You go to my head, Louis, and my heart, my smile, my swinging hips and tapping toe. I know technically we will celebrate your birthday next week on Aug 4 but I love that during your life you had everyone believing you were born on independence day. That jazz legend lives on with me every Fourth of July when my best (only) effort at patriotism is to pull out "Louis Armstong meets Oscar Peterson (a Canadian, ha!)," open all my windows and peacefully rock in the rocking easy chair on my front porch (and if I'm really on point the smell from the baked beans I try to make as good as mom's and sweet cornbread drifts out to tease the neighbors). But I tell you, everytime I get to "You Go To My Head" I stop rocking. I sit forward. I say "damn" to myself several times, and feel so grateful that you play the full song twice, first horn, then voice. This past Fourth, though I gave the freedom shout in the blog to our beloved Billy Strayhorn, I spent a good part of that day thinking about the power of "You Go to My Head"...from Dinah and Clifford's version (ahhh), to Billie Holiday's (who jumped to record it back in 1938 within a year of its release) to the Louis you reveal here that I'm not sure most folks know...I can hardly catch my breath when you testify:
"He demanded freedom of expression and lived in what we consider the most important of moral freedoms: freedom from hate, unconditionally; freedom from all self-pity (even throughout all the pain and bad news); freedom from fear of possibly doing something that might help another more than it would help himself; and freedom from the kind of pride that could make a man feel he was better than his brother or neighbor.
"His greatest virtue, I think, was his honesty--not only to others, but to himself. His listening-hearing self was totally intolerant of his writing-playing self when, or if, any compromise was expected, or considered expedient.
“God gave jazz to the African American first, and I know it was God that gave it...because James says that all good things come from up above and I know jazz to be a good thing.” As Robert Nesta Marley sang, one good thing about music, when it hits you feel no pain, I listen to Bob’s Afro-Caribbean brother Roberto Miranda speak of Jesus and Jazz and think man this guy packs one serious punch and yet I feel no pain. In fact it feels so sweet to be on the receiving end of his blasts of spiritual wisdom, his blows of passionate storytelling, and if you’re like me you want to hear round after round of his bass playing especially when he goes arco on you. “Peter Mercurio looked at me one day and he looked at the bow and he said, ‘This is our breath’...and I said, ‘oh yeah’.” And now we all breathe a little easier from the shared wisdom of one of Roberto’s many brilliant teachers of the bass (he also studied with Verne Martin who was one of Mingus’ early teachers, Bob Stone, Dennis Trembly, Fred Tinsley and two short and powerful stints with Ray Brown and Red Mitchell). Though we think of the bass as the bottom, it was not the beginning for Miranda...
Born in the Bronx to Puerto Rican parents, Roberto’s first music teacher was his father, a professional musician himself who made and played his own percussion instruments and started Roberto out early on the conga drum. “I used to fall asleep to my father’s bands rehearsing in our house...he was really good. In the 1950’s he appeared with his own band on the Ed Sullivan show...which was a big deal.” Roberto poignantly points out that his father always had a day job too, and always instilled in his son that if he wanted to be a musician he must always support his family, “My father taught me by his example and his words, if I was going to be a musician and a family man at the same time that I needed to make absolutely certain that I was in a position where I could provide for my family and that it was not incumbent upon my wife to support my music....Now did I pay attention to him? Yes and no...” and Roberto goes on honestly to say it took a minute for him to get over his stubbornness and pride...but eventually he accomplished both of his dreams of being a working musician, composer and family man. We conducted this conversation on the campus of the middle school in the valley where Miranda not only teaches full time but instituted the first Afro Caribbean percussion courses in LA Unified School District. Roberto is so grateful for his father’s musical lessons and legacy and gives thanks to both his parents for instilling the love of Jesus in his childhood, “I literally cannot remember one day in my entire life when I didn’t know who Jesus was and I didn’t love him.” While his parents were practicing Catholics who also believed in Afro Caribbean orishas like Yemaya and Chango, Roberto considers himself a born-again Evangelical Christian and does not subscribe to the way his parents worship, though he still thanks them for introducing him to Jesus.
