit you. Why I'm letting you pack and split without a word from me, without any "I'm sorry," or anything else that might indicate remorse or even just second thoughts about what I've done. Instead, I'm cool.
Just like Miles could climb on a stage after beating some broad in the mouth, I cross from the bedroom where I knocked you to the floor and go into the living room and put "Round Midnight" on. The unignorable sound of Miles chills the room. I stand cool. Listening with a drink of scotch in my hand, and a deadness in the center of me. Anesthetized emotions.
As you leave you look at me. Your eyes are crying "why, why, why do you treat me so badly?" I do not drop my gaze. I just look at you. Miles is playing his hip tortured shit. You will probably hate Miles all the rest of your life.
You linger at the door and ask me do I have anything I want to say. I take a sip nonchalantly, and with the studied unhurried motion of a journeyman hipster, I half smile and drop my words out of the corner of my mouth, "Yeah, I want to be alone. Thanks for leaving."
And I turn my back on you, trying my best to be like Miles: a motherfucker.
—kalamu ya salaam
Danny Banjo
(featuring Mr. Danny Barker on banjo & vocals)
My Story, My Song
(featuring blues guitarist Walter Wolfman Washington)
CONGO SQUARE
the oumas indians prepared this place for us
centuries before our arrival
a sacred spot where corn festivals
were celebrated & as the colonializers came
they pushed aside our hosts
& introduced us in chains
& by the late 1700s we somehow
recognizing the sacredness of le place de congo,
we somehow, and the how of our persuasive methodologies
is not clear at this moment, but nevertheless,
even as slaves we crafted and created a space
where we could be free to be we
and thusly we countered the sacriligousness of the french
giving great homage to our ancestors as well as
giving praise & thanx to our red blooded brothers & sisters
this is an oral libational toast
to congo square
to native americans
to our ancestors
who made a circle in a square
and gave us a way to stay ourselves save ourselves
from the transformatory ugliness of america
which refuses to recognize the spirituality of life
and celebrates death with crosses & crosses, double
& triple crosses, the middle passage the first cross,
christianity the double cross and capitalism
the ultimate triple coup de grace cross of our captivity
but the terror of crosses notwithstanding
we sang, we beat, we be, we was & is
hail, congo square
our african gods have not been obliterated
they have merely retreated inside
the beat of us until we are ready
to release them into a world that we
re-create, a world heralded by the beat
be, beat being, beating being
of black heart drums
heart beat heart beat heart be/at this place
at this place be heart beat be we
beating place in new world space
beating being in place
in new world preserving our ancient pace
our dance is the god walk
our music, the god talk
first thing we do, let's get together
circle ourselves into community
no beginning no end connected together
and singing ringing singing
in a ring
second let's be original
aboriginal / be what we were before
we became what we are, be bamboula
dance, be banza music, and sing song words
which have no english translation
third let us remember
never to forget even when we can't remember
the specifics we must retain the essentials
the bounce the blood flow the feel the spirit
grow energy, must retain and pass on
the essential us-ness that
others want to dissipate whip out of us
but no matter how much of us they prohibit
deep inside us is us
remains us inside
& needs only
the beat
to set
us free
the beat to free us
it is morning, a sun day, a field w/out shade but dark
with the people black of us in various shades
eclipsing the sun with our elegance
we are centuries later now
and still this sacred ground calls us
to remember / to beat / to be
beat CONGO SQUARE be CONGO SQUARE
beat be beat be
remember
—kalamu ya salaam
Why I Don't Leave The Apartment
Until After Ten Some Mornings
i like to lay
in the curve
of your physique
you breathing
into the black
of my hair
the pressure
of thigh
to thigh
the beige softness
of your inner hand
slow moving
across
the tubular darkness
of my arousal
my
left arm reached
back massaging
the supple
flesh of your
lower back
for long minutes
quarter hours spent
with nothing
but skin
& pleasure
between us
—kalamu ya salaam
_____________________
Kalamu ya Salaam – vocals
Stephan Richter – clarinet
Wolfi Schlick – reeds
Frank Bruckner – guitar
Mathis Mayer - cello
Georg Janker - bass
Michael Heilrath - bass
Roland HH Biswurm - drums
Recorded: June 14, 1998 – "ETA Theatre" Munich, Germany