This week’s playlist was suggested and titled by our fearless leader, Lori Lakin Hutcherson. “Things With Strings” is a collection funky harps, string quartets, and violin virtuosos playing over beats of all kinds.
We’ve also thrown I a few Soul and Hip-Hop tracks that feature strings prominently.
I hope you enjoy this freewheeling collection of string music of all kinds.
As we sail away from summer into the (hopefully) cooler climes of autumn, a playlist filled with Yacht Soul might just be the perfect accompaniment to those post-Labor Day outdoor gatherings.
In case you’re thinking, “Sounds fun, but what exactly is ‘Yacht Soul’?,” it’s the supercool, sophisticated sibling of the “Yacht Rock” genre, a term coined fifteen years ago to describe 1970s and 1980s adult-oriented rock music infused with jazz and R&B recorded primarily in California by acts such as Steely Dan, The Doobie Brothers, Toto, Kenny Loggins and Christopher Cross.
“Yacht Soul” heightens the soul, R&B and jazz elements of the music while dropping a dollop of funk in the mix.
The following quotes from soultracks.com perhaps illuminate the distinctions best:
…Donald Cleveland says that we have Yacht Soul question entirely backwards. “To be honest, Yacht Rock should have been called Yacht Soul from the start. Anybody with ears knows that. The only thing ‘rock’ about Yacht is the label that was on the albums as originally released, so they could be filed separately from the ‘Soul’ albums. It was just easier for the White people listening to this music with obvious soulful stylings to just keep the White ‘rock’ labeling going, even if the musicians themselves were influenced by and working from a framework of Black Soul.”
Mama’s Gun lead singer Andy Platts agrees. “Really if we’re honest, you don’t get ‘Yacht Rock’ without the evolution of Black music in the first place, from which it borrows heavily, so perhaps this just underscores the issues with appropriating and using terms like the ‘yacht’ label.”
Songs like “Just The Two of Us” by Grover Washington, Jr. and Bill Withers, “Forget Me Nots” by Patrice Rushen, “Give Me The Night” by George Benson, “Rio De Janiero Blue” by Randy Crawford and Joe Sample and “Golden Time of Day” by Maze are strong examples of the style.
SHEBOYGAN, WI —An exhibition of ceramics by the artist Woody De Othello will be on view at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center from September 26, 2021 through September 25, 2022.
Woody De Othello: Hope Omenspresents a series of nearly 20 large anthropomorphic vessels based on African spiritual objects that, among other things, address the tumultuous nature of the last year.
Woody De Othello is best known for his large-scale sculptures of familiar domestic objects, which are often imbued with a kind of human personage. For Hope Omens, he presents an entirely new body of work.
Woody De Othello, Closed Reflection, 2021; ceramic and glaze. Courtesy of the artist and Jessica Silverman, San Francisco. (Photo: John Wilson White)
Many of the sculptures were produced using molds that Othello created during his Arts/Industry Pottery residency at the Kohler Co. factory in early 2020. While he was in residence, the world outside the factory began to shift with the beginning of the pandemic. The residency was cut short by several weeks and forced Othello to bring home some of the molds to continue his work.
“Woody De Othello’s work has always been prescient in its combination of humor, history, and composition. But the saliency of this newest body of work speaks poignantly and pointedly about the time we are living in, reaffirming the role that artists can play in articulating a kinder and more just world for us all. The Arts Center is thrilled to be showing these works for the first time,” said Laura Bickford, curator, John Michael Kohler Arts Center.
Woody De Othello. (Photo: Josh Gruetzmacher)
Othello draws on African nkisi, or objects that are believed to be invested with spiritual energy. Breath and breathing are ideas often expressed in Othello’s vessel-like forms covered in mouths. Many of his new works feature hands and arms, evoking embrace and consolation, or ears and mouths, offering meditations on listening, hearing, and being present.