In terms of sacred jazz, Roberto feels a profound connection and understanding of the concept in the Christian tradition, “When I think of jazz on the sacred side, I think about the history of jazz musicians who have grown up in the church and who love Jesus Christ...now, a lot of people never think about jazz musicians in that way, right? They don’t think about this guy who’s on the band stand four or five nights a week, getting up early on Sunday morning and going to church.” He immediately mentions work like Donald Byrd’s “Cristo Redentor” or “When the Saints go Marching In”...”all of those tunes that are played at the funerals in New Orleans.” Then Roberto gets even more fired up, excited to speak on this connection... “My music is jazz music, there’s no doubt about the fact that my music is jazz music. It’s heavily influenced also by Afro-Latin music...but every single piece of music I’ve written for the past 30 years has either been for Jesus Christ, or for someone whom I love deeply like my wife, or for someone I thank God for like Thelonious Monk...just because I love Monk. So that’s where my music is coming from...and I know that there are other musicians like me...James Newton, Sonship Theus, these people write music for Christ and there’s a history of that in jazz music that goes all the way back to the beginning."
From here we speak so dearly about Duke Ellington’s sacred concerts and Roberto wants to tell me the story of how Duke used to travel with a wooden board...draw himself a hot bath and set his bible on the board and read in the tub until the water got cold! We are both grateful for the wisdom we received from Kenny Burrell about Duke Ellington...I tell Roberto that Kenny always reminded me that Duke never referred to his sacred concerts as his greatest work but he said they were his most “important work.” We touch on the great quote from Duke before composing the first Sacred Concert, “Now I can say openly what I’ve been saying to myself on my knees”...and I ask Roberto how his own knee conversations have affected his compositions. He says right away, “I know that I cannot impress Jesus,” we both laugh. “It helped me to be more honest in my writing...because there’s nothing I’m gonna do and he’s gonna say ‘wooo’. So whatever kind of compositional techniques I may utilize in bringing about a desired sonic affect or melodic affect or rhythmic affect...it’s not about being clever...it’s about a gift that I’m offering which I want to be as pure as I can be at that particular moment in time...I just want to bring him glory.
I feel deeply moved to have my conversation with Roberto Miranda on the week we remember the Rodney King uprising that left such a devastating mark on our city. When I ask Roberto about the way in which music, jazz in particular has aided in the healing of our city, he easily smiles and says one name: Horace Tapscott. Now Roberto’s reflections on the soul wisdom of his mentor and Pan African Peoples Arkestra leader would take many more volumes, but I will end with an idea he shared about both Horace and Duke, who he felt may not have always talked about the depth of their spiritual beliefs but always brought light and love to every community they served and touched. Roberto said that one of his faith elders once said to him, “sometimes the only bible someone might read is YOU. So it’s not so much about preaching the gospel as living it, in some cases never even saying a word...and that may be what Duke Ellington and Horace Tapscott had to do.”
Loving Malcolm, this morning on my porch I thought, what small thing could I do today to honor his birthday...the first thing that came to me was smile...I think of all my heroes/sheroes, he's got the most easeful and brilliant smile...his smile was my first invitation to really deeply listen to him...especially as a counterpoint to my father's rageful scowls regarding race matters.
"Smiling is very important. If we are not able to smile, then the world will not have peace....Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy." Thich Nhat Hanh
"If we are a drop of water and we try to get to the ocean as only an individual drop, we will surely evaporate along the way. To arrive at the ocean, you must go as a river" Thich Nhat Hanh
The poet in me could not be more thrilled that a band called “Open Hands” is performing on this special “Palm” Sunday, Come Sunday. Nailah and I drove out to the Valley for the record release party for Justo’s latest and greatest collaboration, Open Hands, a couple weeks before the Palm Sunday gig, and the place was packed. We had to take turns between the ONE empty chair near the sublime Bill Maxwell, and a few empty inches of bar to lean on at the back of the club...and you need something to lean on when you listen to these brothers, because you will fall out. You will also dance, you will call and respond, and if you’re lucky, Justo will lead you in the shoulder roll-rhumba-amen. You heard me right. Now I’ve heard Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel say when he marched with Dr. King in Selma, that he felt as if “we were praying with our feet.” Justo had us praying with our shoulders. A few times I’d watch Nailah raise her hand to bear witness to the grace and groove before us and that struck me too...no disrespect to Tommie Smith and John Carlos, but I’d like to take a moment to lift up the power, the black brown beige all color -power, all faith tradition power of the open hand salute. What makes us lift our hands like that? Is it the same impulse in us now that those hungry for healing folks in Jerusalem had when they raised those palm fronds and shouted Hosanna so many centuries ago? Justo and Abraham, Greg and Bill had us shouting and will surely have you shouting, Hallelujah! Have mercy!...and maybe even, “Stop the madness...” as the playing got so complex, yet so funky and uplifting I lost all sense of space and time...ask Nailah, I couldn’t find my car afterward and I swear I was only high off the power of those Open Hands.
