Griot Galaxy

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmGzeZQVw_J6svpjqY-DteMjwtlCC8c1u

Psst. It's me, Bottle, wearing my private investigator Fedora (Mrs. Bottle's been on a Psych binge, just play along). I got a tip from an anonymous source that  back in the 70s and 80s there was some gnarly stuff happening on the Detroit Jazz scene. As with all these things, Europe was much more interested than the US, so i had Compy work me up a fake passport, nenn mich Flasche. Mein Deutsch ist schlechter als mein Französisch, also verzeiht mein Englisch.

Tonight we're checking out Griot Galaxy, the Avant-Jazz group led by Faruq Z. Bey. I couldn't spring the $40+ for TV on the Radio, so this kind of hard-core 3-digit collector's stuff is obviously out of the question. Youtube it is.

The first video i saw was a live performance of Androgeny, and it wasn't long before i stumbled upon the best album title ever, Opus Krampus. So, let's delve into the awesome strangeness with their first and last albums (chronologically backward, the way i like it) in one easy to click on playlist.

I dug a little deeper, and the group disbanded after Bey was in a terrible motocylcle crash and coma. He was able to start performing again in the late 90s (op, reliable sources are telling me much earlier than that), so that's good. 

I can't help but note a sense of "cosmic philosophy" and at least a passing similarity to Sun Ra and Parliament/Funkadelic. Musically though, they have a fairly specific formula in the sense that usually there's an ostinato pattern that expands into solos, then complete chaos, and a spoken word section toward the end. As structures go, i find it quite appealing. 

Here's where i have the psychic breakthrough that humorously makes the real detectives look like chumps. You're thinking "c'mon Bottle, don't make us listen to an hour of all the sounds you aren't supposed to make when playing a saxophone." Yes, of course i want you to do that, it's a lesson in intentionality. No, your 9 year old can't sit through a 9-hour bus ride on the highway smelling his friends' feet and farts and eating crappy gas station sandwiches, then haul gear around and do a sound check, then wait in a dressing room for the stage manager to say showtime so you can get up on stage in front of a thousand audience members who payed money to watch you torture your instrument for 30 to 90 minutes, then pack it all back up while Charlie argues with the venue owner about the money he's all of a sudden trying to stiff you out of even though you both agreed on the price 3 months ago, then do it all over again 75 more times. Your child can't do that. I can't even do that, i'd punch random strangers in the stomach if that was my actual career. I don't know how you guys do it, honestly. I've been in my fair share of real bands and Kris Karr, Trent Salter, Anthony Artur, Gerard Smith, Steven Stark, Rocky Kanaga, and any others i forgot to mention, you guys are my heroes 'cause i just flat out don't have the patience to deal with terrible venue owners like you guys do. I'd walk away from 90% of gigs on principle alone.

My point was that they aren't up on stage faking it, and you can see it in their faces, and I can hear it in their playing. You know how i seemingly have no fear when it comes to publishing videos and recordings of me with all the mistakes left in them? Well, it's not the finished result i'm publishing. I'm publishing the take that felt so good to play that you could call me any insulting name you wanted and it wouldn't matter because i know you clearly can't hear the difference between good and bad in that respect. I'm certain at some point i told the story of the Van Clyburn winner that caused an uproar because half the judges knew it was the best performance and the other half threw a hissy fit over a couple wrong notes, but if not i just did.

This isn't an angry rant, by the way. Go ahead and reread it in my exuberant voice if you need to, this stuff gets me (pun intended) jazzed up.