[Photo: Genelle Guzman-McMillan and family. Credit: Courtesy Genelle Guzman]
In commemoration of the lives lost and forever changed by the September 11, 2001 attacks on the U.S., today Good Black News highlights the story of the last person pulled alive from the rubble at the World Trade Center in New York — Genelle Guzman-McMillan.
Trapped under the rubble for 27 hours before being rescued, Guzman-McMillan, a young Black immigrant woman from Trinidad, was working as an office assistant for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey on the 64th floor of the World Trade Center’s North Tower when it was hit by a plane hijacked by terrorists.
Guzman-McMillan had made her way down to the staircase to the 13th floor before the entire building collapsed, shattering her leg, injuring her head and burning her face. It took over a day for first responders to find her, and she kept herself alive with thoughts of reuniting with her daughter Kimberly, who was 12 at the time, and through her faith.
After spending over a month in the hospital healing from her wounds, on November 7, 2001 Guzman-McMillan (then Guzman) affirmed the continued gift of her life by marrying boyfriend Roger McMillan, who proposed not long after her rescue. They since have had two more daughters and live in Long Island.
“I was given a new life,” says Guzman McMillan to people.com, now a supervisor for the Port Authority at LaGuardia airport. “I know that God has a bigger plan for me and I just try to do what is right. And encourage people in order to try to move forward despite the adversity in life. My faith is just growing stronger and stronger.”In 2011, Guzman-McMillan wrote her memoir Angel in the Rubble about her experience, which is available on Amazon.
She discusses her story with Robin Roberts on ABC below:
A Year of Good Black News, written by yours truly, is filled with facts, history, bios, quotes, jokes and trivia in easy-to-read entries delivered on the daily.
The calendar’s official drop date is Tuesday, October 12, and if you pre-order at Workman.com using the code: GOODBLACKNEWS from now until December 31, you will receive 20% off.
A Year of Good Black Newsoffers fun Black facts about inventors, entrepreneurs, musicians, comedians, historians, educators, athletes and entertainers, as well as info shared in fun fact categories like “Lemme Break It Down: Black Lexicon,” “We Got Game: Black Trivia,” “Get The Knowledge: Black Museums and Landmarks” and “You Know We Did That, Right?: Black Inventors.”
Here’s a sneak peek inside:
Although I’m biased because I wrote it, the A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day 2022 calendar is an awesome way to get inspired every day by the good things Black people do (and have done) for centuries, but haven’t always been widely known or shared.
Well, no more! If this site is for you, this calendar is, too!
It’s also a great gift for family members, friends, teachers, kids and loved ones. Did I mention if you use the code: GOODBLACKNEWS at Workman.com, you get 20% off?
Or, if you prefer, you can also order from the retailers below:
Best known for painting the official portrait of First Lady Michelle Obama that hangs in the National Gallery, artist Amy Sherald’s painting of Breonna Taylor officially goes on display Friday at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington D.C.
Sherald’s posthumous painting of Taylor, now part of the museum’s new exhibition, “Reckoning: Protest. Defiance. Resilience,” was first seen en masse by the public when it graced the September 2020 cover of Vanity Fair.
Acclaimed for her photo-based, realistic, minimalist style and creative exploration of skin tone, Sherald’s vision of Taylor simultaneously honors the police violence victim’s beauty, humanity and the tragedy of her loss.
A painting of Taylor now hangs in a darkened gallery on the fourth floor of the National Museum of African American History and Culture. It is displayed behind glass, in the warm glow of soft light. It is the only artwork in the room, a commanding presence, and the heartbreaking apex opening Friday.
The painting was acquired by both NMHAAC and the Speed Art Museum in KY, where it was displayed in April of this year. It will hang at NMHAAC until May 2022.
This morning in Richmond, VA, capital of the Confederacy during the Civil War, its top general was finally cut down. His statue, that is.
Erected in 1890, a full 35 years after he surrendered at Appomattox, the statue of Robert E. Lee was removed from its downtown perch to chants of “Na Na /Hey Hey /Goodbye”, the last of six confederate statues to come down on Richmond’s Monument Avenue.