For Justo, Charlie Parker sounded like “a bird set free from a cage...it touched my heart.” And just like that, Justo was off to the U.S...first Boston to attend the Berklee school of music, then later to NYC when Mongo Santamaria invited him to join and ultimately become musical director of his band.
Justo thrived on the city, and I have this sudden urge to put on my Salsa heels just listening to him riff about this era when on any given night he might sub for Tito Puente’s band or Eddie Palmieri’s band if he wasn’t already working a gig with Mongo. Or there were nights, like the unforgettable summer night in 1972, when after an early set with Mongo, Justo took the A Train to Lincoln Center to listen to guitar legend Andres Segovia, then raced back downtown to the Village Vanguard to catch, yes, Thelonious Monk. 
Justo rattles off the names of Monk's sidemen that night like it was last night not 30+ years ago. What tickled Justo most was that on one of the hottest nights that summer, Monk stumbled down the stairs of the Vanguard, wearing a thick wool overcoat and Russian hat...”Didn’t talk to anyone...sits at the piano and plays ‘Off Minor’" laughs, “only in New York!” Justo’s exhilaration when telling the story segues to his celebration of the arts in general...”It’s the best thing in life, the influence it’s had throughout history!” 
It began so casually she says...her group the Uptown String Quartet was recording their first CD in the same building The Cosby Show was taped. Max Roach pulled the quartet to his comrade Cosby’s studio for a rap party and there sitting in Mr. Cosby’s dressing room was Marianne Anderson. While the quartet performed, “Let Us...” Lesa tells me she heard Ms. Anderson turn to the person sitting next to her and say, “I used to sing that song...I always loved that song.” Lesa hadn’t remembered that story for some time and as she was telling it she became overwhelmed, “How could I not do what I do? I’ve been given opportunities that are so powerful...how could I not give what I give? I’m very grateful, very moved, I feel a great sense of purpose.”
The classical and the jazz worlds steadily kept intersecting as Lesa’s professional career blossomed. Luckily with Max Roach’s urging, Lesa did nothing but embrace both sides of her musical heritage.“There was one thing Max Roach always said to us, ‘don’t ever get rid of any part of you. You always are adding to your experience, never taking away. You grew up as a classical musician, Lesa, don’t try to change that, that’s part of who you are...but you can add to that...and let me show you who has done it before you’...so he began to help me see that there was a tradition already established with these great jazz violinists, the Ray Nances, the Stuff Smiths, and the Ginger Smocks.” Lesa was thrilled to learn these things and now insists as an educator on passing these lessons down to her students, “How fantastic...there are alternatives musically that we can choose as string players. It fuels my whole thing of trying to expose kids to something different, to reach inside themselves and pull music from their own culture and get to know what that is in its totality...And I don’t have to choose either side. I don’t have to be strictly jazz musician, or strictly classical musician or strictly any kind of thing...it all comes together in a very harmonious way and I think because of that I have a unique voice.” And now, prepare yourselves to be healed...Lesa and her ensemble may have you falling to your knees singing “have mercy.” I’m just saying...
This stunning photo is of jazz violinist and local Los Angeles tv personality Ginger Smock (1920-1995), who with bassist Vivien Garry once recorded a tune called "A Woman's Place is in the Groove"!!! Hey now! I had never heard of Ginger Smock til Lesa Terry, our March Jazz on the Sacred Side artist hipped me to her....so now, I interrupt this blog to plug the concert: Come Sunday, March 8 @ 3pm for 
"A Buddhist, a Baha'i, a Muslim, and a Scientologist walk into a bar to hear Ray Brown--"...I wanna hear that punchline! I was recently writing a divinity school application where in describing my vision for the "Duke Ellington Center for the Study of Sacred Jazz" I remarked that Jazz is the place where we have always traded ecumenical, interfaith eights, instead of intolerance and hate. If you are reading this now and have ideas about Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, and and and musicians who, like Duke, explore their "knee conversations" in their playing, please send them my way! The more we can gather and deeply listen, dialogue, call and respond, trade eights with these voices of faith that may be different than our own, the more we grow, the more we thrive, the more we have a chance as my Rev Ed Bacon would say of experiencing the human race as the human family...I challenge any jazz lover of any faith not to have wanted to hear the gig between the musicians in the photo above (Chick Corea, Art Blakey aka Abdullah Ibn Buhaina, Ray Brown, Dizzy Gillespie, Herbie Hancock)...that's interfaith sacred jazz ya'll. I look forward to hearing your thoughts.