At 8:54 a.m., a man in an orange jacket waved his arms, and the 21-foot statue rose into the air and glided, slowly, to a flatbed truck below. The sun had just come out and illuminated the towering gray pedestal as a small crowd on the east side of the monument let out a cheer.
“As a native of Richmond, I want to say that the head of the snake has been removed,” said Gary Flowers, a radio show host and civil rights activist, who is Black and was watching the activity. He said he planned to celebrate on Wednesday night and would tell pictures of his dead relatives that “the humiliation and agony and pain you suffered has been partly lifted.”
Virginia Governor Ralph Northam had planned to remove the Lee statue in June 2020 in the wake of George Floyd’s murder and the following protests, but faced legal challenges from a group of Richmond residents.
In an opinion issued last week, the Virginia Supreme Court dismissed the Lee statue case, saying that all the plaintiffs’ claims were without merit, and dissolved injunctions the lower court imposed, paving the way for today’s statute removal.
After Ida tore through the northeast of the country, leaving turmoil in its wake, I have been thinking of, and listening, to the beautiful music to emerge from the Crescent City. Here’s a collection of New Orleans Jazz to take you through this week.
From early 20th century figures like Sidney Bechet and Louis Armstrong to modern masters like Trombone Short and Christian Scott, this collection is full of classic grooves. I couldn’t help but include some fine brass band music too.
Hope you enjoy this eclectic playlist of artist from and/or based in New Orleans.
Yesterday, 114 years after coming to then-segregated West Point to teach horsemanship to White cadets, the U.S. Military Academy honored the contributions of the Buffalo Soldiers by raising its first statue of a Black man.
Created by sculptor Eddie Dixon, the statue is of Staff Sgt. Sanders H. Matthews Sr., who is believed to be the last known Buffalo Soldier to serve at West Point.
The words etched into the granite say: “In Memory of the Buffalo Soldiers who served with the 9th and 10th Cavalry Regiments as part of the United States Military Academy Cavalry Detachment at West Point.”
“Everybody has a right to have their story told,” said Dr. Aundrea Matthews, West Point’s cultural arts director and Matthew’s granddaughter. “Because it’s a powerful story. Just what [the Buffalo Soldiers] endured, their determination and their commitment to prove to the world that African American men can contribute and are viable citizens of this country.”
Dixon pored over old photographs of Sanders Matthews to get the facial image right.
A model was built on an inner structure of carved foam, over which Dixon spread a layer of light-brown clay. Molds were made from the model, and the statue was cast with molten bronze at Schaefer Art Bronze Casting, in Arlington, Tex.
It was transported by truck and arrived Monday morning, escorted by eight motorcycles from the National Association of Buffalo Soldiers and Troopers Motorcycle Club.
The sculpture, which features an image of Matthews carrying a swallow-tailed cavalry flag that reads “USMA Detachment,” is the culmination of a project that was started by him before he died at age 95 in 2016.
Matthews hoped for the day when a monument honoring the Buffalo Soldiers of West Point would come to fruition, not knowing he would be the image for the tribute, his granddaughter said.
This week are celebrating William James “Count” Basie. He was born 117 years ago on August 21, 1904.
In 1935, Basie formed the Count Basie Orchestra, and in 1936 took them to Chicago for a long engagement and their first recording. He would lead that group for almost 50 years.
Many musicians came to prominence under Basie’s direction, including tenor saxophonists Lester Young and Herschel Evans, guitarist Freddie Green, trumpeters Buck Clayton and Harry “Sweets” Edison, plunger trombonist Al Grey, and singers Jimmy Rushing, Helen Humes, Thelma Carpenter, and Joe Williams.
Here’s a solid dose of his half century of artistry. Do enjoy.
Acclaimed for her photo-based, realistic, minimalist style and creative exploration of skin tone, Sherald’s vision of Taylor simultaneously honors the police violence victim’s beauty, humanity and the tragedy of her loss.
